Vocational Teaching in Diverse Cultural Settings. Final Report.

This report presents the differences in perceptions of teachers and principals regarding the elements associated with successful teaching in the inner city or suburban environment, and reveals differences in teaching patterns in those settings. State directors of vocational education, state supervisors and teacher educators of distributive education, and high school principals were asked to identify a control sample and a sample of highly successful teachers. Data pertaining to background information and 396 teaching tasks were collected from 126 teachers representing an experimental group of 33 successful suburban and 33 inner city teachers, and a control group. Additional data pertaining to teaching effectiveness were also collected from the administrator of each teacher and from students. Analysis determined differences between the responses of highly successful and control teachers in each environment. Performance tasks revealing significant differences were also analyzed through factor analyses to determine common relationships. Although the findings did not reveal overwhelming differences between the two school settings, they showed a number of differences which should be considered in teacher education programs. Data collection instruments and other study materials are appended. (SB)