Culturally Responsive Teacher Education for Rural and Native Communities

This article explores the marginalized contexts of rural and Native American communities that have made recruitment and retention in teacher education inequitable in remote areas. Through facilitating a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy workshop series with schools in a neighboring rural county, having a large Native population and a very low student academic achievement rate, we discovered strong resistance from local educators to the notion of “culture” influencing student achievement. Our disappointment in the outcomes of the workshops caused us to examine the services our university provided to rural and Native place-based pre-service educators. As a result, we created a Satellite program to more responsively meet rural teachers’ unique needs and circumstances. By providing greater access to higher education and teacher licensing for students in remote locations, and by embedding equity, diversity, inclusion, and culturally relevant curriculum in all Satellite coursework, we hope to produce teachers who will return to their communities committed to improving schools and promoting equity and social-emotional and academic success for their future students.     

The Heuristic for Thinking About Culturally Responsive Teaching (HiTCRiT)

Michèle was hurrying to class. How, she thought, could she offer the students in her African American English in Society and Schools class a method of understanding, comparing, and abstracting the studies they had been reading in class? The heuristic described in this study evolved from a desire to capture aspects of several seminal studies that illustrated how African American English was deployed in classrooms for productive work with African American students. Michèle recalled that whenever she asked graduate students or practicing teachers what they, other teachers, and schools might do to improve the schooling of students of color, one of the most consistent responses was Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP). However, when pressed and asked what one would detect in classrooms where CRP is being put into practice, few were able to specify what an observer might see. Specifying the dimensions of CRP and its relationship to the heuristic had not been on Michèle’s mind. Even so, it was during the class discussion that the heuristic’s relevance to CRP became clearer. Jonathan, who had been tapped as a teaching assistant in an English language arts methods class, believed HiTCRiT could be modified to use with teacher education candidates, as a substitute for the standardized lesson planning tool used in the department. He piloted its use with the class the following semester. Utilizing HiTCRiT to explain research and existing practices as well as to assist teachers in creating culturally relevant instruction modified and shaped it, creating a more robust tool. Thus, the HiTCRiT came into being and came to inform our thinking and teaching practice.     

Culturally Relevant Education: Extending the Conversation to Religious Diversity

Culturally relevant education represents a wide collection of pedagogies of opposition to social injustice and holds a commitment to collective empowerment and social justice. By using culturally relevant education as a framework, we make the case to include religious diversity as a part of culturally relevant education intentionally. We believe that by opening the dialogue to include religious diversity, we are working together as educators to promote social justice in schools that benefits all children regardless of their religious backgrounds. We synthesize successful examples of culturally relevant education in connection to religion. Further, we argue for teacher educators to incorporate discussion of religious diversity as part of multicultural and social justice teacher education.     

Relational Tensions and Optimal Listening in the Communication Relationships of American and Finnish Legal Professionals

Drawing on relational dialectics, this study examines definitions of optimal listening, the tensions affecting it, cultural differences in both of these and strategies for managing tensions. The participant sample (N?=?101) consists of 76 American attorneys and 25 Finnish judges. The results suggest that differences in national communication cultures and the requirements of professional communication affect the definitions of optimal listening. The American participants perceived this as a people-oriented and the Finns as a fact-oriented activity. Both groups experienced reported tensions between real and ideal listening, autonomy and connection, the public and the private, and also between equality and inequality. Culturally, specific tensions were also reported.     

Ethnicity,Cognitive Styles,and Math Achievement: Variability within African-American Post-Secondary Students

Diversity related dispositions (understanding, tolerance, and respect) of prospective teachers are crucial aspects of today's teacher preparation programs. Can prospective teachers challenge and change their diversity-related dispositions through the use of Teaching Tolerance's culturally responsive curriculum materials? Students watched the Teaching Tolerance video "The Shadow of Hate: A History of Intolerance in America," and responded in writing to 4 open-ended questions which prompted them to articulate the meaning of discrimination and to make connections between diversity, history, discrimination, and their future classroom practices. Based on the qualitative research reported in this article, using Teaching Tolerance Project curriculum materials in a teacher preparation program contributes to cultivating a cooperative, inclusive, egalitarian classroom.     

