Examining the factors influencing pre-service teachers' multicultural competence in Greece: Towards the construction of an explanatory model

This paper aims at highlighting the need for the examination of factors influencing pre-service teachers’ multicultural competence in non-traditional multicultural environments, using Greece as an indicative example. After providing some background characteristics concerning the presence of diversity in the Greek wider societal and educational context, the paper defines a way of operationalising multicultural competence based on Sue’s (2001) multidimensional model. Next, a literature review of factors that have been found to influence multicultural competence or its aspects is presented. Based on that literature review, the paper concludes suggesting the utilisation of a multifactorial model as a means of getting a more nuanced understanding of the factors influencing pre-service teacher’s multicultural competence.