The Supervision for Contruction of Multicultural Learning in the School

Abstract

The research “Educational Supervision for Multicultural Education in School” is a study in government schools located in highland of Wiang Kaen District, Chiangrai Province, being under Chiangrai Primary Education Service Area Office 4. In this area there are high ethnic diversity of students: Chinese, Hor, Lahu, Tai Yai, Akha, Hmong, and Muang (Yuan). Objective of this research is to study educational supervisory pattern to provide multicultural education in school, to study educational supervisory result that affects teachers in terms of knowledge, confidence and teaching activities for multicultural education, and to study supervisory result that has effect to students regarding their acceptance in multiculturalism. This is a Participatory Action Research: PAR. A team of 24 co-researchers consists of 1 school executive; 2 parent representatives; 4 local teachers; 3 educational institute committee; 3 community leaders; 2 supervisors (one of them was a researcher); primary teachers teaching students in Primary 4-6 within 4 knowledge clusters: 3 teachers in Thai Language, 3 teachers in Social Studies, Religion and Culture, 2 teachers in Arts, 1 teacher in Occupation and Technology, therefore totally 9 teachers; and 67 students in Primary 4–6. The data was collected in terms of quantity and quality. The quantitative analysis method is done by Mean and Standard Deviation, while qualitative analysis is completed by Descriptive Analysis.

From the study, it was found that there were 3 compositions of educational supervision: 1st composition is educational supervisors and supervisees e.g. school executives, teachers, academic teachers and supervisors. The 2nd composition is all people who gets involved such as local wisdom teachers, community leaders, parent representatives and educational institute committees. The 3rd composition is 5 steps of supervisory pattern. The 1st step is to build concepts of culture. The 2nd step is to study school/community context. The 3rd step is to develop multicultural curriculum. The 4th step is to create multicultural classroom and the 5th step is to review all the processes for actual practice. For effective educational supervisory pattern in each composition, there must be a cooperation and empowerment of every sectors so that the supervision could be moved efficiently. The educational supervisory pattern affected the high development in teachers who were co-researchers regarding their knowledge, confidence and classroom activities arrangement. The teachers as co-researchers had wide range of knowledge in multiculturalism as they applied curriculum and teaching instruction that the students were familiar with in their daily life. They knew well how to design learning activities without racism and prejudice. The teachers as co-researchers had confidence in teaching multiculturalism. They could decide learning activities and believed that they could complete the tasks confidently. They also could facilitate classroom activities regarding student-centered learning concept. The activities in the classes would concentrate on positive interaction, and promote self-learning in students and critical thinking skills in them. Apart from this, educational supervision for multicultural learning also had impact on the development in students on their acceptance in cultural diversity from medium to very high range. So students learned and accepted cultures, traditions, life styles, and beliefs of themselves as well as others’ in different ethnic groups as useful, necessary and appropriate for each person and everyone could live in multicultural society together normally.