Performing the Problematics and Possibilities of Developing a Curriculum for Cultural Diversity (original) (raw)
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Teacher education for cultural diversity
2011
The rapidly growing cultural diversity of school children is an international trend that has been accompanied by concerns that teacher education programmes are not adequately preparing pre-service teachers for culturally diverse classrooms. This qualitative instrumental case study was conducted to gain deep insights into how one teacher education programme at a New Zealand university prepared preservice teachers for cultural diversity. The study was conceptualised, conducted and analysed through a critical constructivist lens and underpinned by Vygotskian sociocultural theory. The primary research question asked: In what ways are New Zealand pre-service teachers prepared to meet the learning needs of students in culturally diverse classrooms? The question was explored on four levels: Curriculum, pedagogy, perceptions of effectiveness and diversity capacity. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, observation, document analysis and field notes and were thematically analysed and interpreted through deductive and inductive coding. Results were reported thematically and reflected multiple layers of meaning and interpretations emphasising the complexity of the issue. Key curriculum findings revealed variability in the depth of pre-service teacher preparation for cultural diversity and a predominantly conceptual development of sociocultural competence. The pedagogical findings reported on three types of pedagogical activity, namely dialogic activity, monologic activity and reflective activity and four types of social relationships, namely expert-novice, professional partnership, critical minority and silent minority. Additionally, findings on participant perceptions of effectiveness and on the impact of the teacher's cultural background on teaching and learning are detailed. The study makes three propositions on how to prepare pre-service teachers for cultural diversity. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are outlined.
Preparing Teachers for Cultural Diversity: Rhetoric or Reality
1992
Teacher educators must consider two major issues in their efforts to incorporate multicultural education into preservice teacher preparation programs: (1) the background and previous experiences of preservice teachers; and (2) schooling as an ins itution that either inhibits or promotes the strengths of citizens in a democratic society. In both schools and colleges, few role models exist for racial-or language-minority students. In addition, the curriculums at all educational levels tend to be strongly r,onocultural, reflecting little ethnic or cultural diversity. Recent philosophical and theoretical perspectives in education have provided insights into alternatives for multicultural teacher education. Constructivist orientations would lead programs to create experiences in which diverse realities are explored. Developmental psychology perspectives would cause teacher education to be based on the recognition that an individual's cognitive development cannot be separated from the surrounding social context. The reconstructionist perspective focuses on the conditions of schooling within a democracy. Preservice teachers must construct understandings of the effect of values on reality, the dominant forces in society, the political and economic context in which decisions are made, and the impact of culture on the individual. The teacher education program must be grounded in these issues which are philosophical, social, political, economic, and psychological. (Contains 41 references.) (IAli)
FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education
In Aotearoa New Zealand, as in many pluralistic democracies, the continuing disparity in educational outcomes has resulted in a growing call for changes in teacher preparation to better support culturally diverse learners in ways that are responsive to the particular national and cultural contexts. This paper presents findings from a teacher education program specifically designed to address this need within the national context of ‘biculturalism’, a treaty-based socio-political partnership between M?ori and P?k?h? (non-M?ori). Grounded in socio-cultural theory, this practitioner-inquiry examined how the iterative use of a specific ‘cultural tool’, a synthesizing framework of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy, within the program supported 16 secondary teacher candidates to develop their professional identity as teachers. Findings indicate that all of the candidates came to view diversity as a strength, and developed key culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogical pr...
The Cultural Work of Teacher Education
Theory Into Practice, 2017
Engaging teacher education as cultural work positions teacher educators and pre-service teachers as cultural workers. Cultural workers foreground the cultural complexities of their situated experiences while aiming to produce cultures that transform prevailing inequalities and injustices in public education. Doctoral students are also cultural workers translating the world of academia and their role in it as they learn to educate teacher candidates. How doctoral candidates engage in this cultural work depends greatly on the degree to which their faculty mentors are able to reveal the contradictions and opportunities for expansive learning that co-exist within schools of education and individual departments such as curriculum and learning. This paper looks at this conundrum from the perspectives of a doctoral student and a senior faculty member.
