Developing Culturally Competent Preservice Teachers

An unfortunate, yet persistent, truth in U.S. public schools is the large achievement gap existing between children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and their White, middle-class counterparts. The potential for cultural dissonance between contemporary teachers and their students necessitates that educators must persistently seek culturally responsive practices. Much has been written regarding strategies for culturally responsive pedagogy; therefore, this article moves beyond a review of culturally responsive pedagogy. Rather than providing teacher candidates with more suggestions for culturally responsive teaching activities, the authors provide teacher educators with specific resources for facilitating the development of cultural competence among preservice teachers.     

Rethinking the Role of “Culture” in Educational Equity: From Cultural Competence to Equity Literacy

“Culture” has tended to play a central role in the nomenclature and operationalization of popular frameworks for attending to matters of diversity in education. These frameworks include multicultural education, culturally responsive pedagogy, culturally relevant teaching, cultural proficiency, and cultural competence. In this article, I argue that too tight a focus on “culture,” the meaning of which remains intensely contested, stunts the possibility of real progress toward educational justice. As I will show, although some culture-centric frameworks are grounded in commitments to educational equity, they often are implemented in ways that essentialize marginalized students and mask the forms of structural injustice that feed educational outcome disparities. I argue for a new commitment to centering equity rather than culture in conversations and practices related to educational justice—recommending the equity literacy framework as one way to enact that commitment.     

Preparing Preservice Teachers to Meet the Needs of Hmong Refugee Students

This article presents an alternative approach to using service-learning courses to help students develop cultural competence. Service learning often comes from a deficit model that views the providers of a service as advantaged and the recipients as disadvantaged. The Conceptual Model for Cultural Engagement (CMCE) recognizes that those many deem as the disadvantaged have assets to share. The CMCE develops long-term, asset-based, reciprocal relationships between faculty members, community partners, and higher education students. During this relationship, all of the individuals actively participate in culturally engaged learning. The goal is to develop culturally effective members of our society who are educated to interact effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds.     

Investigating the Development of Science-Literate Identities Through a Multicultural Perspective

The complexity of learning science rests in the fact that it not only possesses a unique lexicon and discourse but also that it ultimately entails a way of knowing. This article involves a case study that examines the academic engagement and perceptions of a group (N = 30) of high school students regarding their science literacy practices. These students were participating in an Engaging Latino Communities in Education (ENLACE) program whose purpose is to increase Latina/o high school graduation rates and assist them with college entrance requirements. The students were enrolled in different science classes to fulfill the science requirements for graduation. The primary research question—What kind of science classroom learning environment supports science-literate identities for ENLACE students?—was juxtaposed with a corollary question: What does multicultural education mean for the science classroom? We incorporate Banks's (2016) five dimensions of multicultural education as interpretative lenses. Overall findings suggest that when Latina/o students are engaged in meaningful laboratory investigations and inquiry activities and when the teaching resembles that of culturally responsive instruction, they are more likely to develop a science-literate identity.     

A Culturally Responsive Alternative to “Drill and Kill” Literacy Strategies: Deep Roots,Civil Rights

This article describes two approaches to improving literacy in a high poverty, diverse urban high school. One curriculum program, “Striving Readers,” included a prescribed course of study for students reading below grade level along with schoolwide strategies. This approach did not improve targeted students’ reading scores or motivation to read. The alternative approach, “Deep Roots: Civil Rights,” was a culturally responsive curriculum that had a strong impact on the identified students’ academic development as well as their understanding of racism in this country. An examination of “Striving Readers” and “Deep Roots: Civil Rights” projects provides insight into the impact of the curriculum on student achievement and motivation. At a time when many schools are implementing the Common Core State Standards, this article is a reminder that a compelling, rigorous, culturally responsive curriculum best serves all our nation's schoolchildren. Projects such as “Deep Roots: Civil Rights” provide an effective alternative or complement to prescribed reading programs.     

“Can't Nobody Sleep” and Other Characteristics of Culturally Responsive English Instruction

In this article the author presents a collective case study of two English teachers identified as particularly successful with Black students. Through the use of ethnographic techniques, the study provides a snapshot of how these teachers facilitated academic gains in urban high schools through their use of culturally responsive English instruction.     

The Intersectionality of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Performance Poetry: Validating Secondary Latino Youth and Their Community

In this article the authors draw from culturally responsive teaching and multicultural education to describe performance poetry as an effective strategy for validating secondary aged Latino youths’ lived experiences. Supported by teacher modeling and the incorporation of community poets, students created and shared their own powerful poems that provided authentic opportunities to engage in critical analysis of the poems and issues of equality, social justice, and equity. Performance poetry is successfully used as a tool for validation, honoring and learning from our community, and transformation. Students in this border community were validated in terms of the identities as members of multiple worlds, learned about their own neighborhood from community poets, and were transformed in their identities as community activists through performance poetry. However, in this era of standardized teaching and high-stakes testing, teaching through performance poetry is often not supported in schools.     

