Abstract:
Increased globalisation has meant that education systems today are faced with increasingly culturally-diverse teaching workforces. Research has identified significant differences between the norms, attitudes and values of people from different cultures and these differences are highly relevant for education systems employing multicultural cohorts of teachers. Limited research, however, has explicitly linked what is known about cultural differences with educational policies and activities. Public schools in Abu Dhabi, where this study took place, offer an effective case study of cultural differences within an educational context, as these schools employ a diverse teaching force spanning many Arab and Western cultures.
The study reported in this paper examined teachers’ perceptions of the impact of professional development within Abu Dhabi public schools. Given the centralised nature of Abu Dhabi’s education system, teachers across all public schools receive the same forms and quantity of professional development. This allowed the meaningful comparison of responses to professional development across the system and investigation of differences based on cultural groupings. A newly-developed questionnaire was administered twice (examining whole-school and subject-specific professional development) to 393 teachers, representing 15 nationalities. In addition to responses to the closed questions, 99 teachers also provided comments in the open response section. Analysis of the data provided support for the reliability of the survey, including a strong factor structure and good internal consistency for each scale.
A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to examine differences in the perceptions of teachers from different backgrounds in terms of the professional development that they had received. The results found statistically significant (p>0.05) differences both using a broad Arab/Western cultural grouping as well as using the 15 distinct nationalities. The paper details where (and to what degree) this difference was observed; reports the results of qualitative data analysis; and uses inter-cultural communication theory to help to interpret the findings and draw recommendations for practice.
This paper may be of interest to researchers, policy-makers, educational leaders, professional development providers and teachers working with culturally-diverse groups of teachers. The paper discusses what is known about Arab/Western cultural differences and illustrates how these differences are enacted within the specific educational context of teachers’ responses to professional development. The international prevalence of teacher professional development as a critical means for improving educational quality, as well as increasing globalisation in the teaching profession, together converge to make teacher professional development an apt context for such cross-cultural investigation.
The study reported in this paper examined teachers’ perceptions of the impact of professional development within Abu Dhabi public schools. Given the centralised nature of Abu Dhabi’s education system, teachers across all public schools receive the same forms and quantity of professional development. This allowed the meaningful comparison of responses to professional development across the system and investigation of differences based on cultural groupings. A newly-developed questionnaire was administered twice (examining whole-school and subject-specific professional development) to 393 teachers, representing 15 nationalities. In addition to responses to the closed questions, 99 teachers also provided comments in the open response section. Analysis of the data provided support for the reliability of the survey, including a strong factor structure and good internal consistency for each scale.
A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to examine differences in the perceptions of teachers from different backgrounds in terms of the professional development that they had received. The results found statistically significant (p>0.05) differences both using a broad Arab/Western cultural grouping as well as using the 15 distinct nationalities. The paper details where (and to what degree) this difference was observed; reports the results of qualitative data analysis; and uses inter-cultural communication theory to help to interpret the findings and draw recommendations for practice.
This paper may be of interest to researchers, policy-makers, educational leaders, professional development providers and teachers working with culturally-diverse groups of teachers. The paper discusses what is known about Arab/Western cultural differences and illustrates how these differences are enacted within the specific educational context of teachers’ responses to professional development. The international prevalence of teacher professional development as a critical means for improving educational quality, as well as increasing globalisation in the teaching profession, together converge to make teacher professional development an apt context for such cross-cultural investigation.