Preparing a Diverse and Culturally Sustaining Teacher Workforce


Book Description

Schools in the U.S. are currently experiencing a general teacher shortage, as well as a shortage of teachers of color. As the student population continues to diversify, the lack of diversity within the teacher workforce has a negative impact on students of color, both academically and socioemotionally. This thesis examines the role of university-based teacher education programs in preparing a more diverse and culturally sustaining teacher workforce. It uses the framework of critical race theory to examine primary and secondary literature relevant to this issue. Discourse analysis of a policy document addressing the role of teacher education programs in diversifying the teacher workforce is also conducted using the framework of critical race theory. This discourse analysis examines how the language used by the Department of Education relates to the sociopolitical and historical contexts of neoliberalism and teacher education. This thesis puts the role of teacher education programs in conversation with larger political forces which create and perpetuate the inequities associated with the lack of diversity of the teacher workforce nationally. It presents pedagogical and policy-based solutions within teacher education such as culturally sustaining pedagogies and more equitable accountability measures, and argues that broader support must be provided by policymakers in order to create significant and enduring change.




Diversifying the Teacher Workforce


Book Description

Diversifying the Teacher Workforce critically examines efforts to diversify the teaching force and narrow the demographic gap between who teaches and who populates U.S. classrooms. While the demographic gap is often invoked to provide a needed rationale for preparing all teachers, and especially White teachers, to work with students of color, it is far less often invoked in an effort to examine why the teaching force remains predominantly White in the first place. Based on work the National Association for Multicultural Education is engaged in on this phenomenon, this edited collection brings together leading scholars to look closely at this problem. They examine why the teaching force is predominantly White from historical as well as contemporary perspectives, showcase and report available data on a variety of ways this problem is being tackled at the pre-service and teacher credentialing levels, and examine how a diverse and high-quality teaching force can be retained and thrive. This book is an essential resource for any educator interested in exploring race within the context of today’s urban schools.




Promoting and Sustaining a Quality Teacher Workforce


Book Description

The volume considers teacher professionalization by examining how to create pipelines from secondary education into teaching; preparing teacher educators; creating linkages between providers of teacher education and the schools.




Culturally Responsive Teaching


Book Description

The achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionately low at all levels of education. More than ever, Geneva Gay's foundational book on culturally responsive teaching is essential reading in addressing the needs of today's diverse student population. Combining insights from multicultural education theory and research with real-life classroom stories, Gay demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through their own cultural experiences. This bestselling text has been extensively revised to include expanded coverage of student ethnic groups: African and Latino Americans as well as Asian and Native Americans as well as new material on culturally diverse communication, addressing common myths about language diversity and the effects of "English Plus" instruction.




Studying Diversity in Teacher Education


Book Description

Studying Diversity in Teacher Education is a collaborative effort by experts seeking to elucidate one of the most important issues facing education today. First, the volume examines historically persistent, yet unresolved issues in teacher education and presents research that is currently being done to address these issues. Second, it centers on research on diverse populations, bringing together both research on diversity and research on diversity in teacher education. The contributors present frameworks, perspectives and paradigms that have implications for reframing research on complex issues that are often ignored or treated too simplistically in teacher education literature. Concluding the volume with an agenda for future research and a guide for preparing teachers for diversity education in a global context, the contributors provide a solid foundation for all educators. Studying Diversity in Teacher Education is a vital resource for all those interested in diversity and education research.




The Culturally Inclusive Educator


Book Description

The Culturally Inclusive Educator asks educators to consider what they can do differently to create a welcoming, inclusive, and exciting environment for the 21st century. Based on the author’s national research and consulting work, this book examines the discrepancy between the current educational cultural climate and the need for educators and their institutions to prepare for a growing multicultural population. It asks what constitutes effective preparation, and provides guidance on overcoming personal and institutional challenges to cultural inclusiveness (stereotype threats, microaggressions, colorblindness/identity-blindness, implicit bias, among others). Samuels begins with the challenges facing the higher education community and then offers 8 transformative steps to help build cultural inclusiveness that any educator teaching any subject can utilize to increase their effectiveness. Culturally inclusive leadership is highlighted as the model for educators and institutions to embrace for success in today’s world. Book Features: Diversity training and inclusiveness strategies for transforming curricula.Reflective practices that unearth personal biases and behaviors.Insights about faculty preparedness drawn from an unprecedented national study.Attention to specific issues and intersections of race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability.A lens for understanding cultural inclusiveness as a fundamental leadership practice. “Dena Samuels takes us straight to the heart of what is perhaps the most urgent and perplexing questions facing 21st-century educators: Are we prepared to work effectively with the rapidly increasing diversity of our student population? She challenges us to confront the misperceptions of our own readiness and to examine the biases that lie beneath even our best intentions. The journey she guides us into is both profoundly discomforting and absolutely necessary. This book provides the research and the tools for transforming ourselves and our practice; it is up to us to do the work.” —Gary R. Howard, Equity and School Change Consulting “At last—an empathetic and inspiring book that says the way to educate all students more successfully is to awaken teachers’ higher awareness. Dena Samuels suggests a paradigm shift in which teachers, having seen the practices of exclusion that have been programmed into them, develop more inclusive awareness and learn to respect, hear, and ally with the growth and development of all students, including themselves.” —Peggy McIntosh, founder and senior associate, National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum




Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies


Book Description

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies raises fundamental questions about the purpose of schooling in changing societies. Bringing together an intergenerational group of prominent educators and researchers, this volume engages and extends the concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP)—teaching that perpetuates and fosters linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of schooling for positive social transformation. The authors propose that schooling should be a site for sustaining the cultural practices of communities of color, rather than eradicating them. Chapters present theoretically grounded examples of how educators and scholars can support Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander, South African, and immigrant students as part of a collective movement towards educational justice in a changing world. Book Features: A definitive resource on culturally sustaining pedagogies, including what they look like in the classroom and how they differ from deficit-model approaches.Examples of teaching that sustain the languages, literacies, and cultural practices of students and communities of color.Contributions from the founders of such lasting educational frameworks as culturally relevant pedagogy, funds of knowledge, cultural modeling, and third space. Contributors: H. Samy Alim, Mary Bucholtz, Dolores Inés Casillas, Michael Domínguez, Nelson Flores, Norma Gonzalez, Kris D. Gutiérrez, Adam Haupt, Amanda Holmes, Jason G. Irizarry, Patrick Johnson, Valerie Kinloch, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Carol D. Lee, Stacey J. Lee, Tiffany S. Lee, Jin Sook Lee, Teresa L. McCarty, Django Paris, Courtney Peña, Jonathan Rosa, Timothy J. San Pedro, Daniel Walsh, Casey Wong “All teachers committed to justice and equity in our schools and society will cherish this book.” —Sonia Nieto, professor emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst “This book is for educators who are unafraid of using education to make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable.” —Pedro Noguera, University of California, Los Angeles “This book calls for deep, effective practices and understanding that centers on our youths’ assets.” —Prudence L. Carter, dean, Graduate School of Education, UC Berkeley




Educating Culturally Responsive Teachers


Book Description

Provides a coherent framework for preparing teachers to work with a diverse student population.




Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce


Book Description

Teachers play a critical role in the success of their students, both academically and in regard to long term outcomes such as higher education participation and economic attainment. Expectations for teachers are increasing due to changing learning standards and a rapidly diversifying student population. At the same time, there are perceptions that the teaching workforce may be shifting toward a younger and less experienced demographic. These actual and perceived changes raise important questions about the ways teacher education may need to evolve in order to ensure that educators are able to meet the needs of students and provide them with classroom experiences that will put them on the path to future success. Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce: Policies, Preservice Education, Professional Development, and the Workplace explores the impact of the changing landscape of K-12 education and the potential for expansion of effective models, programs, and practices for teacher education. This report explores factors that contribute to understanding the current teacher workforce, changing expectations for teaching and learning, trends and developments in the teacher labor market, preservice teacher education, and opportunities for learning in the workplace and in-service professional development.




Evidence-Based Approaches to Becoming a Culturally Responsive Educator: Emerging Research and Opportunities


Book Description

Culturally relevant approaches to teaching, such as using music that is culturally relevant to the children in a classroom, has fostered positive social and academic outcomes. By connecting a student’s home culture to their classroom culture, meaningful relationships can form. However, many teachers do not have adequate support to guide them as they aspire to reach their diverse students. Evidence-Based Approaches to Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a critical scholarly resource that delves into the conceptualizations and belief systems that drive culturally relevant teachers to teach and learn in ways that produce favorable outcomes for all children. Additionally, it prompts and promotes scholarship that allows teachers to become critically reflective and conscious of their teacher identity, beliefs of children, educational beliefs, teaching/learning approaches, and personal/professional development. Highlighting topics such as learning outcomes, pedagogy, and teacher preparation, this book is ideal for academicians, researchers, educators, administrators, and education students.