Academic literature on the topic 'Justice, teachers-students, relationship'

Abstract Introduction: The presented study discusses the issues of teacher’s authority, its building and maintaining in the context of teacher’s justice. The main question to be answered is how high school students perceive teachers as authorities in relation with their perception of teacher’s justice. Purpose: The aim of the present article is the identification of the relationship between perceived teachers’ justice and perceived teachers’ authority among Slovak high school students. Methods: 159 Slovak high school students (120 males and 39 females) have participated in our study. Their average age was 17.2 years. The students have attended 3 kinds of high school - technical (49.7%), services (31.4%), and general (18.9%). Two questionnaires were administrated - Teacher Justice Scale (Dalbert & Maes, 2002) and Measurement for Omnisicient Authority Beliefs (Zhou, 2007). Data were examined by Pearson correlation, t-test and ANOVA. Results: The results have shown the significant positive relationship between perceived teachers’ justice and perceived teachers’ authority. No gender differences were identified. There are significant differences in general perceived teacher’s authority among secondary school students depending on their specialization - technical, services and grammar. Discussion: Results of the study support previous findings of Cseri (2013) and Gavora (2007) who point out the importance of teachers’ justice in building positive learning environment that support students’motivation to learn. Limitations: The proportion of male and female participants was not equal. Also the proportion of participants divided by school specialization was not equal. Conclusion: Accessing students fairly is not an easy task for any teacher, since perception of oneself as righteous may differ greatly from the perception of this apparent righteousness by individual students, who naturally dispose interindividual differences. It is extremely important that teachers pay attention to this fact not only at secondary schools but at all levels of the educational system, which is one of the basic pillars of public administration.

AbstractIntroduction: The presented study discusses the issues of teacher’s authority, its building and maintaining in the context of teacher’s justice. The main question to be answered is how high school students perceive teachers as authorities in relation with their perception of teacher’s justice.Purpose: The aim of the present article is the identification of the relationship between perceived teachers’ justice and perceived teachers’ authority among Slovak high school students.Methods: 159 Slovak high school students (120 males and 39 females) have participated in our study. Their average age was 17.2 years. The students have attended 3 kinds of high school - technical (49.7%), services (31.4%), and general (18.9%). Two questionnaires were administrated - Teacher Justice Scale (Dalbert & Maes, 2002) and Measurement for Omnisicient Authority Beliefs (Zhou, 2007). Data were examined by Pearson correlation, t-test and ANOVA.Results: The results have shown the significant positive relationship between perceived teachers’ justice and perceived teachers’ authority. No gender differences were identified. There are significant differences in general perceived teacher’s authority among secondary school students depending on their specialization - technical, services and grammar.Discussion: Results of the study support previous findings of Cseri (2013) and Gavora (2007) who point out the importance of teachers’ justice in building positive learning environment that support students’motivation to learn.Limitations: The proportion of male and female participants was not equal. Also the proportion of participants divided by school specialization was not equal.Conclusion: Accessing students fairly is not an easy task for any teacher, since perception of oneself as righteous may differ greatly from the perception of this apparent righteousness by individual students, who naturally dispose interindividual differences. It is extremely important that teachers pay attention to this fact not only at secondary schools but at all levels of the educational system, which is one of the basic pillars of public administration.

Organizational conduct requires an understanding of justice. Justice has received ample attention from researchers from various disciplines, including economics, psychology, law, and corporate life. The study's objectives were to 1) explore the perceptions of teachers about organizational justice and academic performance; 2) ascertain the relationship between organizational justices with teachers' academic performance. The population consisted of teachers who taught students in grades XI-XII, and the survey consisted of 155 teachers. A 30-item questionnaire was used as a testing instrument for data collection. The research found that most administrators rewarded workers for doing their jobs well, the majority of teachers were pleased with the practices they implemented, and their strategies and procedures were fair. On the other hand, teachers' student success is closely related to what they write on their whiteboards. Additionally, it concluded that teachers effectively test student learning. Teachers should do an assessment of their students' academic difficulties for preparing.

