Beyond Right-or-Wrong Thinking 7 125 2017). It is relevant that teachers can create a safe classroom atmosphere (Jackson & Everington, 2017). Several studies show correlations between trainee teachers’ general skills in creating a strong classroom environment and multicultural awareness (Cherng & Davis, 2017; Obidah & Howard, 2005). The first way of how teacher education can contribute, is the classroom as a learning community (Akiba, 2011; Castro, 2010). This relates to the fact that, inmost teacher education programs, learning for diversity is limited to only one course that addresses this issue, although it might be better when teacher educators integrate diversity into a comprehensive curriculum of teacher education (An, 2014; Civitillo et al., 2018). Second, teacher educators serve as role models (Akiba, 2011; Castro, 2010; Obidah & Howard, 2005). Several studies have shown that the teacher educators’ practices sometimes might be more important than course content. For example, they can promote mutual respect and teach their students to listen to others (Castro, 2010). Third, experiential learning means that there is exposure to diversity, for example, in the form of field-based experiences or internships (Akiba, 2011; Aown, 2011; Aronson et al., 2016; Castro, 2010; Cherng & Davis, 2017; Civitillo et al., 2018). It is important that experiential learning is properly supervised. For example, there should be a strong connection to the coursework (Cherng & Davis, 2017), there should be caring support as trainee teachers get out of their comfort zone (Haworth, 2015; cf. Obidah, 2004), and there should be opportunities for reflection (Castro, 2010; Cherng & Davis, 2017; Civitillo et al., 2018; also see the next competence). It appears that awareness is especially stimulated by feeling marginalized or identifying with nondominant (ethnic) groups (Castro, 2010; Cherng & Davis, 2017). Fourth, explicit and critical self-reflection by students needs to be stimulated (An, 2014; Aronson et al., 2016; Castro, 2010; Cherng & Davis, 2017; Civitillo et al., 2018). Fifth, teacher educators have to transfer knowledge about, for example, their pupils’ backgrounds (Aronson et al., 2016; Jackson & Everington, 2017), world religions (Anderson et al., 2015), and global issues (An, 2014).70 7.2 Methods To empirically examine what is significant in OPPSs teacher education programs with regard to learning how to deal with religious diversity, we conducted an exploratory study among alumni and teacher educators of Driestar Christian University for Teacher Education (DCU). There are two other universities for teacher education that train OPPS teachers, namely Viaa and Christelijke Hogeschool Ede. Of these three universities, DCU 70 It is valuable to see the parallel between what trainee teachers need to learn about dealing with religious diversity themselves and what they need to teach their pupils.
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