Iranian University Faculties and Managing Culturally Diverse Classrooms: Strategies for Peace Establishment in the Higher Education

Introduction

A very different pedagogical paradigm is needed to improve the performance of underachieving students from various ethnic groups—one that teaches to and through their personal and cultural strengths, their intellectual capabilities, and their prior accomplishments. Culturally responsive teaching is this kind of paradigm. It is at once a routine and a radical proposal. It is routine because it does for Native American, Latino, Asian American, African American, and low-income students what traditional instructional ideologies and actions do for middle-class European Americans. That is, they filter curriculum content and teaching strategies through their cultural frames of reference . . . [making them] more personally meaningful and easier to master. It is radical because it makes explicit the previously implicit role of culture in teaching and learning, and it insists that educational institutions accept the legitimacy and viability of ethnic group cultures in improving cultural diversity and multicultural education learning outcomes. . . . The close interactions among ethnic identity, cultural background, and cognition are becoming increasingly apparent. . . . It is these interactions . . . that give source and focus, power and direction to culturally responsive teaching. (Gay, 2010a, pp. 26-27)

The actualization of the multiculturalism is a growing phenomenon in the classrooms all over America, and it means that the university faculties may face some difficulties, which require educational considerations in their efforts to ensure students are provided with the required cultural knowledge. An appreciation of the importance of the different cultures within both national and international contexts embraces the adjustment of measures that provides all of the university professors and educators with the means of obtaining a satisfactory level of cultural knowledge. Considering the different cultures that are taught in an involuntary multicultural context puts pressure on educational curriculum designers, policymakers, and faculties to address the needs of the students and collegians who find themselves in a new environment in the United States, which embraces people from the different nations and cultures. Besides, when the educators get familiar with different cultures, the composition of the U.S. society will be changing vigorously by becoming increasingly a multicultural environment. By means of a study conducted in higher education in the United States, this article seeks to examine some of the challenges that the Iranian faculties and professors are facing with, especially when they are teaching in a multicultural classroom. This study is looking for identifying the beliefs, attitudes, and practices of the Iranian faculties for peace establishment in the higher education, whose classrooms consisted of an extensive number of students with different cultural backgrounds.

Statement of the Problem

In this study, the Iranian English literature faculties’ attitudes and viewpoints toward establishing peace in the multicultural classrooms were examined. They were teaching in the U.S. universities. When the educators in the university gain more experience about the cultural issues, they are able to better manage the classroom, especially when there are some discussions regarding the cultural issues. This study sought to examine what is the Iranian faculties’ reaction and attitudes toward this diversity, especially when it is necessary for them to administer a culturally diverse context and transform it into a harmonic and conducive setting, to teach more effectively.

Significance of the Study

“Using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of cultural diversity and multicultural education ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (Gay, 2000, p. 29).

It is a means for improving achievement by teaching diverse students through their own cultural filters. In one of my first publications, I made a statement about effectively teaching ethnically diverse students that represents my initial thoughts on what I later called culturally responsive teaching. Although it has been further refined, crystallized, and deepened over the years, its essence continues and is evident in my current concept of culturally responsive teaching. (Gay, 2013, p. 49)

The results of this study help the university faculties to improve their management in the multicultural classrooms which establishes peace. In general, university faculties will perceive how to teach and behave in the multicultural contexts. It may vary from the educators’ perspective who are from the different nations, with different cultures. The experience that they had with the students is considerable, because it gains their skills. This study reflects the Iranian English literature faculties’ attitude toward teaching in the multicultural classrooms and the strategies they may apply while there is diversity in the educational context. Iranian educators who are living and working in the United States had interesting replications that are based on their experience of teaching in multicultural contexts.

What Is Multicultural Education?