Providing students who are involved in the juvenile justice system with an appropriate education has the potential to improve their academic, behavior, and post-school outcomes. Giving these students access to quality teachers is an important and necessary component of the educational process. The purposes of this study were to identify the initial reasons juvenile justice teachers entered their profession, examine the relationship between those reasons and their job satisfaction, and explore how teacher demographics influenced their profession selection. In total, 486 ( n = 486) juvenile justice teachers across three states participated in the study. Results suggest that a majority of the teachers entered the field for both personal reasons and better employment opportunities, with the latter being more important to them. In addition, where teachers work influences how satisfied they are with their job. Teachers in short-term facilities were more satisfied as compared with those in long-term facilities. Findings are discussed in relationship to recruiting and retaining juvenile justice teachers.

In this article, we report a quantitative study that investigated the conceptions of secondary school students with regard to the characteristics of the effective teacher. Our purpose was to obtain a profile of the effective teacher, focusing on three dimensions: (a) the interpersonal relationship between teachers and students, (b) the teacher's justice and impartiality, and (c) the teaching strategies that have a direct influence on enhancing student involvement and learning. The questionnaire was used as a research tool. The analysis of the data revealed that students consider justice, impartiality and the interpersonal relationship between teachers and students as important characteristics of the effective teacher, whereas the teaching strategies have less importance for them. In addition, it revealed statistically significant differences in the profile of the effective teacher with respect to the students’ gender and grade and positive correlations between self-identified attainment, interpersonal relationships and teaching strategies. The students had the opportunity to express their views about the effective teacher and the teachers to improve their teaching practice and to gain a more complete picture of their students' expectations. Keywords: Effective teacher; effective teaching.

Education continues to be an area that is likely to completely affect the future of humanity. Countries are trying to raise the level of education and increase the quality of the education provided as much as possible. To ensure that the quality of education is improved, many studies look from the perspectives of educators and officials who determine education policies. This study examines teachers' classroom management and approaches to justice in the classroom through the eyes of students. This study aims to shed light on the relationship between educators’ justice in classroom management and students’ school engagement based on the perceptions of university students. The study is based on a correlational design that examines the relationship between variables. It was conducted with 283 students at Şırnak University. The sample was determined randomly. The data were collected via the "Perception of Justice in Classroom Management" scale and the "School Engagement of University Students" scale. As a result, there was a moderately positive and significant relationship between the perception of justice in classroom management and school engagement. Besides, as a result of the regression analysis, it was revealed that the perception of the educators towards justice in classroom management predicted students’ school engagement. It was observed that 19% of students' school engagement was explained by educators’ perceptions of justice in classroom management. Keywords: classroom management, correlation, perception of justice, school engagement, university students

This article draws from an ongoing longitudinal qualitative inquiry into the preparation and development of social justice–oriented urban English teachers. It examines the cases of three graduates of an urban education–focused teacher preparation program who claim different intersectional identities and have completed their fourth year as urban educators. The article explores two research questions. First, how do these teachers understand and enact critical education practices within their curriculum and instruction, socially situated relationships, and institutional structures? Second, how do they experience and understand their sociocultural identities as contributors to their practices as critical educators and the associated outcomes? Two findings are discussed. First, the teachers felt greatest agency and success within their classrooms (in comparison to other institutional spaces) to enact social justice–oriented curricula, instruction, and other educational practices, using relationship-building with students as the foundation of their work. Second, identity constructs of gender, age, and race significantly mediated the teachers’ relationship-building efforts with colleagues and administrators, the teachers’ feelings of agency, and their activities and outcomes related to justice-oriented change at institutional levels beyond the classroom. This study contributes a rare longitudinal example of how in-service critical educators’ sociocultural identities impact their literacy pedagogies and institutional efforts to advance educational justice.