A More Diverse Circle of Friends

In this study the authors explored the social inclusiveness of classrooms with culturally competent teachers who were identified both by their participation in in-service diversity training and by principal nomination. The design of this study is quantitative, using a one-way ANOVA to analyze whether students (N = 125) in classrooms with teachers identified as culturally competent are more inclusive in their mutual friendships than students (N = 117) in classrooms with untrained teachers at the same schools. Sociometric questionnaires were used to collect data on mutual friendships. In the social psychological research mutual friendships are considered to be a strong indicator of less social distance between diverse social groups. Findings from the sociometric questionnaire suggest that students with culturally competent teachers, also referred to as culturally responsive teachers in the literature, have broader and more diverse social networks than students in classrooms with teachers that were not trained.     

Reframing Schooling to Liberate Gender Identity

Gender and gender identity are policed by the social environment in myriad ways. For those who challenge normative binaries, they can be positioned to experience different forms of violence. Though mindsets, social movements, and changes in policies have spurred material, social, and economic gains for those who challenge expectations of gender identity binaries, schools continue to inherit dichotomous messages about gender identity. On one hand, schools are expanding anti-bullying policies by enumerating gender identities, shifting names of Gay-Straight to Queer and Sexuality Alliances to attend to intersectional identities, addressing gender identity concerns in professional development trainings, but the field of teacher education has yet to systemically and longitudinally address gender identity for students from pre-K to university levels. As a result, educators are left ill-prepared about how to affirm and recognize gender identity in coursework, curriculum, and pedagogy. As we come to understand how and in what ways schools foreclose possibilities for students to experience gender identity self-determination, shifts in awareness can open up possibilities for schools to honor and liberate gender identities.     

Divided Loyalties: Identity Integration and Cultural Cues Predict Ingroup Favoritism Among Biculturals

How do biculturals, or individuals who identify with more than one culture, manage their loyalties between two cultural ingroups? We argue that this process is moderated by Bicultural Identity Integration (BII), or individual differences in perceived conflict between two cultural identities. Two quasi-experiments examined biculturals’ preferences for two competing groups, each representing one of their cultural identities, in response to cultural primes. In Study 1, we found that Flemish-Belgian biculturals with low BII, or those who perceive their cultural identities as conflicting, favored the primed cultural group less than the unprimed cultural group. In Study 2, we found the same effect among Asian-American biculturals, but only when the cultural primes were positive. These findings show that low BIIs exhibit psychological reactance to cultural primes that are seen as threatening to the self, which in turn affect their loyalties to competing cultural ingroups.     

Teaching for Social Justice: Resources,Relationships, and Anti-Racist Practice

Fear and bigotry have spread through schools on the heels of a presidential campaign that promoted divisiveness grounded in racism and discrimination. This article describes the need for and a path toward explicit anti-racist teaching and anti-racist action to counteract this surge of hate speech. In addition, to create a more equitable and just education system and society, the article outlines actions needed to change key aspects of institutionalized racism and intolerance that are embedded in our schools: a) Correcting the unequal resources leading to inequitable opportunities, programs, teacher and leader distribution; b) providing equal opportunity for the kind of deeper learning demanded in the 21st century: A curriculum that supports critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, and applications of knowledge to real-world problems; c) developing social/emotional as well as academic skills; and d) supporting personalization and relationships so that students feel cared about and cared for and experience culturally responsive, engaging, and empowering learning opportunities in contexts that provide supportive relationships and community.     

Foreign-born Chinese students learning in China: (Re)shaping intercultural identity in higher education institution

With the trend of globalization, promising development in China has attracted a growing number of descendants of Chinese immigrants who choose to return to China to pursue higher education. Furthermore, the cultural pluralism that accompanies economic globalization is increasingly changing the pattern of world civilization. However, this leads to new issues of conflict, integration, and symbiosis between different cultures among international students. To address a gap in the literature, this study explored the trajectory of how international students of Chinese origin transcend their identities and build intercultural identities during their higher education study in China. The study investigates 13 participants from different countries, focusing on the process of (re)shaping identity under multiple cultural backgrounds and how they understand this process. These findings show that for students to adapt to Chinese culture it is crucial to encourage them to mitigate language barriers, awake cultural memories, consolidate values, expand educational exchanges, and continue to improve international understanding and broad recognition from an intercultural perspective.     

Poetry

As teacher-education programs across the United States seek to comply with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards to provide accountability and improve teacher preparation, they are challenged by two NCATE standards in particular: composition of candidates for licensure and the composition of the faculty. This article describes 1 large university's activities during the last 10 years in their attempts to increase their faculty's levels of awareness and to enhance their accomplishments for infusing culturally responsive and responsible pedagogy across the curriculum. Their educational journey provides a map that can be followed by other faculty as all teacher-education programs meet the NCATE challenge.     

