The most pressing problem facing education today is the persistent pattern of educational disparity which disproportionately affects indigenous peoples, populations of colour, those with lower socio.economic status, and new migrants. This disparity is exacerbated by a continuing lack of diversity among the teaching force, which tends to engage in pedagogic practices more appropriate to monocultural populations. This chapter suggests solutions drawn from �gTe Kotahitanga: Improving the Educational Achievement of M.ori students in Mainstream Schools�h, a government- funded professional development and research project underway in 50 secondary schools in New Zealand. Six main challenges identified include: (i) the hegemony of the status quo, (ii) the primacy of teachers�f positioning, (iii) the need for evidence, (iv) the role of power in knowledge construction, (v) the disconnect between pre.service and in.service education, and (vi) the fundamental importance of research in the areas of teaching and teacher education.

This chapter examines the role that programmes play in the success of students from ethnic minorities by comparing the learning environments of three urban teacher training programmes. Although ethnic diversity of children in the Netherlands has dramatically increased as a result of several post.war waves of migration, this is not reflected in the composition of the teaching staff. In addition, the policy aim to train more students from ethnic minorities as teachers has proven far from simple. Students from minority backgrounds who attend teacher training programmes for primary education are far more likely than native Dutch students to leave before graduation. The research presented here suggests that an open atmosphere in a programme, the presence of career counsellors and internship co.ordinators specifically attuned to diversity issues, and the relative ease of finding internships all serve to increase the educational success of these students. The chapter concludes with recommendations for programme climate, guidance and internships.

While doctoral students in education are taught research skills in their programmes, they are rarely explicitly taught how to plan and develop effective curricula, the types of guiding questions which are important to consider or how to study this process in order to improve practices. In an attempt to address this, the authors use Jackson’s (1968) framework for reflecting on teacher planning. The following questions are addressed: how does a teacher educator plan and develop a curriculum for student teachers? How do teacher educators critically examine their curriculum planning and development practices? What are the central questions, areas of focus and principles essential for consideration in such planning and development? For each phase of the planning process, a series of questions is presented. The principles derived from these questions may serve as a useful heuristic to guide the work of new teacher educators.

In order to address the challenges of cultural diversity Italian schools are facing, new initiatives are required in teacher education. This chapter surveys a number of theoretical models to identify the level of intercultural skills of practitioners and proposes a new training programme designed to increase the intercultural skills of teachers and social workers working in multicultural contexts. The experiences of teacher education initiatives at the Catholic University of Milan confirm the programme’s initial assumptions: sensitivity, understanding, a critical reprocessing of personal experience and self-reflection (introspection) are all essential to improving the quality of intercultural skills training. The author argues that these assumptions are especially important in light of the increasing conflict and racism present in Italian schools today.