AbstractBased on the notion that trust is an essential feature in the development and maintenance of democratic civil society, and that school is central to the daily life of students who view schooling as critical to their long-term life chances, the author investigates in this study the relationship between students’ sense of justice in school and their social and institutional trust. Sense of Justice, defined as the relationship between one’s actual reward and his/her deserved reward, is reflected in three interrelated but distinct categories: instrumental, relational and procedural. The study was carried out in Israel among over 5000 middle school students in a national sample of 48 public schools. Findings basically support our hypothesis that students, who feel that they were treated fairly by their teachers, will be more trustful. However, these relationships are differential in the comparison of students in three school’s sectors: Jewish general, Jewish religious, and Arab.

International learners of Arabic as a second language have a multi-cultural background, which may affect their perceptions toward the way they are treated with their instructors. The current study tries to examine international students’ perceptions of interactive academic justice and their relationship to academic achievement. The researcher used the descriptive approach, using a questionnaire of students’ perceptions of interactive academic justice, which involved (175) male and female students at the Arabic Language Institute for Non-Native Speakers at Umm Al-Qura University. The results show that there is a high level of international students’ perceptions of interactive academic justice. However, there are no statistically significant differences in international students’ perceptions of interactive academic justice; in terms of the gender variable (male-female). International students’ perceptions of interactive academic justice do not differ according to the period of Arabic language learning. The results indicate the importance of paying attention to teachers of Arabic as a second language, and the necessity of selecting those teachers and providing them with the necessary training continuously. Future research was presented.

The present study aims to determine the perceptions of multicultural competence and democratic values of science teachers in schools where international students study and to find out whether there is a relationship between them. The study surveyed 436 secondary school science teachers in the Western Black Sea region in the 2018–2019 academic year. Data were collected using the Perceptions of Multicultural Competence Scale and the Democratic Values Scale. We found positive and moderate relationship between teachers’ perceptions of multicultural competence and their democratic values. As teachers’ democratic values increased, their perceptions of multicultural competence increased, and as their democratic values decreased, their perceptions of multicultural competence decreased as well. Understanding teachers’ opinions about democratic values, justice, respect for differences, and equality reveals an important relationship between their multicultural competence and their democratic values.