Learning difference in teacher education: A conversation
Journal of the Canadian Association for …, 2004
In a society as culturally diverse as Canada, the everyday encounter with cultural difference is commonplace. The challenge of assisting preservice teachers to respond ethically to cultural difference presents some difficult issues for teacher educators. The most obvious difficulty is that we lack experience in educating for difference (Johnston & Carson, 2000, p. 76). The curriculum in professional schools tends to focus on widely accepted bodies of knowledge and skills that comply with provincial regulations and are presumed to be transferable from one individual to another (Johnston & Carson, 2000; Province of Alberta, 1997). The focus is on sameness of outcome. We treat teaching as an a-cultural act embodying universal values and practices; in so doing, we fail to recognize that teaching is a culturally situated practice. The second difficulty emerges when we try to address issues of social difference in courses. Often, beginning teachers understand culture and identity as a fixed, either/or entity rather than a complex, dynamic relation (Phelan, 2001). Norquay (2000) argues that this is a deliberate move since preservice teachers desire a secure identity that cannot be "troubled by the complexities of race or ethnicity" (p. 9). Further, Johnston and Carson (2000) note, "[T]he absence of secure knowledge awakens the ambivalence of cultural identity among students in a context that is already fraught with the uncertainties of forming [professional] identities" (p. 76). The devaluation and resignification of cultural brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (JCACS)
Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2019
This study investigated the experiences of a group of pre-service secondary science teachers in learning to teach in culturally diverse contexts. The pre-service teachers were all assigned to placements within a large, urban, culturally diverse public high school and paired with mentor teachers. Through one-on-one interviews, the pre-service teachers were asked to recount and evaluate their experiences, as well as to respond to research-informed deficit beliefs about urban and culturally diverse students and communities. Through critical discourse analysis, the pre-service teachers were characterized as establishing particular positionalities in regards to learning to teach within the culturally diverse context of the high school. The pre-service teachers were, furthermore, characterized as establishing particular positionalities in regards to select deficit beliefs that were discussed in the interviews. The role of agency and institutional power structures in supporting or constraining the positionalities established by the pre-service teachers was also considered. Major implications from this study include the need for teacher education programs to address gaps between pedagogical theory and practice enacted or observed in classrooms; the need to facilitate stronger systems of support for pre-service teacher education from the schoolbased administration; and positionalities, as indicators of more deeply held beliefs, and how these beliefs may influence teaching and learning. Keywords Pre-service science teachers • Positionality • Clinical field experiences • Culturally diverse teaching contexts Résumé Cette étude a examinée les expériences d'un groupe d'enseignants de sciences du secondaire, avant leur service, qui ont appris à enseigner dans des contextes de cultures diverses.
From Teacher Education to Practicing Teacher: What Does Culturally Relevant Praxis Look Like?
Despite reports of already practicing K-12 teachers’ attempts to teach for critical social justice in their classrooms, there is little connection between teacher education programs and/or the impact of teacher practice in the classroom. This article presents data collected over 3 years from one teacher enrolled in an urban-multicultural teacher education program who transitioned into her first years of teaching. Findings revealed that the teacher implemented culturally relevant education through (a) a caring community, (b) holding high expectations, (c) cultural competence, and (d) sociopolitical awareness as a teacher. Barriers the teacher faced as well as lessons for teacher educators are shared.
The Training of Teachers for Cultural Diversity and Social Justice
2004
Introduction: the ethnocentric curriculum and the challenge of intercultural teaching In what contexts are teachers taught how to address racism and other forms of oppression in schools and society? How do we develop culturally relevant pedagogy for all students, in the interests of equity and social justice? And when teachers do receive such training, what might it look like and how do we evaluate it? It has been suggested that debate about multicultural education tends to take place against a background of social stability and shared debate of the kind that characterizes the wealthy countries of the 'North' (Morrow, 1996: 99). Yet it should be at the forefront of discussions in all societies seeking to teach for social justice, global perspectives and equity. Discussions of issues and strategies in multicultural teacher education seem, in the literature, to be addressing mainly the context of the white-dominant countries. Many compelling teacher education experiments in developing intercultural knowledge and skills are described, but the literature also suggests that an engagement with these issues is the exception rather than the rule. Most teacher education courses carry out only minimally their rhetorical goals of preparing teachers to practise 'inclusive' education. Various subjects introduce the concept that teachers must strive to contribute to equity in the learning experiences of different ethnic, gender and ability groups. However, in Australia, Canada, Sweden, United Kingdom, the United States and other countries very few courses make it compulsory for all student teachers to do a systematic and critical study of how such equity can be promoted (Hickling-Hudson and McMeniman, 1996; Ghosh, 1996; Tomlinson, 1996; Zeichner, 1996). Across the globe, most teacher education courses, like most school curricula, are still founded on a model of cultural hegemony characterized by a narrowly Western ideology shaping the content, structures and processes of learning. As Willinsky (1998: 11) points out, it would be surprising, after five centuries of the educational mission that was a part of Europe's period of 1. My grateful thanks to Dr Roberta Ahlquist for her constructive critical comments on drafts of this essay.