Using Social Justice Vignettes to Prepare Students for Social Action Engagement

One of the learning goals for social justice education courses is to prepare students for social action engagement. Teaching students about issues related to social justice is complex. Prior studies have found a positive relationship between student enrollment in social justice education courses and action-oriented outcomes. While these findings are promising, we as social justice educators need to know more about effective teaching strategies used in social justice education courses that prepare students for social action. In this article, the author describes one method she designed using social justice vignettes to help students recognize social oppression in their daily lives and practice interrupting various “isms” in a safe classroom environment.     

Multicultural Vignettes for Teacher Preparation

Future teachers need to attain skills, knowledge, and positive dispositions in multicultural education to provide a culturally sensitive learning environment. It is the responsibility of teacher educators to use tools of assessment to train and gauge student progress toward this end. The purpose of this article is to describe the process of creating and using vignettes as a classroom assessment tool to better prepare teacher candidates for diverse classrooms. Results from our experiences using vignettes indicate that most students are only beginning to develop proficient performance standards, and need additional learning experiences. Implications for using vignettes to partially address National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education standards and prepare students for the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PLT) test are also presented and discussed.     

‘America’ as desire and violence: Americanization in postwar Japan and Asia during the Cold War

Abstract

Reflecting on a personal experience of ‘pre‐professional’ university education and reluctant engagement with Cultural Studies as an academic project, this article examines the now ambiguous role of undergraduate education under neo‐liberal management regimes. Arguing that a ‘new class politics in knowledge’ is emerging with the transnational policy‐sharing and international student exchange schemes with which diverse governmental cultures are responding to globalization, Morris suggests that the undergraduate classroom is becoming a ‘frontier’ of struggle over the future. Teaching cultural studies to undergraduates in a liberal arts environment is one way in which the discipline's emphasis on local knowledge can be put to institutionally creative uses.     

Cultural homelessness, multiminority status, ethnic identity development, and self esteem

This study presents a measure of “cultural homelessness” (Vivero & Jenkins, 1999), a construct developed to explain the experiences of some individuals having early-life immersion in more than one culture. Culturally homeless individuals report pervasive experiences of “being different”: mixed racial, ethnic, and/or cultural heritages within their families of origin and/or between their families and the surrounding sociocultural context, resulting in structural marginality; repeated subjection to contradictory cultural demands; and the acquisition of conflicting frames of reference for their behavior. Ambiguous physical presentation and the complexity of codeswitching across multiple cultural frames of reference at a young age may lead to confused or inappropriate social behavior, resulting in rejection and discrimination by both minority and majority groups, chronic feelings of “not belonging,” self-blame and shame, social and emotional isolation, cultural identity confusion, and the desire to find a “cultural home.” Empirical findings operationalizing this construct show associations of cultural homelessness criteria with gender; risk factors related to multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural status; ethnic identity; and self esteem.     

An investigation of ELT students’ intercultural communicative competence in relation to linguistic proficiency, overseas experience and formal instruction

This study aims at exploring how linguistic proficiency, target culture experience, and formal education are related to the learning of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). It presents the theoretical underpinnings of ICC in the light of recent literature. Then, it continues with the methodology section that includes a quantitative research study in which 35 students at the Department of English Language Teaching (ELT) at European University of Lefke (EUL) participated. The participants of the study had different linguistic proficiencies ranging from waystage or elementary level (A2) to vantage or upper intermediate level (B2). The paper concludes by stating the findings of the research and also by making some recommendations for language teachers to better develop the learners’ ICC in teaching English as a second language (TESL)/teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) contexts.     

Problems and problematics of teaching cultural studies in Taiwan

Abstract

The essay was written in the context of a Teaching Cultural Studies (in Asia) Workshop. In dialogues with practitioners and young faculty in Taiwan and Asia, it utilizes the author's own past and present experiences to articulate the difficulties and problematic of teaching Cultural Studies. The main argument proposes that teaching Cultural Studies needs to be grounded in local intellectual traditions and histories upon which critical works out of Asia and the Third World will have to be actively engaged to overcome the dominant condition of knowledge which singularizes the West as the only source for intellectual interventions.     