Quale significato assume il termine di giustizia in ambito scolastico? Quali sono le rappresentazioni di giustizia e di ingiustizia negli insegnanti e che rapporto intercorre tra queste ed il loro operato in classe? Come gli studenti descrivono l'effettivo comportamento degli insegnanti? Il tema della giustizia è stato affrontato in diverse discipline come la filosofia (Aristotele; Platone; Kant, 1781) la sociologia (Rawls, 1977; Boudon, 2002), la psicologia cognitiva (Piaget, 1932; Kohlberg, 1958) e solo di recente è diventato oggetto di studio in ambito pedagogico (Dalbert, 2006; Mikula, 2005; Chory Assad, 2002, 2007, 2013; Berti, Molinari, Speltini, 2010; Kanizsa, Garavaglia, Mosconi, 2013; Kanizsa, Mosconi, Garavaglia, 2014), con particolare riferimento agli studi sulla giustizia nelle organizzazioni (Greenberg, 1987, 1990; Cropanzano, 1993, 2001) che si sono in particolar modo focalizzati sulla distribuzione delle risorse in un'organizzazione (distributive justice), sulle modalità e procedure utilizzate a questo scopo (procedural justice) ed infine sulla qualità delle relazioni interpersonali tra coloro che vivono nel medesimo contesto (interactional justice). E' proprio a partire da questi studi che anche in ambito educativo è iniziata una riflessione sul significato che i termini di giustizia e di ingiustizia possono assumere. Obiettivo di questa ricerca è quello di far emergere le rappresentazioni di giustizia e di ingiustizia negli insegnanti della scuola secondaria di II grado ed il rapporto che intercorre tra queste ed il loro effettivo operato in classe (Festinger, 1992), con particolare riferimento alla teoria delle rappresentazioni sociali (Farr, Moscovici, 1989; Palmonari, Emiliani, 2009) e di verificare eventuali discrepanze tra le concezioni di giustizia negli insegnanti e quelle negli studenti. Per fare questo nell'anno scolastico 2014-2015 sono stati intervistati, utilizzando un'intervista con un basso livello di strutturazione (Trinchero, 2002), non direttiva ed in profondità (Kanizsa, 1993), 12 insegnanti di scuola superiore, appartenenti ad Istituti dislocati sul territorio di Milano e Provincia e che insegnano diverse materie (filosofia, lettere, diritto ed economia, matematica, scienze). Sono stati inoltre effettuati 6 focus group che hanno coinvolto un totale di 48 studenti appartenenti alle classi degli insegnanti intervistati. L'analisi dei dati è avvenuta utilizzando il metodo qualitativo (S. Kanizsa, 1993; R.Trinchero, 2002; L. Mortari, 2010) cui è seguita un'analisi di tipo quantitativo con il software T-lab (analisi delle co-occorrenze, delle associazioni di parole, confronti tra coppie). I risultati dell'analisi evidenziano la medesima concezione di giustizia sia negli insegnanti, che si definiscono “giusti” in quanto rispettosi dei bisogni degli studenti ed attenti alle dinamiche relazionali sottostanti il processo di insegnamento-apprendimento, e sia negli studenti che riconoscono in modo particolare queste immagini di giustizia. Ciò che si evince dalle descrizioni che gli studenti fanno dei loro insegnanti è la discrepanza tra l'idea di giustizia che questi ultimi dichiarano e ed i comportamenti effettivi che essi agiscono in classe, che risultano essere “ingiusti” agli occhi degli studenti. Solo una presa di coscienza da parte degli insegnanti di una possibile incoerenza tra quello che pensano essere giusto e quello che agiscono nella realtà scolastica potrebbe risolvere almeno in parte le incomprensioni con gli studenti e permettere che il processo di insegnamento-apprendimento sia vissuto da tutti gli attori come coerente e “giusto”.
What is justice? What about the meaning of justice at school? What are the teachers' representations of justice and injustice and what is the relationship between their representations and teachers' work in the classroom? How do the students describe teachers' behavior during the lesson? Many branches of philosophy (Aristotele; Platone; Kant, 1788; Kelsen, 1952), of sociology (Rawls 1977; Boudon, 2002) and of psychology (Piaget, 1932; Kohlberg, 1958) have studied the topic of justice in depth and recently it has became the object of search of educational science (Dalbert, 2006; Mikula, 2005; Chory Assad, 2002, 2007, 2013; Berti, Molinari, Speltini, 2010; Kanizsa, Garavaglia, .Mosconi, 2013; 2014), with reference to organizational justice theory (Cropanzano & Greenberg, 1997; Greenberg, 1990; Folger & Cropanzano, 2001; Cropanzano, 1993). Organizational studies highlight three concepts of justice: distributive justice that is a subjective perception elicited by a comparison between actual and deserved rewards; procedural justice refers to the fairness of the mean by which distributions are made; interactional justice refers to perception of fairness in the interpersonal treatment received by individuals, mainly in the communicative and relational requests. The aim of this research, with particular reference to social representations theory (Moscovici, 1989; Palmonari, Emiliani, 2009) is therefore to identify and analyse teachers’ meanings about the concepts of justice and injustice through the narration of their past and their experiences in the classroom. Secondly, the aim is to understand their representations of justice, which they unconsciously use in their daily work in the classroom and to understand how they affect, even by implication, their educational and teaching relationships. At least, we hope to verify the possible discrepancies between the teachers' and students thought of justice. The subjects were 12 secondary school teachers belonging to different school in the urban area of Milan and in the hinterland of the same city, and 48 students belonging to the same classroom as the teachers. The teachers were teaching different subjects (philosophy, sciences, math, law and economy and italian literature). The data was collected during the 2014-2015 school year and was obtained during low-structured interviews for the teachers and with 6 focus groups for a total of 48 students. A mixed-method approach was used: the qualitative data collected was coded into categories to facilitate quantitative analysis, while the same of text was subjected to co-word analysis conducted using T-lab software. The results indicated that teachers and students share the same conception of justice. The teachers, on one hand, according to the organizational justice theory, especially in regards to principles of interactional justice, declare themselves to be “just” and fair teachers, because they are respectful to the students and their needs and they have paid attention to the teacher-student relationship. On the other hand, the students' descriptions of their teachers, highlight the discrepancies between the teachers' representations and beliefs and their actual behaviour in the classroom. The results of current research confirm the importance that teachers need to be involved in vocational training or in training courses in which they become aware of a possible inconsistency between their beliefs and their behavior in the classroom. Only a coherent teacher can be “just” and can entertain a fair teachers-students relationship. Briefly, justice can only be achieved if both teachers and students see each other as coherent and just.

