Zoie Tuinstra
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Laura Brady
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 4 (1:40pm – 2:30pm)
Authors: Zoie Tuinstra, Cong Wang
Abstract
Our lab’s previous study suggests that culturally inclusive training interventions increase teachers’ endorsement of culturally inclusive beliefs, which in turn, increases the likelihood of teachers’ use of culturally inclusive teaching practices. However, white teachers with an independent model of self are more likely to experience a cultural mismatch during these training interventions (Wang et al., 2023). This study uses interdependent and independent models of self as our theoretical framework and examines how these variables affect teachers’ endorsements of colorblindness, multiculturalism, and identity safety beliefs. We hypothesize that teachers with an interdependent model of self will be more likely to endorse multiculturalism and identity safety beliefs, and less likely to endorse colorblindness beliefs, compared to teachers with an independent model of self. This study uses multiple linear regression to analyze relationships between self-construal and teachers’ endorsement of culturally inclusive beliefs. The results suggested that self-construal was a significant predictor of identity safety and a marginally significant predictor of multiculturalism, which partially supported our hypothesis. Future research may be done to better determine the relationship between these variables. More research may be done to explore other variables that promote teachers’ adoption of culturally inclusive beliefs in the classroom.
