Preparing teachers for diversity: lessons learned from the US and South Africa

The world's predominant growth populations are largely students of color wh o have historically struggled for high-quality educational opportunities. W ithin this context, educational reformers around the globe are challenging teacher preparation programs to prepare teachers to work effectively with s tudents from diverse backgrounds. This article reports on a cross-national study that investigates a program designed to facilitate the development of teachers who are committed to teaching culturally and linguistically diver se students. It presents an analysis of US and South African teachers' deve loping discourses that revealed differences in the development of commitmen t among teachers who engaged in talk-related activities in a teacher educat ion program versus those teachers who engaged in talk-related activities in addition to theory-enacting activities within diverse classrooms. Through the analysis, I explore how teachers' developing commitment can be facilita ted by carefully designed classroom activities and show how those developin g commitments are revealed in the teachers' discourse practices.: My intent in presenting this investigation is to help us better understand how appli cations of activity theory can assist us in addressing the global challenge s that face teacher education programs. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.