Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1, January/February 2002
To successfully move the field of teacher education beyond the fragmented and superficial treatment
of diversity that currently prevails, teacher educators must articulate a vision of teaching and learning in a diverse society and use that vision to systematically guide the infusion of multicultural issues throughout the preservice curriculum. A vision is offered of culturally responsive teachers that
can serve as the starting point for conversations among teacher educators in this process. In this vision, culturally responsive teachers (a) are socioculturally conscious, (b) have affirming views of
students from diverse backgrounds, (c) see themselves as responsible for and capable of bringing
about change to make schools more equitable, (d) understand how learners construct knowledge and
are capable of promoting knowledge construction, (e) know about the lives of their students, and (f)
design instruction that builds on what their students already know while stretching them beyond
the familiar.
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(d) understands how learners construct knowledge and is capable of promoting learners
knowledge construction; (e) knows about the
lives of his or her students; and (f) uses his or her
knowledge about students lives to design
instruction that builds on what they already
know while stretching them beyond the familiar. These six qualities constitute the central
themes or strands that give conceptual coherence to the teacher education curriculum we
envision. We use the metaphor of strands to
highlight the interconnectedness of these
themes. They are made up of knowledge, skills,
and dispositions that, like the strands of thread
in a piece of cloth, constantly intertwine and
depend on one another to form a cohesive
whole. We argue that they must be consciously
and systematically woven throughout the
learning experiences of prospective teachers in
their coursework and fieldwork. Thus, they
serve as the organizing framework guiding the
infusion of attention to diversity throughout the
teacher education curriculum.
Although we believe the six strands, which
we discuss below (for a more detailed discussion of the strands, see Villegas & Lucas, in
press), lay out the essential dispositions, knowledge, and skills for teaching in a culturally
diverse society, we recognize that this is not the
only way to conceptualize the curriculum for
preparing culturally responsive teachers. Ultimately, the benefit that can be derived from a
framework such as this depends on the extent to
which those involved in preparing teachers at a
given institution come to share the vision of culturally responsive teaching inherent in that
framework. Such a vision cannot be imposed
from the outside. It must grow out of the hard
work of ongoing dialogue and negotiation
among colleagues. Nevertheless, we believe our
curriculum proposal provides a good starting
point for the conversations that need to take
place within each teacher education program.
Strand 1: Sociocultural
Consciousness
The initial strand in our curriculum proposal
challenges future teachers to expand their
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Strand 2: An Affirming
Attitude Toward Students From
Culturally Diverse Backgrounds
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(Delpit, 1995; Hollins, 1982). They see all students, including children who are poor, of color,
and speakers of languages other than English,
as learners who already know a great deal and
who have experiences, concepts, and languages
that can be built on and expanded to help them
learn even more. They see their role as adding to
rather than replacing what students bring to
learning. They are convinced that all students,
not just those from the dominant group, are
capable learners who bring a wealth of knowledge and experiences to school. As this implies,
teachers with an affirming perspective are also
socioculturally conscious.
Teachers attitudes toward students significantly shape the expectations they hold for student learning, their treatment of students, and
what students ultimately learn (Irvine, 1990;
Pang & Sablan, 1998). Affirming attitudes, for
example, have been shown to support student
achievement (Ladson-Billings, 1994; Lucas,
Henze, & Donato, 1990; Nieto, 1996). Teachers
who respect cultural differences are more apt to
believe that students from nondominant groups
are capable learners, even when these children
enter school with ways of thinking, talking, and
behaving that differ from the dominant cultural
norms (Delpit, 1995). They convey this confidence in numerous ways, such as exposing students to an intellectually rigorous curriculum,
teaching students strategies they can use to
monitor their own learning, setting high performance expectations for students and consistently holding them accountable for meeting
those expectations, encouraging students to
excel, and building on the individual and cultural resources they bring to school. Strategies
such as these, which convey respect for students
and affirm their differences, become the basis
for meaningful relationships between teachers
and students and produce favorable academic
results (Gay, 2000; Irvine, 1990; Ladson-Billings,
1994; Lucas et al., 1990).
Given the evidence, teachers-to-be must
develop an affirming orientation toward student diversity. As a start, teacher educators can
help aspiring teachers understand the consequences of teacher attitudes on student learning. But presenting and discussing the research
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Strand 4: Constructivist
Views of Learning
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problem solving, constructivist classrooms promote academic rigor to a greater extent than
transmission classrooms, which rely largely on
recall of information.
Although we strongly support constructivist
views, we do not mean to suggest that there is
no place in schools for direct instruction or for
memorization and practice. Students need to
develop facility with the dominant forms and
uses of literacy so they can decide when,
whether, and how to use those conventions.
They need to learn mathematical and scientific
principles and procedures in order to apply
them in novel and personally relevant ways or,
for that matter, to challenge them. However, we
are questioning the misguided assumption that
students must learn the basics through direct
instruction, drill, and memorization before they
can engage in more academically demanding
learning activities. This assumption belies a
blindness to the knowledge, skills, and experiences that some students bring to learning and
too often denies poor students and students of
color a rigorous education (Rosebery, McIntyre, &
Gonzalez, 2001). It can easily lead to their disengagement from school.
