Enhancing self-efficacy in prospective primary school teachers: challenges and opportunities in multicultural contexts

In the training of future primary school teachers, it becomes crucial to focus on their perceived selfefficacy in teaching, which plays a key role in teaching-learning practices [1], influencing the effectiveness of their teaching strategies. This attention is significant in multicultural contexts, which still present several challenges related to the heterogeneity of classes today. Furthermore, teachers increasingly feel the need for practical and concrete training, rather than theoretical [2], and often find themselves in difficulty in implementing “culturally responsive teaching” [3] [4] in the classroom. This research intends to explore, through a mixed-methods approach, accompanied by a simultaneous triangulation design [5] to what extent future teachers feel ready to operate professionally in multicultural school environments and to develop effective teaching proposals. To this end, the “Culturally Responsive Teaching Self Efficacy Scale” by Siwatu [4] is being validated, and the first results regarding the training received, the perceived expectations, and the teaching practices of future teachers will be discussed, with particular attention to the strategies to respond to the learning needs of male and female students with a migrant background. This study is hoped to provide useful indications for improving the training paths of future primary and nursery school teachers.