Cross cultural competency and multicultural teacher education

Teachers require support as they face the challenge of effectively teaching diverse students in their classrooms. Teacher-educators have used various methods to foster change in teachers' thinking, attitudes, and behaviors re garding cultural diversity, but these efforts have produced mixed results b ecause they often focused on content rather the process of cross-cultural l earning. The purpose of this review is to examine three process-oriented mo dels that have been used to describe and measure the development of racial identity and cross-cultural competence. These models include Helms's model of racial identity development, Banks's Typology of Ethnicity, and Bennett' s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Research using the mode ls revealed insights for multicultural teacher education in assessing readi ness to learn, designing effective learning opportunities, and providing ap propriate support and challenge for teachers.