This textbook is devoted to the consideration of the philosophy of law as a scientific and academic discipline. The author, presenting the material of the textbook on the generalization of the concepts of philosophy of law, cultivated by modern research, offers its own approach to considering a number of its problems, which are debatable and have not yet found a generally accepted solution. Among them are problems the subject of philosophy of law and its methodology, the essence of law and modern approaches to legal thinking, the relationship between law, power and justice. This explains the conceptual differences in the presentation of the history of philosophy of law, presented in the tutorial. Recommended for students, undergraduates, graduate students, teachers and research associates of legal and philosophical faculties of universities.

Shakespeare scholars regularly encounter social justice issues in the material that we study and teach. Most often in the classroom our engagement with such issues takes the form of thematic identification and critical parsing. Yet we struggle to form more direct, material connections between coursework and social justice work. This book is for professors of early modern literature who want to heighten the intellectual impact of their courses by thoughtfully using their classrooms as laboratories for social formation and action. Much as Paolo Freire sought to reformat the relationship between teachers and students through his “pedagogy of the oppressed,” this book seeks to reformat the relationship between students and this challenging material in ways that move them and us toward social action. To that end, it offers a global perspective on Shakespeare and early modern literature, including competing “Renaissance world pictures,” non-canonical authors, and collaborative practices. Its 21 chapters describe and model ways of doing social justice work with and through early modern texts, and claim the academic—not merely social—benefits of integrating social justice work into courses.

AbstractThis chapter captures a panel discussion from the 2019 conference of Science Educators for Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice (SEEDS, http://seedsweb.org) in Norfolk, Virginia. The panel included two high school students, three high school chemistry teachers, a community organizer, an administrator for a large urban school district, and a university-based science educator. These panelists, the authors of this chapter, had been collaborating on an initiative to support youth participatory science (YPS) projects in high school chemistry classes. We share this lightly edited transcript of our conversation as a way to communicate perspectives about the opportunities and challenges of YPS from viewpoints across these constituency groups. Our conversation is organized around three questions for reflection: (1) What are some of the challenges and possibilities when it comes to engaging with YPS in science classes? (2) How has engaging in YPS exposed both insights and oversights of scientific ways of knowing? (3) In YPS, what are the relationships between learning science and engaging in political and community issues?

SoTL provides a foundation for democratizing the teacher-student relationship through its fertile ground for establishing more equalitarian roles among teachers and students. This chapter draws attention to the overlap between the values and essential characteristics of SoTL and the field of curriculum studies, which serves to study and examine social dynamics through curriculum inquiry. Through an exploration of forms of inquiry and research that unites curriculum studies (with its emphasis on transgressive education) and SoTL (with a focus on engagement of teachers and learners as educational community), this chapter highlights how research that dovetails SoTL and curriculum studies can provide powerful opportunity for emphasizing social justice.

What might bringing tenderness into the world look like? Student activism and willingness to explore historical memory from their own families often illuminate lived examples of tenderness. The life changing experience Thompson had as a first responder during the refugee crisis in Lesvos, Greece (2015-2016), as I met Syrian, Afghan, Palestinian, and Pakistani families coming on rafts from Turkey, taught her much about tenderness as a quality of being with each other. Refugee families modeled tenderness for her as they risked their lives to save their lives. While militarism, colonialism, racism, and patriarchy remain structural impediments to tenderness, as teachers we find ourselves seeking renewal, knowing that, as Angela Davis has written, “without deep, abiding practices of self care, there can be no radical social transformation.” So this is where we start, rethinking our relationship to our bodies, grading, office hours, faculty meetings, and methods of evaluation. We want to send students off ready to do justice work. Such work may start with examining what the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet has called the “jewel at the left side of your chest.” Our own jewels in this lifetime.