Unless prospective teachers experience the
knowledge construction process as learners,
they are not likely to adopt constructivist views
of education or use constructivist strategies in
their own teaching (Feiman-Nemser & Melnick,
1992). For example, teachers-to-be who as learners were not provided frequent opportunities to
interpret ideas, solve problems, explain solutions, defend explanations, and refute arguments will probably not engage their future students in these types of exchange either. Teacher
educators, therefore, must model constructivist
practices for their students. Simply telling
future teachers about the merits of constructivist approaches will not produce the
desired results.
Strand 5: Learning
About Students
If teaching involves assisting students to
build bridges between their preexisting knowledge and experiences and the new material they
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they think about the school curriculum. To discover what their future students know and
think about different instructional topics and
how they use these frameworks to make sense
of new ideas, prospective teachers need to gain
practice with such strategies as engaging students in substantive conversations that elicit
their understandings of concepts relevant to
specific instructional topics, posing problems
for students to solve and observing how they go
about solving them and asking students to
explain the reasoning they used to solve
problems.
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are treated in this manner tend to push themselves to meet the teachers expectations.
The second example, taken from work by
Moll and Diaz (1987), also shows that when students are given opportunities to explore topics
of interest to them, they are more apt to engage
in learning than when instructional topics have
little relevance to their lives. The action research
project from which the example is drawn was
carried out in a San Diego community with a
large concentration of Latinos at a time when an
English-only policy was being publicly debated
in California. The teacherwho knew that residents of the community, including her students,
were highly interested in the topic of bilingualismasked the students to survey the views of
community members on this topic. As part of
this writing module, the students were expected
to develop a questionnaire, administer the questionnaire to several community members, and
prepare a report of findings. The objective of
ascertaining the community members opinions
gave purpose to all the writing connected with
this module. Because the students were curious
to find out the different views on bilingualism
held in the community, they became fully
engaged in the various writing activities. Students who had previously been considered
incapable of writing in English were sufficiently
motivated to produce essays in their second language. The key to the success of this module,
according to Moll and Diaz, was the opportunity it gave the students to engage in purposeful
writing on a topic of interest to them and of relevance to their community.
Culturally responsive teachers also promote
candid discussions about topics that, although
relevant to the lives of the students, are regularly excluded from classroom conversations.
For example, the teachers who participated in a
study conducted by Ladson-Billings and Henry
(1990) openly discussed with their students
issues related to drug use and teenage sex. As
these researchers reported, instead of offering
moral pronouncements, the teachers helped the
students to examine why such conditions
existed in their communities. In so doing, the
instructors validated the students experiences.
At the same time, they made those experiences
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complex. It would be unrealistic to expect teachers-to-be to develop the extensive and sophisticated pedagogical knowledge and skills of culturally responsive teachers during their
preservice preparation. Such knowledge and
skills develop only with experience. It is realistic, however, to expect prospective teachers to
come away from their preservice teacher education programs with a vision of what culturally
responsive teaching entails and an understanding of what culturally responsive teachers do.
They could also be expected to demonstrate an
initial ability to tailor their teaching to particular
students within particular contexts, a central
quality of culturally responsive teaching. To
develop these understandings and abilities,
prospective teachers need exposure to culturally responsive teachersby reading about
them, analyzing teaching cases featuring them,
and watching them in action. They also need
practice in diverse classrooms themselves with
feedback from experienced responsive teachers.
Such practice is most productive when it is
accompanied by guided reflection.
CONCLUSION
In this article, we have argued that to prepare
teachers in a multicultural society, those responsible for preparing them must first articulate a
vision of teaching and learning in a diverse society. This vision, we think, is needed to give conceptual coherence to the preparation of teachers
for diversity. The image we have advanced is
that of a culturally responsive teacher, defined
by six salient characteristics. These six qualities
serve as the organizing framework for infusing
attention to diversity throughout the teacher
education curriculum. They represent the conceptual strands to be woven throughout the
learning experiences of preservice teachers in
coursework and fieldwork so that, collectively,
those experiences cultivate the qualities of culturally responsive teachers.
We do not intend our curriculum proposal to
be prescriptive. All of us involved in the education of teachers at our institutions must engage
in dialogue to develop a collective vision of
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Banks, J. (1996). The historical reconstruction of knowledge about race: Implications for transformative teaching. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Multicultural education,
transformative knowledge, and action: Historical and contemporary perspectives (pp. 64-87). New York: Teachers
College Press.
Bennett, C. I. (1995). Preparing teachers for cultural diversity and national standards of academic excellence.
Journal of Teacher Education, 46, 259-265.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic
life. New York: Basic Books.
Cochran-Smith, M. (1991). Learning to teach against the
grain. Harvard Educational Review, 61(3), 279-310.
Cochran-Smith, M. (1997). Knowledge, skills, and experiences for teaching culturally diverse learners: A perspective for practicing teachers. In J. J. Irvine (Ed.), Critical knowledge for diverse teachers and learners (pp. 27-87).
Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for
Teacher Education.
Crichlow, W., Goodwin, S., Shakes, G., & Swartz, E. (1990).