Evaluating Multicultural Education Courses: Promise and Possibilities for Portfolio Assessment

As multicultural education continues to evolve, better assessments are necessary to provide a holistic measure of the effectiveness of multicultural education in the academy. Unfortunately, as multicultural scholars champion the cause for social justice, equity, and access for school children they remain vulnerable to negative promotion and tenure determinations due to misaligned measures of teaching effectiveness in the academy. In this article, a Black female teacher educator at a Predominately White Institution describes how she utilized a Multicultural Education Teaching Portfolio (METP) as a means to inform the measurement of her instructional quality and effectiveness. This discussion provides an overview of current challenges to assessing quality within Multicultural Education courses and provides an outline of possible components of the METP for further consideration.     

When a social worker encounters cultural studies

Abstract

This is a personal narrative, which reflects upon my experiences of encountering cultural studies after attending the Teaching Cultural Studies Workshop. For me, the term ‘cultural studies’ represents something abstract, fancy, and thus difficult to understand, and which intimidates disciplines that emphasize application over theorization, such as social work. However, my fear of cultural studies was overcome in this workshop through the lived experiences of being respected for differences. This personal experience reflects the historical construction of social work within scientific hierarchy, so that the relevance of cultural studies and social work is not recognized by social workers. Despite the often difficult‐to‐understand style, cultural studies does provide important venues for social workers to obtain qualitative understanding of an individual's problems and crises within a social context, which is crucial to effect strategies of resistance among vulnerable populations.     

A/R/T-Candidates Explore Intersectional Identities Through Art

Teaching diversity and social justice can be difficult when working with teacher candidates (TCs) from primarily homogenous areas, with little to no exposure to pluralistic realities. In multicultural classes, TCs often struggle to understand intersections of race, gender, orientation, socioeconomic levels, religion, ability, and citizenship. In this article, an educational studies professor and four undergraduate students discuss their methodological use of Artist/Researcher/Teacher (a/r/tography) to introduce intersectionality to young students in the classroom. The article discusses a/r/tography as a method in teacher education and provides arts-based examples of how intersectionality can be taught in the PK–12 school system.     

The effects of academic adaptation on depression of international students in China: A case study on South Asian students of TCSOL teacher program

The empirical research has not provided definitive answers to questions about how to assess and report academic adjustment and whether or not it influences psychological and sociocultural adjustments. This study is a longitudinal investigation into the relationship between academic and psychological adjustment of international students from South Asian countries in a cross-cultural learning context who partied in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL) teacher education programs in Chinese universities. Using Zun's Self-Rating Depression Scale and the self-developed Scale of Academic Adaptation, the first test in December 2017 (T1) and the second in December 2019 (T2) were conducted to measure depression, learning motivation, learning behavior, learning efficacy, academic achievement, and satisfaction of South Asian students. The paper discovered significant positive correlations between five variables, indicating an interaction between the five aspects showing how involved and effective overseas students were in learning in China and a cross-lagged relationship between depression and academic adjustment. This longitudinal empirical study of international students in China aimed to help expand the application of cross-cultural adjustment theory in different educational backgrounds, and provide diverse samples and methods different from the traditional western perspective.     

Relationship Between Intercultural Communicative Competence and L2-Learning Motivation of Iranian EFL Learners

In today's interconnected multicultural world, citizens' differential levels of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) can play an important role in the amount of enthusiasm, time, and efforts they invest in second or foreign language (L2) communication and learning. ICC has recently found its way into L2 theory and research. This study attempted to first develop a measure of ICC and then explore the relationship between Iranian L2 learners' ICC and their L2 learning motivation, on the one hand, and between gender and the development of ICC, on the other. The participants were 180 B.A. English Literature/Translation and M.A. TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) students at several Iranian universities. A test battery including the final version of the ICC questionnaire and an L2-learning motivation questionnaire adapted from Gardner's attitude/motivation test battery was then administered to a random selection of 70 students (M = 30 and F = 40). The correlation results indicated that there was a strong, positive relationship between L2 learners' ICC and L2-learning motivation. Meanwhile, t-test results demonstrated that Iranian female and male L2 learners did not possess different levels of ICC. The finding related to the ICC and motivation association suggests that an account of ICC development be incorporated into L2 teachers' classroom agendas at different educational levels.     

