Urban/Rural Workplace – A Relevant Factor in Manifesting Intercultural Sensitivity

• Published in: Revista Românească pentru educaţie multidimensională Vol. 12; no. 4; pp. 205 - 221
• Main Authors: Cojocariu, Venera-Mihaela, Boghian, Ioana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.12.2020
• DOI: 10.18662/rrem/12.4/342
• ISSN: 2066-7329

Our paper presents the results of a questionnaire-based inquiry aimed to investigate the level of intercultural sensitivity concerning respondents’ workplace background, namely urban versus rural. The main purpose of our research is to highlight possible differences in intercultural sensitivity levels at teachers working in urban and rural schools, which constitutes our contribution to the research existing in the field. The general hypotheses of our research are: the workplace background (urban/rural) impacts the level of manifesting intercultural sensitivity; the urban workplace of respondents is connected to a higher level of manifesting intercultural sensitivity. This investigation is part of wider research that aims to identify teacher training practices that may raise pre- and in-service teachers’ levels of intercultural sensitivity and better prepare them to work with groups of students characterized by diversity, as well as solutions to educational issues in the Romanian context by considering the two different contexts in which education takes place, namely urban and rural. Our findings have revealed higher levels of intercultural sensitivity at teachers working in urban schools, compared to those working in rural schools and the results obtained for each specific hypothesis and objective reveal the particularities involved for each scale dimension.