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7 - Individuals, Groups, and Classrooms: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations on Studying Approaches to Cultural Diversity in Schools

from Part 2 - Individual Differences across Cultures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

By
Maja Katharina Schachner ,
Miriam Schwarzenthal  and
Peter Noack
Edited by
Michael Bender  and
Byron G. Adams
Michael Bender
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
Byron G. Adams
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
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Summary

Understanding how schools should approach increasing cultural diversity is a key research question of the 21st century. In this chapter, we provide recommendations to ensure that measures of approaches to cultural diversity in schools are theoretically sound, valid, and reliable in different groups and at different levels of analysis. We argue that (1) we need measures that are tailored to and / or reliably work in specific target populations, in terms of ethnic groups represented and age-specific notions of culture and intercultural relations; (2) both students’ individually perceived norms AND shared perceptions of these norms should be considered to better understand the dynamics in multi-ethnic classrooms. Interactions within and between levels different levels of analysis can shed light on group-specific effects of approaches to cultural diversity in schools; and (3) “objective” measures of the school diversity context (e.g., school projects or policies) may help to better understand contextual effects.

Keywords

multi-ethnic schoolsapproaches to cultural diversitymeasurementmultilevelmultigroup
Type
Chapter
Information
Methods and Assessment in Culture and Psychology , pp. 123 - 143
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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