Preservice Teachers' Attitudes Toward Teaching African American Students: Contemporary Research

Data were collected on a total of 415 students enrolled in teacher education programs at six universities. This study consisted of data collected from three subsamples based on the type of institution participants attended. Group 1 consisted of preservice teachers from a public, predominantly White university; the university had no specific requirements related to teaching culturally diverse students. Group 2 consisted of preservice teachers from historically Black colleges and universities. Group 3 included preservice teachers from private, predominantly White universities. Results revealed that the means for all groups were lower on the Cultural Sensitivity Toward Teaching African American Students subscale than the Willingness to Teach African American Students subscale. In addition, the mean score for Group 2 on the Willingness to Teach African American Students subscale was higher than the means for Groups 1 and 3. All of these results were statistically significant (p < .001)