SOCIAL DISTANCE OF TEACHERS TOWARDS ETHNICAL, RELIGIOUS AND SOME DEVIANT GROUPS

Abstract

Being part of global culture, in conditions of general cultural diversity, stresses the importance of intercultural communication where one should be able to decode other people’s symbols. Multicultural features of society in whole are the starting point for redefining the role of teachers in our schools since teachers are becoming creators of new relations in intercultural education. They have a strong impact on society and a crucial role in upbringing and education of future generations. Diagnosing common attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, expectations and practices of a teacher, or to put it simply “the way we do things around here”, would help in examining the real state in our schools. The aim of the study was to examine teachers’ attitudes on social distance of teachers towards certain groups (ethnical, religious and deviant groups), on a sample of 179 teachers from eight primary schools in B&H. Survey method was used and it was directly connected to polls for teachers. Concepts of national cultures, and organizational culture of a school, as “mental programs”, are often founded on stereotypes and social distances, which was confirmed by the study where our respondents, especially younger ones, showed traditional enclosure towards members of other national, religious and non-religious groups and deviant groups. Developing intercultural competences of teachers is based on openness, respect and acceptance, i.e. teacher awareness of individual cultural perspective and their ability to think about different forms of cultural diversity has great importance. Keywords: social closeness/distance, culture, multiculturalism, intercultural competencies, national curriculum

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