Ethnic diversity and the nation state: from centralization in the age of nationalism to decentralization amidst globalization

The cause of conflict in multiethnic and multi-religious societies is not diversity in and of itself. Rather, it is one’s attitude towards diversity. Do we share political power and economic development with the regions and minority communities? Do we recognize the cultural identities of the minorities? This requires that the nation-state building process be imagined in more inclusive civic territorial lines rather than exclusive ethnic-genealogical lines. With the above as a backdrop, the article explores nation-state building and the related pursuit of economic growth in Malaysia and some parts of Southeast Asia. The article ends with a call for decentralizing power and resources, and for more research on local level governance and democracy.     

Immigrant Tibetan Children in U.S. Schools: An Invisible Minority Group

Most scholars believe that home and school cultural discontinuity contributes in a significant way to lower self-esteem and differential academic failure of many immigrant children. Academic and social adjustment problems of many recent immigrant Tibetan children in public schools clearly indicate the critical need to examine home and school conditions limiting their ability to experience success. Therefore, the primary purpose of this inquiry is to bring heightened awareness to the challenges and issues of educating a growing number of Tibetan children who otherwise may remain invisible in U.S. public schools. This article has three purposes. First, a literature review is undertaken to identify major issues of educating immigrant children in U.S. public schools. Second, the article proposes a three-pronged framework as a way to integrate Tibetan studies into existing curricula for the purpose of developing a culturally responsive learning environment. Finally, the study offers a number of ideas for future research studies that may identify home and schooling conditions that hinder or facilitate the learning of children-specifically Tibetan children as an invisible minority cultural group.     

Teachers' Discoveries of Their Cultural Realms: Untangling the Web of Cultural Identity

Educators need to explore and understand their own cultural identities before they can comprehend and appreciate their students' cultural backgrounds. In this article, the author presents the findings from a qualitative study that investigated in-service teachers' awareness of and characterization of their culture. She also discusses the importance of affording educators opportunities to reflect on and make the connection between culture and their worldview. The author concludes by recommending useful and practical next steps once teachers have a better understanding of their cultural identities.     

Multicultural literature: An essay

Effective teacher education should guide preservice and practicing teachers in comprehending and facilitating educational concepts and pedagogical practices that examine and promote equity for all learners. Teachers and young learners benefit from sundry opportunities to recognize their self identities and to celebrate both individual and shared cultural characteristics while increasing their understanding and appreciation of others and society. Teachers' cultural characteristics frequently do not match the cultural characteristics reflective of their young learners, and teachers may not be cognizant that their young learners do not see and operate in the world as they do. Critical pedagogy frequently fails to occur when dissonance lies between teachers' backgrounds, beliefs, and behaviors and those characterizing their young learners. Therefore, a major responsibility of pre-K-12 school administrators and teacher educators focuses on developing cultural self-awareness in teachers concomitantly empowering them to develop cultural self-awareness in their young learners. This article addresses how to initiate and further enhance the development of cultural self-awareness in educators by viewing a short yet provocative video titled, "The Lunch Date." A synthesis of university class discussion techniques drawing on the experiences of two professors provides guiding questions and useful suggestions appropriate for pre-K-12 teachers, administrators, staff developers, and teacher educators.     

Retesting integrated model of intercultural communication competence (IMICC) on international students from the Asian context of Malaysia

Intercultural communication competence (ICC) is a need of today, for those who live in multicultural societies and have frequent interactions with culturally different individuals. It is strongly recommended to retest the integrated model of intercultural communication competence (IMICC) among multiple cultural perspectives. For this reason, this study adopted IMICC, retested it on the Asian context of Malaysia. The research employed a survey technique and collected data from 300 international students of a public university. The theoretical model of the research was analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Most of the established paths of IMICC were supported. The findings show sensation seeking and attitude toward other culture (ATOC) directly influenced ICC. The mediating effect of ATOC was empirically justified through the findings. Nevertheless, the mediating effect of motivation to engage in intercultural communication (MTEIIC) towards sensation seeking and ethnocentrism with ICC was not established. The results are promising; however, it is the initial step toward the validation of IMICC on the Asian context. The research practically contributes usage of the model to the policymakers in order to develop future strategies/policies for international students. Further refinement and retesting of the model are necessary for future studies.     

Storying a Social Drama: How Discourse and Practice Prevent Transformation Through Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

In a sociohistorical moment during which racism has become more widely accepted as a social fact, U.S. scholars and practitioners of education continue to struggle with how schooling might participate in its eradication. In suburban, elite, Midwestern Pioneer City Public Schools, a series of initiatives I refer to as “the transformation” aimed to eliminate racial predictability in standardized test scores through efforts (a) to redistribute children from a racially and economically isolated elementary school across the district's four elementary schools, and (b) to train all district staff in a particular brand of culturally relevant pedagogy. In this article, I argue that Pioneer City School District was unable to address the transformative goals of culturally relevant pedagogy—in part because of irresolvable tensions between an explicitly anti-racist theory and the authoritative discourses suggesting that racism is a thing of the past.