Said (1983) claimed that,

. . . culture is used to designate not merely something to which one belongs but something that one possesses, and along with that proprietary process, culture also designates a boundary by which the concepts of what is extrinsic or intrinsic to the culture comes into forceful play. (pp. 8-9)

Any culture serves to distinguish its members from those of other cultures and any culture is elitist in some senses; as Said points (1983) out,

What is more important in culture is that it is a system of values saturating downward almost everything within its purview; yet paradoxically culture dominates from above without at the same time being available to everything and everyone that it dominates. (p. 9)

Whereas multicultural specialists vary in their explicate definition of multicultural education, various common themes may arise. First, multicultural education is student centered. Partially, this is due to growing awareness of racial and gender inequality in employment, housing, and education during the civil rights movement in the United States (Gay, 2004a). Teachers accordingly promoted practices, which ensured equal opportunities and access for all of the students (Banks, 2005) and rooted in teachers’ trustworthiness for the learners’ exponent (Bennett et al., 2003). One of the purposes of multicultural teaching is to establish a safe and sensitive classroom environment (Gay, 2002) with the fundamental belief that learners acquire more when they have the chance to share their personal perspective and experiences (Gay, 2004b). Other content in theories of multicultural teaching is the promotion of democratic principles and social justice (Bennett, Wise, Woods, & Harvey, 2003; Nieto, 2004). Moreover, the faculties should have the purpose of helping the students to change into democratic nations of the world who value different perspectives while thinking judgmentally about the solutions for the social real-world problems (Kitano, 1997). Teachers and the students also have the opportunity to recognize and conflict their prejudices (Banks, 2005; Gay, 2002). Multicultural education is more than coming through the course content and diversity. It contains advancing a comprehensive climate in the classroom and the sense of likeness among the learners and facilitating the students’ learning with various instructional assessments and techniques (Gay, 2004b). There are some objections in multicultural education. For instance, it compels instructors to improve assessments, syllabi, and general classroom setting delivery.

According to Gay (2011), multiculturalism in the U.S. universities and society is taking a new aspect of complication and practicability, as demographics, political circumstances, and social conditions change. Domestic diversity and unaccustomed immigrations have created a sensitive mixture of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and experiential plurality. Virtually managing such a diversity in the U.S. universities is the new challenge that is very old. Barber (1992) said:

America has always been a tale of peoples trying to be a People, a tale of diversity and plurality in search of unity. Cleavages among [diverse groups] . . . Have irked and divided Americans from the start, making unity a civic imperative as well as an elusive challenge. (p. 41)

To accomplish this end, it is becoming important as the 21st century outspread. People coming from the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe differ greatly from the early generations who are immigrated and came from Western and Northern Europe. These unprecedented cultures, group, languages, and traditions can provide hostilities, anxieties, racist behaviors, and prejudices among those people who do not perceive the newcomers and recognize them as threats to their safety and security. These issues have deepened the implications for elaborating instructional practices and programs at all levels of the education that constructively and positively respond to diversity. An undeniable reality is that diverse racial, cultural, and ethnic groups and individuals have contributed to the areas of human strife and to all aspects of U.S. life, culture, and history. Gay (2002) recognizes five characteristics of culturally responsive teaching:

(a) the legitimacy of the cultural heritages of different ethnic groups, both as legacies that affect students’ dispositions, attitudes, and approaches to learn and as worthy content to be taught in the formal curriculum; (b) bridges of meaningfulness between home and school experiences as well as between academic abstractions and lived sociocultural realities; (c) a wide variety of instructional strategies that are connected to different learning styles; (d) students who know and praise their own and each other’s cultural heritages; and (e) multicultural information, resources, and materials in all of the subjects and skills that are routinely taught in schools. (pp. 31-32)

Multicultural Teaching in the Higher Education and Peace Establishment

According to Ameny-Dixon (2004), higher education institutions in the United States and the other parts of the world are constituted of the culturally diverse faculty populations and students. This cultural plurality provides such models of the democracy, which are based on the pluralism. The main principles of the global viewpoints of multicultural education in the practices of teaching and learning among the diverse people in these institutes are now more important than ever. Most of the institutions of higher education have become the ideals of the communities in which they are placed and have become the columns for academic excellence.

The faculties, students, and the staff at many universities in the world are those in the United States who come from different countries. These staffs, faculties, and students have different cultural, ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds. Furthermore, today it has become obligatory for the universities to admit the students and hire faculties from different racial, cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds. It is becoming compulsory that the university communities prepare a supportive context that respects the diversity programs, which are inclusive of all people. The professors and administrators of the universities should have the knowledge about the different cultural elements to purvey the equitable services. The leaders in the higher education institutions, who embrace the diversity, will admit the principles of the multicultural education and gain high academic criterion and methods for different public schools and the associations, in which these educational settings are placed. The practices that are adopted by the people at the higher education become commendable to the individuals in the communities and public schools. The tenets and principles of multicultural education promote excellence in the performance of all of the students (Sleeter & Grant, 1999). The basic principles of global outlook of multicultural education, which make it conceivable to gain academic excellence between the different groups of the students in many universities in the nation (Gollnick & Chinn, 2002; Green, 1989), consist of the following:

As International Development Research Centre and Carnegie Corporation of New York (2012) confirms:

Historically, Northern institutions have retained “ownership” of knowledge in these areas and have often overwhelmed Southern voices. Decades of crises have intensified this imbalance, leaving many Southern institutions lacking human, social and economic resources. Cumulatively, this has intensified the shortcomings of educational systems—especially in higher education—in conflict affected countries and diminished the role of scholars in the shaping of public policy and debate. (p. 2)

The United Nations Children’s Fund (1999) has described peace in education as follows: the process of promoting the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values needed to bring about behavior changes that will enable the children, youth, and adults to prevent conflict and violence, both overt and structural; to resolve conflict peacefully; and to create the conditions that are conducive to peace whether at an intrapersonal, interpersonal, inter-group, national, or international level.

Method

Participants

In this study, the selection of the Iranian educators was based on their level of experience and type of workplace which was considered as multicultural. Educators are those with 6 to 13 years of experience teaching in the U.S. universities. As shown in Table 1, five Iranian educators who are teaching English literature at the several universities in California State were interviewed in this study. Their average age was 43 years. By searching the websites of the U.S. universities, the contact details and emails of the Iranian faculties were gathered and the author corresponded to them to conduct an interview.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Information of the Study Participants.

Educator	Gender	School × years of experience
E1	Male	10
E2	Female	6
E3	Female	9
E4	Female	13
E5	Male	11

Teaching in a Multicultural Context and Establishing Peace

As mentioned earlier, each faculty was chosen based on the diversity of the workplace and the university that they are teaching in. At the first part, they were asked, how they establish peace while teaching in a multicultural classroom. One of the educators stated, “In an era that is consisted of higher expectations for academic developments, the concept of setting up the educational environment which results in the emotional and emotional empathy, needs training and it might be cumbersome and time-consuming” (E4). This professor argues that according to his experience, the process of managing classroom which is based on the senses of peace requires patience and experience. Another educator provided the same explanation:

As a professor with many years of experience in the multicultural classrooms, I think the educators would prepare a curriculum which relies on cause of the peace stimulant through the understanding and tolerance from different cultural perspectives. While there are too many works to be done in this foreside, multicultural curriculum can be a pragmatic mean of promoting the peace and acceptance of cultural diversity at the classroom level. (E2)

This educator claims that thinking about the education, as a pathway to establish peace between different cultural issues in the classroom, is not enough and creating the sense of peace which can be obtained through experience and patience should be the priority. According to Gay (2013),

My concept of culturally responsive teaching has evolved to include both substantive and process dimensions, as well as acquiring cultural competence and using cultural resources to facilitate better teaching and learning. The axis of emphasis also has shifted over the time. Earlier, instruction or teaching was the subtext to curriculum. Now the central focus is teaching, with curriculum content as one of its components. These shifting concentrations are explained in detail in Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. This moment is an opportunity for them to learn about different cultural subject matters. (p. 51)

Another educator argued,

I think we need to promote the culture of peace and nonviolence, instantly and . . . [for us] the education is the key tool. For instance, we can promote peace and non-discrimination for diversity by providing intergenerational and interreligious conferences in most of the universities in the USA. (E1)

This educator emphasizes on holding some events, which help the students gain knowledge about the diversity and different cultures. These activities are very beneficent in the societies where the Red Cross/Red Crescent makes a bridge in the society. “I think it is important to promote respect for non-formal education, diversity and social inclusion of the migrant students. We can enhance every single cultural awareness between the migrant students and the locals, in the university” (E5). Another one claims, “We can enhance social cohesion across the engagement of migrant and local populations, and the civil society formations, in voluntary services, sport, and community programs” (E3). These two educators’ assertions show that they tend to establish activities that are based on humanitarian values and interpersonal competence to live peacefully in a multicultural society.

