Students from different cultural backgrounds, their difficulties upon elementary school entry in Greece and teachers’ intercultural educational practices

Abstract

The present research aims to explore intercultural practices that are adopted by primary school teaches so as to address the difficulties faced by students from multicultural backgrounds upon their school entry. Moreover, it aims to explore teachers’ perceptions regarding the counselling dimensions of their role. For that purpose, a questionnaire was used including open and close type questions. The sample was composed of 106 teachers from Primary Schools of Achaia in South West Greece (86 women and 20 men, 25-55 years old). The results indicate that intercultural activities adopted by teachers as long as their pedagogical suggestions are mainly stereotypical. They also refer to an early conception of intercultural pedagogy based more on acceptance than on coexistence / inclusion. Moreover, teachers do not seek further counselling to address students’ difficulties, although they acknowledge the major problems faced by students coming from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.