The purpose of this research study was to understand the cultural adjustment of White female teachers to a diverse urban school environment. This research focused on what factors contributed to White teachers' successful, or unsuccessful, cultural adjustment to a school district that was predominantly of a differing cultural background. The research employed a sequential transformative mixed methods design in accordance with the participant selection model, using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) during the first phase to place each participant on the continuum of the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). The IDI results also provided a way to categorize the developmental levels of the participants based on variables of education level, amount of time lived in another culture, and teaching experience. Participants in the quantitative phase were 18 first-year White female teachers who were recruited from out-of-state and 27 veteran White female elementary school teachers of a large urban district in Phoenix, Arizona. In the second phase, data was collected through two individual participant interviews with 5 first-year and 5 veteran teachers who were identified by participating in the first phase of the study. First-year and veteran teachers were also grouped according to their developmental level on the IDI for one focus group interview.

Results indicated the intercultural competence of first-year and veteran White female teachers was not considerably different, according to the IDI, despite veteran teachers having considerable more experience in a diverse school. Findings also indicated intercultural competence was not positively affected by increased level of formal education and time lived in another culture. A factor leading to unsuccessful cultural adjustment was the predicament of White teachers to conceive that racial and cultural differences influence the worldview of their students, but also striving as White teachers to maintain the mentality of colorblindness. Factors leading to successful adjustment were: willingness to engage in the lives of their students and families; acknowledging their role as a teacher in learning the culture of their students; and valuing the cultural differences of their students as a strength rather than as a hindrance.