Gay (2010b) claims that,

Implicit in them is the potential of culturally responsive teaching to improve multiple kinds of achievement that are beneficial for many different students, although for different reasons and in different ways. Culturally responsive teaching: simultaneously develops, along with academic achievement, social consciousness and critique; cultural affirmation, competence, and exchange; . . . individual self-worth and abilities; and an ethic of caring. It uses [different] ways of knowing, understanding, and representing various ethnic and cultural groups in teaching academic subjects, processes, and skills. It cultivates cooperation, collaboration, reciprocity, and mutual responsibility for learning among students, and between students and teachers. It incorporates high-status, cultural knowledge about different ethnic groups in all subjects and skills taught. . . . Thus, [it] validates, facilitates, liberates, and empowers ethnically diverse students by . . . cultivating their cultural integrity, individual abilities, and academic success. (pp. 45-46)

Regarding the educators’ perception of multicultural classrooms, the feeling of unity and peace in these faculties’ classrooms seems to be the norm and regulation rather than the exception. It seems that this matter has become a common issue, which has been taken place in their process of teaching:

The education must prepare the students for the effective and responsible life in order to participate in the society and community in the spirit of peace, understanding, equality, tolerance and friendship, which is established among all of the people from different religious, ethnical, national groups, and the individuals of indigenous origin. (E2)

This educator claims that the transmission of positive cultural values that are arranged as a major educational goal enables the students to be culturally informed. One of the educators declared,

We are living in a world where the people are not free from religious or ethnic discriminations. In order to eliminate this situation, I suggest that peace trainings can be implemented in the teaching process to provide strategies for educators to point out the classroom conflicts and teach their students to address social inequality matters. These trainings and are consisted of peace behaviors and attitudes in the classroom, can provide the learning experiences for both the educators and students. (E1)

“I am conflicting with the present educational condition, which will enable my students to be informed of their ability to establish the peace in their homes, associations, and countries” (E3). Both of these educators point out to the pedagogies and strategies, which affect the learning process in the multinational and multicultural classroom and facilitate managing these culturally diverse classrooms.

Students’ Attitudes Toward the Different Cultures

Individuals from some countries associated diversity primarily with new immigrants while others were concerned about indigenous groups and long-term resident minorities. Some of the symposium participants were in the early stages of becoming familiar with ethnic and cultural diversity in their respective countries but others had been engaged with it for many years. Some felt that no discussion about teaching diverse students could (or should) proceed very far without giving serious attention to race and racism, while for others these were not issues of significance in their countries. Some of the symposium participants thought the major goal for teaching cultural diversity was to facilitate assimilation into mainstream society, but for others equity and social justice for oppressed and marginalized students, were more important. These challenges are similar to those of many teachers in U.S. schools, and are paramount in designing and implementing culturally responsive teaching. Teachers, too, have varying levels of ownership of, knowledge, and skills about cultural diversity, as well as concerns over its goodness of fit with the subjects and students they teach. (Gay, 2013, p. 63)

It is essential to create a context in the classroom where the students feel unity without any prejudice. This is an undeniable fact that outside the classroom, the students communicate with culturally different classmates. However, the students’ attitude toward the different cultures in the classroom context from the faculties’ viewpoint is considerable. The faculties were asked, how is the students’ attitude toward the various cultures, when there is a discussion about it. All of the educators described that all of the students had previous and necessary information about the known cultures which contains majority of the migrant’s population in the America. Interestingly, all of the Iranian educators declared that the students’ viewpoint about different cultures was positive. One educator pointed, “Cultural topics in the classroom make a sense of affinity and adjacency toward each student’s culture. They try to find cultural similarity points rather than the differences. History has the major role here” (E2). It means that the students hang out with each other easily without bringing borders. One educator seemed to believe that harsh thoughts would bring disputes to the classroom:

I don’t like irritable discussions in the classroom. Nobody is allowed to irritate another student by insulting his or her culture and ethical roots. As an axiom, negative statements provoke discussions between the students. Fortunately, it never been happened in my classroom, but everything is possible. Based on my experience, the students welcome and accept different people with various nationalities. (E1)

It seems that the educators and faculties have experienced classroom contradictory disputes and squabbles between the students, which may rarely happen. According to Gay (2013), positive attitudes toward ethical, racial, and gender differences procreate positive directional actions and expectations toward different students that in turn have certain effects on the students’ learning outcomes.

