S.I.T.E. Expanding Educational Horizons; A Report on The Suburban Intercultural Teacher Education Program

The Suburban Intercultural Teacher Education (SITE) program was initiated in January 1973 in the Shawnee Mission, Kansas Public School System. The primary goal of the program was to prepare minority teachers to cope effectively with the problems of teaching in a suburban school environment. It was believed that the program could prepare minority student teachers for the "cultural shock" of living and teaching in a suburban setting and also give an opportunity to suburban students to see people of a minority group in a nonservile role. The program runs for 16 weeks and is reality oriented and suburban based. The interdisciplinary staff of the program consists of a sociologist, mental health specialists, and teacher educators. Conceptualization of the SITE program activities was based on thoroughly tested procedures drawn from the nationally recognized Cooperative Urban Teacher Education (CUTE) program. (The document presents a program rationale, a description of program content, a scope and sequence calendar, and a description of the program assessment. Tables include analyses of the following tests used in the evaluation component: Personal Orientation Inventory, Community Perceptions Inventory, and Interpersonal Perception Method. A bibliography is included.) (JA)