This chapter examines the importance of culturally responsive relationships-focused pedagogical approaches in engaging Aboriginal students in their learning and the significance of this to improving their educational outcomes. Significantly, the themes and issues raised in this chapter reflect much of the international literature on Indigenous, minority and marginalised students. The following enablers are necessary when implementing culturally responsive relationships focused pedagogies: Engaging with Aboriginal families and community members; Harnessing Aboriginal students' backgrounds, lived experiences and interests as classroom resources; Implementing innovative place-based curriculum approaches, and Exploring holistic teacher professional learning opportunities. The combination of these factors creates quality learning environments as places of belonging and socio-cultural support underpinned by mobilising Aboriginal family and community social and cultural capital in the educational process. Once schools and teachers realise the potential of this approach, conditions are created to improve the academic, social and cultural outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

The goal of this chapter is to model the ways in which both teachers and students learn how to ask the kinds of questions that help to uncover misinformation and bias using a thinking-map exercise. The chapter then situates lullaby as a form of communication rather than simply as something one does or learns. The goal here is to introduce and present opportunities for genuine dialogue that might not occur otherwise, particularly at a very young age, using in particular different formats (books, music, media) of “Hush Little Baby.” Questions such as who gets to sing a lullaby, how certain interpretations come to be shaped and normalized, and what that means for those who hear and understand relationships differently guide the development of this chapter.

Chapter 8 examines the expansion of the movement to new issues and newly forceful constituents. It charts the rise of the police-free schools movement and discusses the influence of the Movement for Black Lives. It documents the assertion of voice and leadership by Black girls; girls of color; and gender nonconforming students in the movement, highlighting the intersectional ways that they experience the school-to-prison pipeline. Finally, it examines the role of teachers as allies to the movement and highlights efforts to implement restorative justice as an alternative to zero tolerance. It emphasizes the need to connect restorative justice to school-site organizing that connects teachers with students and parents in ways that transform relationships and create liberatory education.

This chapter describes lessons learned from students involved in a service-learning program in an urban school district during the past 15 years. A total of 729 undergraduate students enrolled in an educational psychology course took part in the study. Students completed a survey at the beginning and end of the course. The findings indicate that academic-based service-learning and cultural-based service-learning contribute to different learning outcomes. Academic-based service-learners develop intercultural relationships with service recipients and community partners and acquire an understanding of social disparities in the community while cultural-based service-learners develop interpersonal and problem-solving skills. Students also appeared to make meaning out of their diverse service experiences and acquired a deeper understanding about how social responsibility is part of their role as preservice teachers in their school community. Implications for incorporating CBSL strategies in a teacher education program are discussed.

Violence against women is linked with trauma-related difficulties that affect individual student learning as well as classrooms across K-12 schools and colleges. To explore links between violence against women and education, the chapter considers the impact of traumatic stress from witnessing domestic violence or direct victimization on brain regions involved in learning and school success. The chapter also explores the limits of punishment for addressing trauma-related behavioral problems and the potential for restorative justice approaches. Next, the chapter considers the roots of intimate partner violence in adolescent dating relationships and the importance of an intersectional approach to preventing dating violence. Further, the chapter considers traumatic stress and intimate violence in the higher education context. Finally, the chapter looks to trauma-informed principles as well as organizing by students and teachers as a springboard for moving towards collective action to address issues at the intersection of violence against women and education.

