Abstract:

The management of cultural diversity at school, due in part to migration dynamics, is a growing preoccupation throughout Europe and the world. The challenges focus mainly on the school integration of pupils of foreign origin and on relations with their families. Indeed, integration facilities are organized in different countries to ensure equitable education to newcomer pupils, such as bridging classes in French-speaking Belgium (Cauchie, Bruyninckx & Salham, 2019). However, little attention is still paid to foreign teachers, or from diverse national or cultural backgrounds (Changkakoti & Broyon, 2013).Since 2013, access to the teaching profession in public schools of the French-speaking Belgium is no longer restricted to nationals only (Decree of the Government of the French Community of Belgium of June 20th, 2013). But cultural diversity of teaching staffs is no a new situation. This exploratory research focuses on teachers from the Africa Great Lakes region. We met twelve subjects from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi (three countries with historical ties with Belgium), to understand how they had experienced their professional and cultural integration into the school environment. Data were collected through three questionnaires assessing various factors: the French version of the Work Values Inventory (Super, 1991), the “job satisfaction” section of the Qualität in Schulen questionnaire (Squillaci-Lanners & Lanners, 2009) and a French version of the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2014). To better understand their personal experiences in their career paths, we met them individually during semi-structured interviews. Our results highlight preferential values, sources of professional motivation for these African teachers, such as “supervisory relationships” (score of 13.75/15 in average: 91.67%), “altruism” (13.33/15: 88.87%) or “security” (13.25/15: 88.33%), a rather moderate professional satisfaction (score of 63.33/111 in average: 57.05%), but a rather high feeling of personal effectiveness (score of 167.17/216 in average: 77.39%). For most of them, we note a positive self-perception of their professional integration, but sometimes ambiguous. Indeed, they often express a socially valued representation of their job (probably rooted in their native cultures), but they regret the lack of recognition and consideration for teachers in their host society. They commonly report different types of experienced difficulties (classroom management, development of a dynamic network with principals, colleagues or pupils, building trust and cooperation with pupils’ parents...). Some teachers also report some discriminatory acts in hiring and career that lead them to consider their African origin as an obstacle to their professional integration. When faced with difficulties or conflicts, they all generally adopt a strategy of understanding, tolerance and surpassing themselves, trying to gain the confidence of the educational community by demonstrating their professional skills. In addition to these individual strategies, the role of the school organizational cultures is also highlighted. Indeed, our results show a lack of formal implementation of integration facilities. When they are, they seem to have a positive effect on teachers' career paths and contribute to more sustainable professional well-being.

Keywords:

Cultural diversity, integration strategies, teachers, African origins, professional well-being.