Teaching Leadership and Communication Among Diverse Colleagues: Why Cultural Competence Counts

This article discusses teacher leadership behavior in the context of an elementary school developing a dual language education program for its English learners. A team composed of teachers from diverse linguistic and cultural groups worked on planning the dual language program. Through teachers' narratives, the author found that there was the relative strength of school leadership relationships, moral purpose, and commitment; however, there were obstacles as well. Intercultural communication was found to be the primary obstacle to the team making progress. The author concludes that teacher preparation programs and schools need to concentrate on teaching cultural competence among colleagues as well as culturally responsive pedagogy.