Now let us turn our attention toward the practice of education for peace from several perspectives. We will examine some developmentally appropriate approaches to children and youth in understanding issues of war and peace, practical applications of teaching the prevention of deadly conflict and conflict resolution in schools, international relationships in education for peace, and other institutions with strong potential to promote peace education and conflict resolution. Even first-grade children can distinguish between societal conventions, noncontroversial questions, and controversial issues. Also, they expect their teachers to teach these types of knowledge differently. They are able to recognize that others may hold opposing viewpoints different from their own. With increasing age, elementary school children in democratic societies expect teachers to present different viewpoints on questions about which there is little societal consensus. And teachers are expected to present different viewpoints in addition to the one that students favor. Adolescence is the period when students markedly increase their ability to generalize the perspective of society, which is most important when discussing issues related to war, peace, and conflict. It is also a time when young people are most interested in issues related to fairness, justice, and equality. In the 1960s, Joseph Adelson, conducted a series of classic studies involving young people aged 11 to 18 from the United States, Great Britain, and West Germany. Interviews were conducted about concepts of law, community, individual rights, and the public good. It was found that at the age of 14, a shift in quality of thought occurred. They could see the possibility of conflict between individual rights and public good; they could connect specific examples of rights with abstract principles; they could consider long-term consequences of specific actions on individuals and communities. Similar findings were noted in subsequent research, leading to the belief that the period of adolescence is appropriate for developing critical thinking skills.

The purpose of this study was to advance understanding on how early career teachers imagined themselves to be culturally responsive and how their beliefs and ideologies about teaching a diverse range of learners were challenged and refined during their early years of teaching. This qualitative, exploratory study was conducted in a large, secondary school in eastern Australia that has a highly diverse population of students. Findings indicate that, while these early career teachers lacked preparation for working with diverse learners, building relationships on multiple levels (with students, with fellow beginning teachers, and with senior staff which includes ongoing support and mentoring from colleagues) is essential for the development of early career teachers as culturally responsive practitioners. Findings are discussed in relation to Garmon’s (2005) six key factors for teaching diverse groups of students: openness, self-awareness, commitment to social justice, having intercultural experiences, have support group experiences, and recognising individual growth. These findings have implications for schooling systems in how they can better transition early career teachers to classrooms and for higher education teacher preparation programs in Australia and many other countries with a growing number migrant and refugee students coming into the school system.

This experimental research is based on a main question: how can it be used an e-tool through the educational practicum by having as endpoint the professional development of students involved? I believe that professional development starts with the very first step of the training system. Therefore, this survey had 96 students from first year of study of being future kindergarten and primary school teachers. The main intervention was done during the educational teaching practicum by having the support of mentor teachers who were agreed to apply a collaborative learning model completed by developing an e-portfolio as a final instrument for formative and sumative assessment. So, 16 mentor teachers tried as a framework for the educational teaching practicum of students from kindergarten and primary school teachers pedagogy to apply on a limited group size the essential elements of the collaborative model: a positive interdependence, an individual and group responsibility, stimulating interactions, developing personal and team abilities, and group evaluation rather than individual one. All developed tasks were focused on the essential abilities of being a good teacher, like: values (generosity, faith, truth, justice, solidarity), vocation (self-awareness, self-mastery, emphaty, social abilities), common objectives, principles and rules, frequent interactions, building a trust environment, having well defined roles, using a common technology, and innovation. To trace the impact of this model of professional development, students had a weekly task to fill in a reflective journal by using an e-learning platform. All teachers involved had access to their anwers, and in this way they could re-design the activities for the next week for a better personal and social growning of students. The reflective journal was built on four categories related to the teaching activity: design and organising, activity developing, teacher personality, and ability of self-assessment. Also, all didactical materials used during the educational teaching practicum were part of the e-portfolio, and loaded on the e-plarform to build a network between students and mentor teachers. The final evaluation consisted in filling in an e-questionnaire, as a last element of the e-portfolio. This instrument was conceived on seven aspects, such as: relevance of learning process for teaching practice, impact of reflective thinking on future actions, level of interactive relationships, support level of teacher, support level of colleagues, level of developing the self-assessment, and other comments. The results of this experimental research show the importance of applying a collaborative model as a pedagogical tool for the professional development by using an e-portfolio.