Multicultural ways of knowing: Implications for practice. Journal of Education, 172(2), 101-117.
Davis, K. A. (1995). Multicultural classrooms and cultural
communities of teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education,
11(6), 553-563.
Delpit, L. D. (1995). Other peoples children: Cultural conflict
in the classroom. New York: New Press.
Educational Research Service. (1995). Demographic factors
in American education. Arlington, VA: Author.
Feiman-Nemser, S., & Melnick, S. (1992). Introducing
teaching. In S. Feiman-Nemser & H. Featherstone
(Eds.), Exploring teaching: Reinventing an introductory
course (pp. 1-17). New York: Teachers College Press.
Fullan, M. (1999). Change forces: The sequel. London: Falmer.
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory,
research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Goodlad, J. I. (1994). Educational renewal: Better teachers,
better schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Goodwin, A. L. (1997). Historical and contemporary perspectives on multicultural teacher education. In J. King,
E. Hollins, & W. Hayman (Eds.), Preparing teachers for
cultural diversity (pp. 5-22). New York: Teachers College
Press.
Grant, C. A. (1994). Best practices in teacher preparation
for urban schools: Lessons from the multicultural
teacher education literature. Action in Teacher Education,
16(3), 1-18.
Hollins, E. (1982). The Marva Collins story revisited: Implications for regular classroom instruction. Journal of
Teacher Education, 33, 37-40.
Irvine, J. J. (1990). Black students and school failure. New
York: Greenwood.
Irvine, J. J. (1992). Making teacher education culturally
responsive. In M. E. Dilworth (Ed.), Diversity in teacher
education: New expectations (pp. 79-92). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
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Annotations
Mendeley User
Page no. 1
23/10/2015 3:46
My high school was EXTREMELY diverse. All of us accepted it, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other
way.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 1
23/10/2015 3:48
I feel like BLE has taught some of that.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 1
23/10/2015 3:47
Is it naive to think that because I have grown up seeing a lot of diversity that I feel like I won't have too
much of a hard time being culturally responsive?
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Mendeley User
Page no. 2
23/10/2015 3:51
I agree, cultural connectedness needs to be a common theme throughout the year or else it won't seem
relevant.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 2
23/10/2015 3:50
I feel like these 6 traits come naturally in most teachers.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 3
23/10/2015 3:55
False.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 3
23/10/2015 3:53
We want students to be aware of this too.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 3
23/10/2015 3:56
This is the worst statement I have read. That is only causing more problems and bigger gaps among
the rich and poor.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 3
23/10/2015 3:54
As some form of icebreaker, the teacher could ask students to use three or five words that they would
identify themselves with. That would help the teacher understand their students and for students to see
the uniqueness among them.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 3
23/10/2015 3:58
I think it depends on an individuals opinion on success.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 4
23/10/2015 4:01
It should ALWAYS be like that. We want to build students up! Isn't that what education is about
anyways?
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Mendeley User
Page no. 4
23/10/2015 3:59
Oh, most definitely. I have seen this while I was in HS and in my internships.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 4
23/10/2015 4:02
This kind of approach creates such a great school and classroom community too!
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Mendeley User
Page no. 5
23/10/2015 4:03
They are proportional to each other. One doesn't cause the problem, or the other way around.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 5
23/10/2015 4:05
And students tend to lose their social identity because they feel the need to "fit int". Which results in the
loss of culture in some cases too.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 5
23/10/2015 4:04
My vision: to create an equal and fair environment where all students get the same opportunity to learn
and grow.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 6
23/10/2015 4:09
A lot of it can come from biases and thoughts that students' parents say to them.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 7
23/10/2015 4:11
We can't always have students do it on their own. There needs to be direct instruction, there's no way to
get rid of it.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 7
23/10/2015 4:13
Best way is to simply ask them how they like to learn
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Mendeley User
Page no. 7
23/10/2015 4:12
*Or, teachers who never had that, want to implement it into their classrooms to give students an
opportunity that they didn't get.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 8
23/10/2015 4:15
I am excited to know as much as I can about my students. I don't see how some teachers aren't
interested in that. Thats the BEST part!!
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Mendeley User
Page no. 8
23/10/2015 4:16
I don't understand this statement?
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Mendeley User
Page no. 8
23/10/2015 4:17
Just being aware of your surroundings and the people in it essentially.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 9
23/10/2015 4:17
I completely agree. The teachers college promotes inquiry and PBL a lot.
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Mendeley User
23/10/2015 4:20
Students like to talk about themselves, so having them write about something in connection to
something they have experienced, will result in more effort and engagement.
Page no. 9
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Mendeley User
Page no. 9
23/10/2015 4:19
I wish more teachers took the time to relate the content to us as students. It creates more long-term
memory and especially information retireval in the future.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 10
23/10/2015 4:21
Thats great!! Teachers need a good "hook" like that so students feel connected and have something
they know and can relate to.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 10
23/10/2015 4:22
Teach multiple perspectives in content as well as social interactions (cultural awareness)
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Mendeley User
23/10/2015 4:23
Doesn't mean we can't, though.
Page no. 11