“I Think I Can. I Think I Can”: Preservice Teachers’ Sense of Self-Efficacy Working With and for LGBTQ Students and Families

• In Event: Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: Climate Change: Welcoming LGBTQ Issues and Identities Into Educational Spaces

Abstract

This paper focuses on a sub-set of data from a larger study in which the researcher is examining pre-service teachers understanding and self-efficacy around various issues of multicultural education, more specifically, LGBTQ issues in education. Overall, the pre-service teachers revealed a relatively high sense of self-efficacy in working with LGBTQ students, with slightly lower self-efficacy in identifying biases in curricular materials and school contexts and in teaching LGBTQ content in their classrooms. The results also reveal that while some of this self-efficacy is linked to the multicultural education part of the teacher education program, it can mostly be attributed to external factors such as up-brining, experiences with LGBTQ people and trainings and programs outside of the teacher preparation program.

Author

• Cathy A.R. Brant, University of South Carolina - Columbia