Translanguaging in a Swedish Multilingual Classroom

The overarching aim of this article is to investigate perceptions regarding linguistic potential and language competence in relation to translanguaging strategies. The data presented consists of classroom activities, texts, and pictures produced by eleven-year-old pupils and their teacher in a multilingual classroom context. The pupils have varying lengths of in-country residence, from being born in Sweden to being newly arrived. At many schools only the target language is supposed to be used in teaching (Cummins, 2007 Cummins, J. (2007). Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 221–240. [Google Scholar]). But the simultaneous use of multiple languages, also called translanguaging, in the classroom leads to broader and deeper knowledge of language and subjects (Williams, 1996 Williams, C. (1996). Secondary education: Teaching in the bilingual situation. In C. Williams, G. Lewis, &; C. Baker (Eds.), The language policy: Taking stock (pp. 39–78). Langefni, UK: CAI. [Google Scholar]). Teaching based on pupils' resources is crucial for multilingual pupils' thinking and learning (Meier &; Conteh, 2014 Meier, G., &; Conteh, J. (2014). Conclusion. In G. Meier &; J. Conteh (Eds.), The multilingual turn in language education: Opportunities and challenges (pp. 292–299). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). The results show that the pupils have large linguistic potential, but there are great differences in estimating and perceiving their languages. A pattern stands out: Those pupils who have given their languages high ratings are considerably more positive to the teachers' initiative by shaping new relationships and contributing to the mutual development of knowledge than those with discrepancies in their ratings.     

Minority Cultures and Social Media: Magnifying Garifuna

This paper looks at social media use by the Garifuna people. It explores how they are using social media to create a supraterritorial cyberscape. Despite the claim that global media is marginalising minority cultures and causing global homogenisation, this research found that newer forms of social media are in fact creating virtual cultural cyberscapes that are extending minority cultures. The Garifuna cultural response to social media can be demonstrative of the positive impact of social media minority perspectives. The larger implication, though, is that traditional geographical models of cultural space are becoming obsolete. In this research, a total of 60 Garifuna in locations all across the United States and Honduras were selected for participation. Their access to and use of media were examined.     

English-Spanish Cognates and the Pura Belpré Children's Award Books: Reading the Word and the World

English-Spanish cognates are an important subset of words in both the English and Spanish languages. Cognates are words that possess identical or nearly identical spellings and meanings in both languages as a result of being derived from Latin and Greek. Of major importance is the fact that many of the more than 20,000 cognates in English are academic vocabulary words, terms essential for comprehending school texts.

?The Pura Belpré Children's Book Award has been given since 1996 to outstanding children's and young adult literature that represents, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience. The books are judged for their literary and artistic quality.

?There are many English-Spanish cognates in each of the Pura Belpré picture books. The purpose of this article is to introduce the Pura Belpré Cognate Database, which lists all of the English-Spanish cognates for each of the children's picture books that have won the award or have been designated as honor books. Ideas for vocabulary, spelling, and morphology lessons or mini-lessons are also presented.     

Indonesia’s original sin: mass killings and capitalist expansion, 1965–66

Following an aborted coup attempt in October 1965, the Indonesian military organized what turned out to be one of the most horrifying massacres of the twentieth century. More than half a million people were killed while hundreds of thousands of others were detained for years in prison camps throughout the country. There are two major points that this paper attempts to make. First, that the killings are in fact a case of state violence despite of the efforts to make it look like spontaneous violence. Second, that the killings are crucial to the expansion of capitalism in Indonesia. Using Marx’s concept of ‘primitive accumulation’, it attempts to show that the mass killings and arrests, the expropriation of people from their houses and lands, and the elimination of working‐class political formations, are integral parts of an economic strategy of the New Order.