Abstract
Teacher disposition and teacher efficacy influence classrooms, particularly the students and their achievements (Hoy & Spero, 2005). Teachers’ personal traits (i.e., beliefs) and external influences (i.e., culture) affect teachers’ perception of how they practice their teaching in the classroom (Tatem & Cash, 2015). Identifying effective teacher dispositions and efficacy through behavioral, social, and cognitive lenses will empower policymakers to improve trainings for future generations of teachers. This study suggests that teacher efficacy and teacher disposition are subject to culture (Bordieu, 1982) and uses a theoretical framework which combines Locus of Control Theory by Rotter (1966), Sociocultural Theory by Allaire and Firsirotu (1984), Self-Efficacy Paradigm by Bandura (1982), and Cultural Reproduction Theory by Bourdieu (1983). The researcher attempts to differentiate between teachers in Hazelwood School (United States) and Zion School (Israel). Student performance in the United States and Israel differs across mathematics, reading, and science. The study designates a comparative, qualitative, ethnographic case study research design (Merriam, 2009; Creswell, 2013) to holistically point out common dispositions and their relationship to culture (Conkle, 2015). The researcher collected data in two school sites, one in the United States and one in Israel, and triangulated interviews, focus groups, observations and archival data to examine teacher disposition, teacher efficacy, culture, and their relationship to student achievement in the United States and Israel. This study explicates teacher-students relationships through an analysis of variables of teacher efficacy, teacher disposition, culture and their relationships to student achievement through two indicators: 1) The Pew Research Center (2019), which shows that students in the United States score higher than students in Israel in math, reading, and science achievements; and 2) The Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) guidelines for effective teachers (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 2012). The researcher examines teacher performance through InTASC guidelines. The researcher also analyzes data through an identification of common themes found in the case study to determine how teacher instruction differs in the Hazelwood School (United States) and the Zion School (Israel); the themes suggest that teacher performance is subjected to an individualistic, hierarchical and rule oriented culture in the United States, and a collectivist, informal and adaptable culture in Israel (Hofstede, 2001, Yair, 2012 & Lautman, 2015). A framework of the findings includes three conclusions which characterize teacher-students relationship: 1) societal groups maximize success with their own cultural characteristics, 2) societal groups seek cultural equilibrium and cultural indicators influence educational practices, and 3) teacher-student relationships are characterized by an inverse ratio of respect. Additionally, teachers at the Hazelwood School (United States) have low feelings of efficacy and higher effective dispositions. On the other hand, teachers at the Zion School (Israel) show higher feelings of efficacy and less effective dispositions. The results show that dispositions influence teacher performance more than self-efficacy does. These findings suggest that policymakers and educational leaders should provide cross- culture professional learning so teachers can more easily transfer from one teaching environment to another and integrate positive teaching practices from the dominant culture; furthermore, there is a need to capture American and Israeli educational practices to enhance effective teaching elements and to enact a culturally responsive teaching (CRT), as “we must teach the way students learn, rather than expecting them to learn the way we teach” (Noguera, 2003, p. 41). Once teachers find suitable culturally-based communication channels with their students, then students will be more inclined to focus on learning materials.