Diversity Attitudes and Achievement Goals in Physical Education Pre-Service Teachers

Background/Purpose: Despite efforts to promote inclusive attitudes, often PE pre-service teachers' are socialized by competitive sport where socio-cultural messages and achievement goals may be incongruent with teaching diverse students (e.g., Todorovich, 2009). Many of correlates of diversity attitudes are known; the study's aim is to model the direct and indirect effects among achievement goals, socio-cultural attitudes toward appearance, and anti-fat attitudes on pre-service teachers' attitudes toward diversity.

Method: Pre-service PE teachers (N = 199) from six universities (115 males, 84 females, Mage = 19.89 years) completed previously validated questionnaires. The hypothesized model examined the influence of Task and Ego goals, socio-cultural attitudes toward appearance (Athlete, and General Internalization, Pressures and, Information) and anti-fat attitudes (Character Disparagement, Romantic Attractiveness, Weight-Blame) on diversity attitudes (Appreciate, Value, Implement, and Uncomfortable with Diversity).

Analysis/Results: All measures indicated good fit for this path model (X^2(9) = 86.05, p < .001, GFI = .94, RMSEA =.08, RMSEA CI = 0.053; 0.097, ECVI = .95, AGFI = .87). Task goals were directly associated with appreciating cultural pluralism. Character disparagement was negatively associated with appreciating and valuing cultural pluralism and positively related to being uncomfortable with cultural diversity. The effect of ego goals on obesity bias was positively mediated by all sociocultural attitudes toward appearance.

Conclusions: This study provides a first step for understanding how pre-service teachers' achievement goals and endorsement of appearance ideals are associated with attitudes toward diversity and inclusiveness. Additional research is needed to confirm findings and test evidence-based interventions to promote inclusive learning environments.