International Collaboration in Special Education Teacher Preparation

There is a call for today’s teachers to be globally literate, as their student populations become more diverse. Immersive experiences in other countries with international colleagues and students can support the development of global literacy and culturally responsive practice. Preservice special education teachers do not often have opportunities to have these experiences. The authors use examples of existing international collaborations in special education to illustrate a variety of ways that preservice and in-service teachers can experience international collaboration.

Transition to Adulthood: Perspectives of Korean Immigrant Parents of Individuals With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

As the United States grows more racially and ethnically diverse, Koreans have become one of the largest ethnic minority populations. We conducted this qualitative study to explore the perspectives of Korean immigrant parents about their child’s future and the factors that shape those perspectives. We used modified grounded theory methods. Twenty Korean immigrant parents of children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities participated in the study. Four themes emerged: navigating complicated and limited service systems, maintaining safety and relationships through work and higher education, ongoing parental care at home, and the need for culturally relevant adult services. We discuss implications for culturally responsive practice and inclusive research.

Advancing Workplace Diversity Through the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework

Purpose Diversification of the profession is an important element of combating racism, bias, and prejudice in the speech-language pathology workforce at national and systemic levels. However, national and systemic change needs to be combined with equipping individual speech-language pathologists to adapt to the challenges that they face to engaging in culturally responsive practice. This paper presents four interacting levels of practice within the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework (CRTF): (a) intrapersonal practices, (b) interpersonal practices, (c) intraprofessional practices, and (d) the interprofessional practices. Conclusion CRTF is a practical, strengths-based framework that draws on international research and expertise to expand personal and professional practice and describe critical behaviors within the workplace that can be used to promote principles of evidence-based practice and social justice, especially when working with people from nondominant cultural or linguistic groups.

Formative process evaluation of a guideline-driven process for improving the cultural responsiveness of alcohol and drug treatment services

Background To improve Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s access to, and experience of, healthcare services, including Alcohol and other Drug (AoD) treatment services, principles and frameworks have been developed to optimise cultural responsiveness. Implementing those principles in practice, however, can be difficult to achieve. This study has five aims: i) to describe a five-step process developed to operationalise improvements in culturally responsive practice in AoD services; ii) to evaluate the fidelity of implementation for this five-step process; iii) to identify barriers and enablers to implementation; iv) to assess the feasibility and acceptability of this approach; and v) to describe iterative adaptation of implementation processes based on participant feedback. Methods Participating services were 15 non-Aboriginal AoD services in New South Wales, Australia. Implementation records were used to assess the implementation fidelity of the project. Structured interviews with chief executive officers or senior management were conducted, and interview data were thematically analysed to identify project acceptability, and the key enablers of, and barriers to, project implementation. Quantitative descriptive analyses were performed on the post-implementation workshop survey data, and responses to the free text questions were thematically analysed. Results A high level of implementation fidelity was achieved. Key enablers to improving culturally responsive practice were the timing of the introduction of the five-step process, the active interest of staff across a range of seniority and the availability of resources and staff time to identify and implement activities. Key barriers included addressing the unique needs of a range of treatment sub-groups, difficulty adapting activities to different service delivery models, limited time to implement change in this evaluation (three months) and the varied skill level across staff. The project was rated as being highly acceptable and relevant to service CEOs/managers and direct service staff, with planned changes perceived to be achievable and important. Based on CEO/management feedback after the project was implemented at the initial services, several improvements to processes were made. Conclusion The operationalisation of the five-step process developed to improve cultural responsiveness was feasible and acceptable and may be readily applicable to improving the cultural responsiveness of a wide variety of health and human services.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogical/Andragogical Context Knowledge: A Conceptual Model for Music Education

To better suit the needs of all learners, music teacher educators must develop a mindset of culturally responsive practice in preservice educators. In this interest article, we present a conceptual model intended to promote theory, discussion, and practice relevant to culturally sustaining music education. The model builds on our prior empirical work concerning music teacher educators’ conceptions of culturally responsive education, which we unite with Barnett and Hodson’s concept of pedagogical context knowledge and theories of andragogy and heutagogy into one comprehensive framework. We describe each facet of the model and provide suggestions for its use in both research and practice.

A Typology of Conscious Decision Making for Service-Learning Field Experiences

In this concluding chapter, the authors, who are service-learning and teacher education scholars, present a typology of service-learning field experiences as a means of considering how and why service-learning field experiences are included as teacher preparation. The typology is a way to examine and inform the critical decision-making process when planning, implementing, and assessing service-learning field experiences. This chapter is a departure from other chapters in this edited volume, but its purpose is to extend the conversations all chapters inspire, which is to include service-learning as a form of community-engaged pedagogy and scholarship that endorses, represents, and promotes culturally responsive practice. The authors presume it is impossible to create a complete and comprehensive taxonomy of service-learning as community-engaged work continues to evolve. The typological structure can be used to identify, define, and describe the nuanced applications salient in service-learning field experiences within teacher education.

Exploring the Accessibility of Child-Centered Play Therapy for Australian Muslim Children

The purpose of this study was to explore the accessibility of child-centered play therapy with Australian Muslim children. Eleven Australian Muslim parents participated in semi-structured interviews that explored three broad topics of play, counseling, and play therapy. Thematic analysis indicated that, despite several barriers to accessing counseling, child-centered play therapy may be accessible to this population. Specifically, several key insights emanated from the interviews. For example, Muslim adults tend to prefer Muslim health practitioners; however, when seeking a therapist to assist their child, these parents are not as concerned about the religious beliefs of health practitioners. In addition, despite cultural stigma against mental health services, Muslim parents invoke religious tenets to justify the importance of therapy. Furthermore, although play may be regarded as being indulgent in the Islamic community, Australian Muslim parents in this study appreciated the benefits of play to the development and progress of children and indicated the Islamic literature embrace play, especially before the age of 7 years. Implications for developing culturally responsive practice of play therapy and directions for future research are discussed.