One educator said,

It is very positive. Mostly I have seen that how much the students are keen to know about the other cultures and ethics and how much they eager to know about that issues. What I have been saw, is the expression about each person’s cultural tradition, which is respected in its own place. Sometimes the American students and the others also are invited to the cultural ceremonies of their classmates. (E3)

Based on what these educators claimed, the intimacy in the students’ behavior toward each other’s culture is extremely high. They passed the borders and differences, but rather eager to know each other’s cultural beliefs, viewpoints, and opinions. Another statement fully confirms the previous one: “In fact, what we are seeing as the professors, is the cultural integrity which exists between the students” (E5). Another educator affirms,

The attitudes of the students in the United States is highly positive. You know when there is a large group of people in a context like the society, there are some harmonic values shared by the students . . . Which are highly respected. (E4)

The fact is that the context of multiculturalism is very wide, in which the students are well prepared for facing and embracing the various cultures.

Instructions

The faculties claimed that what instructions are essential to establish in multicultural classrooms to create peace in these contexts. These instructions are based on their teaching experiences and knowledge of teaching. What they proposed are as follows.

Teaching Strategies for a Diverse Cultural Classroom

Teaching in a multicultural classroom compels the faculties and educators to apply different teaching strategies to facilitate the process of teaching. Given the fact that the faculties and educators faced with some objections of teaching while they were encountering students from various cultures, the educators explained that in general, their students had a very positive attitude toward various cultures and found it natural to talk about them in the classroom. Based on their claim, one of the educators, who had many years of teaching experience in multicultural contexts, explained:

All of us would behave differently in various situations. I think the educators can inform the students to adjust their behavior that is based on the special context . . . I mean the educational environment. Because we have many students, who are not American and have not been informed how to act in the informal and formal context such as the university . . . I have to add that most of immigrants would learn the suitable behavior when they enter to a society. Providing your classroom with the effective and serious rules that are not based on the prejudice, but the community norms, can be very useful. Therefore, there is no debate to raise in the classroom context . . . Clearly clarify your expectations from the students in your classroom and invite them to feel unity, equity, and respect the diversity. (E5)

This professor claims that community norms and grounded rules help the educator manage the classroom smoothly. He also claims that each educator must consider each classroom’s situation and establish the rules for the educational setting. One of the faculties said:

I test my students with the quizzes because it helps me to obtain an understanding about their race, prejudices, socioeconomic class and thinking styles. These quizzes are in the qualitative format. I have to add that the questions, indirectly lead them into starting the dialogues about stereotyping. Holding these, allows me to distinguish the students who have discriminatory thoughts . . . During the process of teaching, it enables me to focus on those students and invite them to talk about the topics that are expressing union ship and the peace. (E2)

By holding a test or giving the students a questionnaire, the educators are able to identify students’ area of interests. Besides, the educators would reach the students’ thoughts, mind-set, and intellectual center. Attaining the students’ critical thinking about all of the facts and information may be another key factor in multicultural classroom. Another one claimed,

Critical reflections that are tightly held on cultural assumptions are necessary to eliminate stereotypes and misconceptions . . . When the conflicts are raising, the “peace” concepts would be good substitution. Besides, culturally diverse educational context, allows the students to learn about personal differences that may be reflected in their own beliefs and assumptions. (E1)

Based on what this educator mentioned, the critical thinking of one’s cultural presumptions is essential to culturally responsive teaching and learning.

One of the faculties claimed that,

Once I focused on the empathy training, while I was teaching in my classroom. Empathy can be characterized as “human critical capacity,” that is crucial and essential for harmonious relationships. Since the students’ emotion are expressed through nonverbal and verbal cues, they need to learn how to recognize their own emotions. Therefore, they can develop empathy for considering their classmates’ emotion. (E2)

This professor claims that the emotional identity is fundamental and essential for the “empathy trainings” which can be easily totalized into the standard curriculum across the classroom activities and dialogs, especially when there are historical debates between the students. Another one states,

In order to develop my students’ understanding and conception of different communities, in addition to the individual responsibilities and rights, I starting my teaching with concrete references to their community which their family, is part of it. Then I relate it to embrace a local and global context. The students gain insights into their own power and values as they gain knowledge about their global, local and social communities. (E3)

Community awareness is needed to cultivate peace in the educational environment, because it describes the activities which enable the students to become responsible and active members of their community:

Education must be specifically designed to perpetuate and enrich the culture of a people and equip them with the tools in order to become functional participants in society, if they so choose. This education cannot progress smoothly unless it proceeds from the cultural perspectives of the group of people for whom it is designed. Since not all Americans have the same set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, values, and norms, a single system of education seems impossible to serve everyone . . . [Educators] must accept the existence of cultural pluralism in this country and respects differences without equating them with inferiorities or tolerating them with an air of condescension. (Gay, 1972, p. 35)

Conclusion

Culturally responsive teaching is the behavioral expressions of knowledge, beliefs, and values that recognize the importance of racial and cultural diversity in learning. It is contingent on . . . seeing cultural differences as assets; creating caring learning communities where culturally different individuals and heritages are valued; using cultural knowledge of ethnically diverse cultures, families, and communities to guide curriculum development, classroom climates, instructional strategies, and relationships with students; challenging racial and cultural stereotypes, prejudices, racism, and other forms of intolerance, injustice, and oppression; being change agents for social justice and academic equity; mediating power imbalances in classrooms based on race, culture, ethnicity, and class; and accepting cultural responsiveness as endemic to educational effectiveness in all areas of learning for students from all ethnic groups. (Gay, 2010a, p. 31)

Based on the structure of the study, three main factors have a very significant role in a multicultural classroom: the educators, the students, and the teaching strategies. First, the educator is the one who has to administer an environment with its diversity. By considering the special methods and procedures for managing these classrooms, sometimes, special conditions compel the educator to apply the special strategies to negotiate the discussions, argumentations, and cultural conversations. Students are those who deal with diversity every day. The immigrants and the minority groups are unfamiliar with the diverse cultural backgrounds and the different situations in this society. Besides, their behavior in comparison with the American students is very different and they may act differently, which may not be desirable. Therefore, they might start disputes and discussions in the literature classroom while the educator is focusing on the course itself, not the cultural disputes, resulting in prejudice. Therefore, the educator applies some strategies that may have not been used before, because the classroom contexts and situations are very different at each level. The strategies that educators may use are different and segregated. Therefore, it requires some faculties who are well informed and are able to manage the classroom and create a peaceful environment. As the results show, the Iranian faculties have very different thoughts and viewpoints which are based on their knowledge, years of experience, and personal beliefs.

Discussion

This study sought to address the Iranian faculties’ ability in managing multicultural classrooms. They were teaching English literature in the U.S. universities. The focus was on the educators’ assumptions of “peace” in the teaching process. Teachers were asked, how they manage the classroom situation and condition to steer the classroom situation into peace. “In this era, there are high expectations for academic developments, the concept of administrating the educational environment which is conductive to the emotional and emotional empathy, needs training and it can be cumbersome and time-consuming” (E4). This professor applies an interesting term. He believes that the educational empathy is a pathway to access and establish peace in the multicultural classroom, because the current world’s condition makes it difficult to establish peace in a multicultural environment. The professors and educators should know that during the process of teaching, it is essential to pay attention to the emotional empathy. Establishment of peace in the society and communities may be harder than in the educational context, but if the educators start to behave peacefully in the university, that behavior or perspective will be transmitted to the society:

As a professor with many years of experience in the multicultural classrooms, I think the educators would prepare a curriculum which relies on cause of the peace stimulant through the understanding and tolerance from different cultural perspectives. While there are too many works to be done in this foreside, multicultural curriculum can be a pragmatic mean of promoting the peace and acceptance of cultural diversity in the classroom. (E2)

I think we need to promote the culture of peace and nonviolence, instantly and for ourselves, the education is the key tool. For instance, we can promote peace and non-discrimination for diversity, by providing intergenerational and interreligious conferences in most of the universities in the USA. (E1)

As mentioned above, there was a need for a pathway to create peace in the multicultural context. Here, this pathway is named curriculum or the educational programs (such as conferences), pragmatic, and practices would be more beneficial. Therefore, the emphasis is on the pragmatism and practice for establishing the peace in the educational environment. “I think it is important to promote respect for non-formal education, diversity and social inclusion for all of the migrant students. We can enhance every single cultural awareness between the migrant students and the locals, in the university” (E5). Another one claims, “We can enhance social cohesion across the reconciliation of migrant and local populations, and the different civil society formations, in voluntary services, sport and community programs” (E3). Unlike the first three analyses, the emphasis is on the informal situations and personal relationships in the educational context to establish peace in the U.S. universities:

We are living in a situation when the people are not free from religious or ethnic discriminations. In order to eliminate this situation, it is suggested that peace trainings can be prepared in order to provide strategies for educators to point out the classroom conflicts and teach their students to address social inequality matters. These trainings can provide the learning experiences for both the educators and students because these trainings are consisted of peace behaviors and attitudes in the classroom (E1).

