Teacher competencies that promote equity: Examining the relationship between social-emotional competence and multicultural efficacy

Academic and discipline gaps in U.S. schools may be a product, at least in part, of underdeveloped multicultural efficacy and social-emotional competence in classroom teachers. Developed in separate disciplines, both constructs are thought to equip teachers with knowledge and skills to build positive interactions with students and promote an equitable classroom, but their relationship to one another is unclear. We use data from 231 teachers who completed a measure of multicultural efficacy and a measure of social-emotional competence to gain a clearer picture of how multicultural efficacy and social-emotional competence relate to one another to inform teacher preparation efforts. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to test four hypotheses about the underlying structure of constructs in relation to one another to better examine the degree to which factors, and the items comprising each factor, overlap. A 2-factor solution best fit our data, indicating related, but separate constructs; however, further study using different samples is needed to confirm. We discuss these results in the context of the potential need to embed both multicultural efficacy and social-emotional competence content within teacher preparation programs.