The Multidimensionality of Multicultural Service Learning: The Variable Effects of Social Identity, Context and Pedagogy on Pre-service Teachers’ Learning

Source: This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 27, Issue 7,
Author(s): Shih-pei Chang, Dorothea Anagnostopoulos and Hilda Omae, " The Multidimensionality of Multicultural Service Learning: The Variable Effects of Social Identity, Context and Pedagogy on Pre-service Teachers’ Learning", Pages 1078–1089, Copyright Elsevier (October 2011)

Multicultural service learning (MSL) seeks to develop pre-service teachers’ capacities and commitment to teach diverse student populations.

The authors collected survey data from 212 pre-service teachers engaged in 22 MSL sites.

The authors were interested to assess the effects of pre-service teachers’ social identities, MSL contexts, and university pedagogy on pre-service teachers’ awareness of cultural bias, understanding of social inequality, and commitment to teaching diverse students.

The authors find that pedagogical engagement positively contributes to all three outcomes. However, pre-service teacher’s social identities and MSL contextual factors have variable effects.