Conference Agenda

The European Commission (2017) points out that teachers need to be prepared for career-long professional development, collaborative work and for dealing with diversity in their classrooms. According to the Paris Declaration (Council of the EU, 2015), due to the increasing numbers of immigrants entering the EU, the question of addressing the diversity of students is one of the most pressing challenges for educators. At the same time, TALIS results (OECD, 2019) show that teachers across the EU do not feel well prepared for teaching in diverse settings. Teachers are central to addressing a key challenge for schools in the 21st century, which is to teach different students with a variety of abilities, motivations and backgrounds to succeed in school and later in life. Diversity awareness can support teachers’ capacities to meet the needs of diverse classrooms and schools and create more inclusive classrooms. In the symposium, we will explore diversity awareness together with the social and emotional competencies of teachers and principals from several different perspectives as well as several different countries. The symposium brings together insights from two European Erasmus+ projects The HAND IN HAND: Empowering teachers across Europe to deal with social, emotional and diversity related career challenges (HAND:ET) and HEAD: Empowering School Principals for Inclusive School Culture. In the first paper, Odak and colleagues base their discussion of teachers’ role in supporting diversity and social justice in schools on an extensive literature review. The second paper by Roczen and colleagues in addition to the first theoretical paper provide empirical support by focusing on the process of measuring of social and emotional competencies and diversity awareness of teachers across Europe. The following papers bring provide further insights into diversity awareness from individual countries. From Slovenia, Kozina and Vršnik Perše explore the role of mindfulness in fostering social-emotional competencies and diversity awareness of teachers using HAND:ET data. From Sweden, Dahlström and Oskarsson focus on practicing diversity awareness in the classroom by using empathic curiosity.From Austria, Fredericks and colleagues report on teachers' self-assessments of their well-being, and multicultural and egalitarian beliefs in the context of teaching in a diverse environment using data from the HAND:ET project. The symposium ends with a paper of Mlekuž and Veldin focusing on teachers and principals and their role in building inclusive schools in Croatia and the Republic of North Macedonia using the data from the HEAD project.

In this paper, we focus on teachers’ diversity awareness and teachers’ critical consciousness, as these competencies are central for understanding "HAND IN HAND: Empowering teachers across Europe to deal with social, emotional and diversity related career challenges"project’s stance on diversity. A large body of literature illustrates that the way how teachers teach diversity matters. In addition, the role of teachers in minority students’ achievement is well researched from the perspective of social psychology (e.g., Chin et al., 2020). However, there is a lack of research focusing on teachers’ awareness of diversity, inequality and social justice, as well as on their feelings of competence and preparedness for working in culturally diverse classrooms (Kim & Cooc, 2022). Following on Bell’s (2016) notion that diversity and inequality are inseparably connected, we reviewed literature that explored how teachers perceive and react upon diversity and inequality in their classrooms. We aimed at exploring diversity awareness and critical consciousness in education; why teachers’ diversity awareness and critical consciousness are important; and how these competencies can be supported. Regarding the theoretical perspective, we outline a conceptual model based on our understanding of teachers’ diversity awareness and critical consciousness, as an attempt to provide more conceptual clarity in this field. Our approach accentuates the transformative potential of teachers and their beliefs, behaviours and competencies for social justice in education. The majority of papers on teachers’ diversity awareness and critical consciousness that we included in our review has been published within the last few years, indicating a growing importance of the topic for educators. The growing interest in the topic is due to the increase of diversity in classrooms and the recognition of the teachers’ role in addressing diversity and inequality. However, large-scale studies would be a needed contribution to the field, as most of the existing studies are small-scale. Policy recommendations stemming from our literature review will also be discussed. In line with recommendations from recent international policy documents, such as the OECD policy framework on promoting inclusive education for diverse societies (Cerna et al., 2021; Santiago & Cerna, 2020), we argue that, if our aim is to make schools inclusive for all, both diversity awareness and critical consciousness need to be supported through preservice and in-service teacher professional development programs.

Bell, L. A. (2016). Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, D. Goodman, & K. Y. Joshi (Eds), Teaching for diversity and social justice, p. 3 – 26. New York: Routledge. Cerna, L., Mezzanotte, C., Rutigliano, A., Brussino, O., Santiago, P., Borgonovi, F., & Guthrie, C. (2021). Promoting inclusive education for diverse societies: A conceptual framework, OECD Education Working Papers No. 260. Chin, M. J., Quinn, D. M., Dhaliwal, T. K., & Lovison, V. S. (2020). Bias in the air: A nationwide exploration of teachers' implicit racial attitudes, aggregate bias, and student outcomes. Educational Researcher, 49(8), 566-578. Kim, G. M. & Cooc, N. (2022). Student immigration, migration, and teacher preparation. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-23. Santiago, P. & Cerna, L. (2020). Strength through diversity: Education for inclusive societies. Design and implementation plan. EDU/EDPC(2019)11/REV2. Directorate for Education and Skills. Education Policy Committee

