Teachers’ Beliefs and Their Belief Change in an Intercultural Context: CFL Teachers in Denmark

SUMMARY

Teacher belief has been considered crucial for teachers’ classroom behaviors, their learning and development as well as students’ outcomes. This PhD study has provided a better understanding of the factors and forces shaping teacher belief and how this changes during their course of teaching in a new context and in their early years of the teaching careers of CFL teachers in the Danish context. It has been shown that the multifaceted beliefs that CFL teachers hold are based on their personal experience, shaped by context, and mediated by their classroom practices. The educational culture in which the teacher has been educated affects how they interpret students, teaching and their teacher role. The study of CFL teachers teaching in intercultural contexts makes a connection between context, cultural issues, individual experience, teacher belief and teaching concerns, and it helps to better understand how different cultural, personal and contextual issues influence teacher belief and teaching practices. Encountering new cultures in a new country and adjusting to a new teaching context, CFL teachers taught and learned and in the process many of them developed and changed their beliefs. They gradually moved away from sticking to their previous experience and beliefs, and learned to better fit their beliefs to different teaching contexts and types of students. Their beliefs became context-oriented as they were better able to draw elements from both subject-matter oriented and learner-oriented beliefs and different teaching methods and resources depending on the situational context. However, teachers’ belief change is a non-linear process of learning to teach and developing towards professionalism, involving struggles and uncertainties. This study has provided insights for teachers teaching in an intercultural context in relation to the factors shaping teacher belief and how belief is changed to better suit the context. It also gives inspiration for the design of effective teacher preparation, development and training programs for CFL teachers in global contexts by addressing their prior experience, beliefs and cultural background as a starting point.