Cognitive Changes in the Course of Culture Contacts: Young Teachers Meet Migrant Youth.

Handling of acculturation problems in multicultural classrooms requires the analysis of individual cognitive models of the process of cultural contacts. Culture contact is defined as individually oriented persons meeting socially oriented persons. Acculturation problems have no definite solutions, but through reconstruction of the pieces of knowledge involved the experiences of people undergoing cultural contact and conflict can be analyzed. Cognitive models can then be developed that serve as a didactic model for teaching how to handle these conflicts. A sample of 700 students, 50 percent with migrant family background, was used to characterize attitudinal differences among students. Twenty beginning teachers in multicultural schools with 30 percent migrant enrollment each moderated a group of 8 students selected according to their individual or social orientation with respect to family context and their parents' cultures of origin. A critical incident technique was used along with observation of conflict resolution. Findings showed that long-held beliefs are persistent and tend to reinforce avoidance of cross-cultural contacts, and that even with positive intervention, underlying figurative schemata are restructured in only a minority of instances. (JLS)