This professor uses a different interpretation of peace, and this is used when the religion, ethnicity, and race cause division between the people. In this case, the educational training that is associated with peace can be useful for the educators. With completion of such a training, university professors can easily control the argumentations, which may occur between the students. This is somehow a practice for the educators and an experience for the students, as well. “I am conflicting with the present educational condition, which will enable my students to be informed of their ability to stablish the peace in their home, associations, countries” (E3). Based on this claim, the students must acquire the sufficient ability in the educational setting to promote peace in all of the areas of their life while applying these abilities to the university context:

All of us would behave differently in various situations. I think the educators can inform the students to adjust their behavior that is based on the special context . . . I mean the educational environment. Because we have many students, who are not the American and have not been informed how to act in the informal and formal context such as the university . . . I have to add that most of immigrants would learn the correct behavior when they immigrate to a society. Providing your classroom with the effective and serious rules that are not based on the prejudice, but the community norms, can be very useful. Therefore, there is no debate to raise . . . Clearly, clarify your expectations from the students in your classroom and invite them to feel unity, equity and also respect the diversity. (E5)

If the educators establish the rules which avoid any kind of discrimination, the class is under their control in such circumstances, especially for the refugee students who are also subjected to the social problems.

Regarding the implications that the Iranian educators are applying to manage the multicultural and multinational classroom, it would be said that it is based on their academic experiences. This is their personal experience and teaching principles they have just learned during their academic teaching process. However, it seems that the concepts of inequality in multicultural classroom are based on their experiences that the Iranian professors have gained during their process of teaching:

I test my students with the quizzes which help me to obtain an understanding about their race, prejudices, socioeconomic class and thinking styles. These quizzes are in the qualitative format. I have to add that the questions, indirectly lead them into starting the dialogues about stereotyping. Holding these activities, allows me to distinguish the students who have discriminatory thoughts . . . During the process of teaching, it enables me to focus on those students and invite them to talk about the topics that are about union ship and the peace. (E2)

Besides, obtaining knowledge about students’ intellectual and cultural backgrounds helps the educators apply appropriate general techniques that are in accordance with the students’ sociocultural background. From the researcher’s point of view, the educators can focus on the students individually, especially who have different cultures. Therefore, the educator would obtain suitable information from the students’ mind-set which is based on their culture. These information and experiences would be practical for the educators’ challenges ahead.

One professor claimed that,

The educators should apply a culturally competed teaching and learning which facilitates the critical reflection of one’s own cultural assumption . . . Critical reflection that are tightly held on cultural assumptions are necessary to eliminate stereotypes and misconceptions . . . When the conflicts are raising, the “peace” concepts would be good substitution. Moreover, diverse educational grouping allows the students to learn about personal differences that may reflect on their own beliefs and assumptions. (E1)

Accordingly, the educators should pay attention to the students’ culture or want them to explain their own viewpoint about each topic competitively. In this way, the students are able to critically examine their own perspectives and their colleagues, in detail. Then, it is the educators’ task to hint all of the same cultural viewpoints of the students to establish the feeling of unity in the classroom.

One of the educators mentioned that,

Once I focused on the empathy training, while teaching in my classroom. Empathy can be characterized as “human critical capacity,” that is essential for harmonious relationships. Empathy skills are contained in the in the first social studies and trainings unit, that are focusing on the classroom cooperation. Since the students’ emotion is expressed through nonverbal and verbal cues, the students need to learn how to recognize their own emotions. Therefore, they can develop empathy for the emotion of their classmates. (E2)

Providing ground for feeling of empathy in the classroom can be very beneficial. When the students with different cultural backgrounds are aware of the importance of their own feelings for their classmates, they are able to respect their classmate’s culture. The major point is that the understanding of one’s own culture and the feelings toward it cause to feel empathy for the others, even if they have a different culture, race, and nationality. As a result, there will be the sense of peace among the students at the university.