The EU Erasmus+ project "HAND IN HAND: Empowering teachers across Europe to deal with social, emotional and diversity related career challenges (HAND:ET)" supports teachers with a mindfulness-based training program that integrates family therapy elements and aspects from diversity awareness and anti-discrimination trainings. The program is implemented in Croatia, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia. To evaluate the intervention, we will investigate whether socio-emotional competencies (CASEL, 2013), diversity awareness (Mosley-Howard et al., 2011), and teacher collaboration significantly increase between the pre-test and post-test period in all five countries in the training group (experimental group) compared to a control group that does not receive HAND in HAND: Empowering Teachers training. At the time of the presentation of this paper, only pre-test data will be available. These data will be used to investigate whether the measurement instruments are sufficiently reliable and whether the dimensional structure matches the expectations. In each of the five countries, 12-20 schools (total N = 1000 teachers plus principals and other school staff) were invited to participate in the intervention study. Schools were then randomly assigned to either the experimental group (6-10 schools per country) or the control group (6-10 schools per country). Existing self-report scales were compiled for pre- and post-measurement of socio-emotional competencies and diversity awareness. In addition, participants will be surveyed using focus group interviews at the end of the program. Confirmatory factor analyses will be used to corroborate the assumed dimensionality of the scales, and internal consistency will be used to determine reliability. The effects of the training on socio-emotional competencies, diversity awareness, and teacher cooperation will be examined by variance analysis as soon as data from the post-test is available. In this presentation, the results of the pre-test data are presented. These include information on the reliability of the scales and their structure. The “HAND in HAND: Empowering Teachers” program is a "policy experiment" with intensive involvement of actors from educational policy, so that in case of a positive evaluation of the training, conditions are established for an effective, preferably Europe-wide dissemination. This can make an important contribution in supporting teachers to deal constructively with the challenges of everyday school life, improving the well-being of teachers and students, and facilitating an inclusive school climate.

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) (2013). The 2013 CASEL Guide: Effective social and emo on- al learning programmes-preschool and elementary school edition. Chicago, IL: Author. Mosley-Howard, G. S., Witte, R., & Wang, A. (2011). Development and validation of the Miami University Diversity Awareness Scale (MUDAS). Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 4(2), 65.

Teachers across Europe face a multitude of challenges associated with the characteristics of their profession, e.g., new skills requirements and rapid technological developments, challenges associated with their teaching and classroom interactions, e.g., discipline and increasing social and cultural diversity. The challenges faced by teachers are adding to the frequency and intensity of their emotional problems. Therefore, teachers’ resilience and well-being need support. One mechanism for supporting teachers lies in promoting their social, emotional competencies and diversity awareness. Possessing and developing teachers’ social, emotional competencies and diversity awareness has proved to be important, both for the teachers themselves and for those they are in close contact with. Much of the work in diversity research has focused on training multi-culturally competent teachers and on transforming the curriculum to embody multiculturalism. Nevertheless, a gap remains between conceptual understandings of diversity and teachers' actual abilities to respond to challenging moments of encountering diversity. One of the possible mechanisms of support for teachers in challenging situations is mindfulness (Roeser et al., 2012). Mindfulness as teachers’ ability to focus and stabilize awareness of the present moment and to be aware of their patterns of behaviour and reactions when under pressure, can be understood as a tool for fostering social and emotional competencies on one hand as well as diversity awareness on the other. In the current paper we are empirically testing this hypothesis by analysing the predictive power of teachers' mindfulness for their own well-being as well as their behaviour in the classroom, e.g., mindful teaching and self-efficacy to teach in diverse classrooms. We will use data from the Slovenian sample of the “HAND IN HAND: Empowering teachers across Europe to deal with social, emotional and diversity related career challenges (HAND:ET)” project (N = 272; 253 females). Implementing the HAND:ET project, teachers were administered with a battery of measurement tools targeting their social, emotional as well as their diversity awareness competencies. In the current study we will use MAAS (Brown & Ryan, 2003) as a measure of mindfulness, WHO-5 Wellbeing Scale (Topp et al., 2015) as a measure of well-being, Mindful Teaching (Frank et al., 2016) as a measure of mindful teaching and PISA 2018 Teachers' Self-Efficacy to Teach in Diverse Classrooms (OECD, 2020) as a measure of teachers' self-efficacy to teach in diverse classrooms. Implications for research and practice will be discussed.

Roeser, R. W., Skinner, E., Beers, J., & Jennings, P. A. (2012). Mindfulness training and teachers' professional development: An emerging area of research and practice. Child Development Perspectives, 6(2), 167-173. Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2009). The mindfulness attention awareness scale (MAAS). Acceptance and commitment therapy. Measures Package, 82. Topp, C. W., Østergaard, S. D., Søndergaard, S., & Bech, P. (2015). The WHO-5 Well-Being Index: a systematic review of the literature. Psychotherapy and psychosomatics, 84(3), 167-176. Frank, J. L., Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2016). Validation of the mindfulness in teaching scale. Mindfulness, 7, 155-163. OECD (2020), PISA 2018 Results (Volume VI): Are Students Ready to Thrive in an Interconnected World?, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d5f68679-en.