Community college instructors confront many challenges, teaching increasingly diverse students in their classrooms. This study's purpose was to enhance educational literature on diversity, and assist community college faculty in personal self-reflection and professional skill review to meet multicultural student body needs. In addition, the relationship between these perceptions and faculty characteristics, such as faculty status, gender, race/ethnicity, age, years of teaching experience, program area, teaching locale, instructing locality, diversity training, years of teaching, teaching division, and previous diversity instruction, were examined. The participants were 194 randomly selected, full and part-time faculty members who taught at four community colleges within the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). The most common profile of respondents included Caucasian females who were 50+ years of age, had been employed 10 or fewer years as part-time faculty in the Liberal Arts and Social Sciences program area of a community college in a suburban location, and had participated in previous diversity training. This study utilized the Survey of Community College Faculty (SCCF), a combined survey of the Multicultural Teaching Scale (MTS) and Pluralism and Diversity Attitude Assessment (PADAA) that framed the research. The MTS assessed self-reported cultural competencies categorized into five dimensions: (a) Content Integration, (b) Knowledge Construction, (c) Prejudice Reduction, (d) Equity Pedagogy, and (e) Empowering School Culture (Banks, 1993). The PADAA assessed cultural diversity attitudes on four subscales: (a) Appreciate Cultural Pluralism, (b) Value Cultural Pluralism, (c) Implement Cultural Pluralism, and (d) Uncomfortable with Cultural Diversity (Stanley, 1992). The investigation results revealed that faculty members perceived themselves as having high multicultural competence in the Equity Pedagogy dimension and moderate multicultural competence in the other four dimensions. Additionally, faculty indicated a strong appreciation and value for cultural diversity and pluralism but demonstrated an unwillingness to implement cultural pluralism ideologies into their instructional practices. Outcomes of regression analysis of selected respondent characteristics revealed previous diversity instruction and instructional program area (Business, Engineering, and Technology) were significant in predicting perceived increased multicultural competence of community college faculty in all five dimensions. Study findings indicated gender (female) and race (African American) also contributed positively in the prediction of multicultural competence. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was (a) to identify the strengths and deficiencies as perceived by business education student teachers for working with students from diverse cultural backgrounds and for meeting these students' needs, and (b) to examine the business education students' multicultural backgrounds and demographic factors as they relate to their perceptions of their multicultural competence. The participants were business education student teachers at National Association for Business Teacher Education (NABTE) institutions. The 152 business education student teachers who were student teaching in the spring semester of 1996 were from 12 Southern Region states as defined by the National Business Education Association (NBEA) to be: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Wayson's (1993) The Multicultural Teaching Scale was classified into Banks' (1993) Dimensions of Multicultural Education to determine the perceived multicultural teaching competence of business education student teachers. The five dimensions are Content Integration (8 skills), Knowledge Construction Process (6 skills), Prejudice Reduction (11 skills), Equity Pedagogy (5 skills), and Empowering School Culture (7 skills). The results of the study indicated that business education student teachers perceived themselves as having moderate or extreme multicultural competence two dimensions, Equity Pedagogy and Empowering School Culture. Further, they perceived themselves as needing to develop competence in the other three dimensions, Content Integration, Knowledge Construction Process, and Prejudice Reduction. The outcomes of regression analyses revealed that ethnicity was significant in predicting the Content Integration dimension. Ethnicity, multicultural kg round and area of student teaching were significant in predicting the Knowledge Construction Process dimension. city, gender, and multicultural background were significant in predicting the Prejudice Reduction dimension. Ethnicity, gender, area of instruction, and multicultural background were significant in predicting Equity Pedagogy dimension. Ethnicity, gender, hours of instruction, and multicultural background were significant in predicting the Empowering School Culture Dimension. The findings of the study indicated that age was not a significant predictor of multicultural teaching competence for all five dimensions. / Ph. D.

本研究旨在探討不同背景變項(個人背景、園所環境、多元文化人格、多元文化經驗)對幼稚園教師多元文化教學能力之影響。首先了解幼稚園教師不同背景變項與多元文化教學能力之現況；其次分析不同背景變項對多元文化教學能力之差異情形；第三，分析幼稚園教師多元文化人格與多元文化教學能力之間的相關；最後以多元迴歸分析不同背景變項對幼稚園教師多元文化教學能力之預測力。 本研究透過文獻探討以及問卷調查法來探討上述目的，利用改編之「多元文化教學能力量表」、「多元文化人格量表」為研究工具，以新北市344公、私立幼稚園教師為研究母群體，並利用兩階段(預試、正式)抽樣方式，分別抽取136位、309位教師為主要研究對象，共發出445份問卷，整體回收有效問卷為77.75%。問卷回收後，使用SPSS18.0統計軟體進行描述性統計、項目分析、信度分析、因素分析、獨立樣本t考驗、單因子變異數分析、LSD多重比較、皮爾森積差相關以及多元迴歸來分析資料。本研究結論如下： 一、新北市公、私立幼稚園教師之多元文化人格類型以「文化同理心」居多。 二、新北市公、私立幼稚園教師具有高多元文化教學能力。 三、不同背景幼稚園教師在多元文化教學能力上有顯著差異。 四、教師多元文化人格與多元文化教學能力呈現中度正相關。 五、「園所規模」、「多元文化人格」與「有身障好友」能有效預測多元文化教學能力。 最後，研究者根據上述結論針對幼稚園教師、幼稚園以及未來之研究提出建議，以期對未來學前教育階段之多元文化教育有所助益。 / The current study focused on the effect of different backgrounds on multicultural teaching competence. The main purposes of this study were to: (a) understand the current situation of the kindergarten teachers’ different backgrounds and multicultural teaching competence; (b) explore the differences between kindergarten teachers’ different backgrounds and multicultural teaching competence; (c) analyze the relationship between kindergarten teachers’ multicultural personality and multicultural teaching competence; (d) explore the predictive power of the teachers’ different backgrounds on the multicultural teaching competence. To accomplish these purposes, the methods adopted were a comprehensive literature review and a questionnaire. Two scales were used to measure the following constructs: “multicultural teaching competence” and “multicultural personality”. The teachers also provided information about their teaching experience, multicultural experience, demographics and so on. The teachers of 344 kindergartens (both public and private schools) within New Taipei City were surveyed for this study. A total of 346 teachers participated in this survey, and with an effective response rate of 77.75%. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s α coefficient analysis, factor analysis, T-test, one way ANOVA, LSD posteriority comparison, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The main results were summarized as follows: 1.The most kindergarten teachers’ multicultural personality type is “Cultural empathy”. 2.With different background variables, kindergarten teachers’ multicultural teaching competence is in parts significantly different. 3.There is a positive correlation between kindergarten teachers’ multicultural personality and multicultural teaching competence. 4.“ Kindergarden’s size”, “multicultural personality”, and “ has disabled friends” can predictive kindergarten teachers’ multicultural teaching competence effectively.