The allure of simplicity: Scripted curricula and equity (original) (raw)

Equity Across the Curriculum

Equity Across the Curriculum, 1997

This book aims to ease the difficulty of dealing with organizational change and its surrounding issues. Significant time has been devoted to examining strategies and approaches to achieving equity, and information is provided on how to plan and start an organizational change process -from identifying systemic barriers in the delivery of services, to measuring progress over the long term. Some basic principles have also been outlined for consideration when developing an anti-discrimination policy.

Equity-Directed Instructional Practices: Beyond the Dominant Perspective

Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 2017

In this article, the author synthesizes four equity-directed instructional practices: standards-based mathematics instruction, complex instruction, culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), and teaching mathematics for social justice (TMfSJ). The author organizes these practices according to the dominant and critical axes in Gutiérrez’s (2007a) equity framework. Among 12 teachers from 11 schools in a large urban school district, the author presents case studies of 3 teachers who excelled with the aforementioned dominant equity-directed practices but struggled with the critical practices of connecting to students’ experiences called for in CRP and critical mathematics called for in TMfSJ. The analysis explicitly explores the role of whiteness in these struggles. The author presents implications and recommendations for mathematics teacher education on how to better support teachers for equitable teaching that includes these critical equity-directed practices

Rethinking the Notion of Equity to Address the Fundamental Assumptions and Goals of Curriculum 2005 1

2005

One of the fundamental assumptions of Curriculum 2005 is that all learners can learn mathematics and succeed. This, together with rhetoric about “equity”, “redress”, “access” and “personal empowerment”, is certainly appealing in a country with a legacy of inequality in education. Working in collaboration with the TAP Project in Israel, MALATI has developed a philosophy of and approach to teaching and learning that we believe reflects these underlying assumptions and goals. This requires a shift in thinking about the notion of “equity” and time, and changes in classroom and assessment practices. This paper describes the MALATI philosophy and reports on the process of implementation of the approach by two teachers in a MALATI project school. Successes achieved as well as obstacles to implementation as perceived by the teachers are discussed.

Rethinking the notion of equity to address the fundamental assumptions and goals of Curriculum 2005

1999

One of the fundamental assumptions of Curriculum 2005 is that all learners can learn mathematics and succeed. This, together with rhetoric about “equity”,“redress”,“access” and “personal empowerment”, is certainly appealing in a country with a legacy of inequality in education. Working in collaboration with the TAP Project in Israel, MALATI has developed a philosophy of and approach to teaching and learning that we believe reflects these underlying assumptions and goals.

Exploring Teachers’ Understanding of Equity and Inclusive Education and Their Pedagogical Choices

2013

This thesis investigates how teaching in a low-diversity school environment affects equity education. The theoretical frameworks as elaborated by Banks with regards to critical multiculturalism and Kumashiro's approach to anti-oppressive education underpin the analysis. Four Ontario elementary teachers participated in semi-structured interviews. The purpose was to examine their decisions when teaching about equity and how they arrived at those decisions. By drawing on their experiences and viewpoints, the perceptions and practices of these participants were analyzed. Consistent with teachers in high-diversity environments, these teachers in low-diversity classrooms taught about equity when they saw a student need. Since they did not encounter certain visible differences in their local communities, they were likely to miss teaching more broadly about diversity. The research findings point to a need for anti-racist/antioppressive and multicultural education for teachers in all learning environments, not just in urban schools where there tends to be a more diverse student population.

From Appreciating to Disrupting: Interrogating Equity-Centered Syllabi for Middle Grades Teacher Preparation

Research in Middle Level Education Online, 2024

The researchers used Gorski's continuum of five approaches to multicultural education-which extends from conservative to liberal and then critical-to analyze 40 syllabi from required or elective courses for candidates seeking licensure to teach in the middle grades (grades 4-9). While the researchers found evidence of all five approaches within the syllabi, most syllabi fell under the liberal approach, emphasizing the understanding of individual learners and cultural responsiveness as the purpose of equity-based work. Following syllabi coding, the researchers conducted nine semistructured interviews to member-check and analyze to what extent respondents perceived their syllabi as matching their instruction. In addition, the researchers identified four factors for limiting equity-orientations in the syllabi and in teaching the courses themselves: national and state standards, institutional requirements, sociopolitical context, and individual knowledge. While the researchers identified strengths in equity-oriented middle level teacher preparation syllabi, they also illuminate the need to move the focus in syllabi more consistently from appreciating diversity to disrupting oppressive systems.

“Different Spots in Their Learning Journey”: Striving to Develop Equity-Oriented Teacher Education Pedagogy

Inclusion and Social Justice in Teacher Education, 2024

We are three teacher educators who position our pedagogy as inclusive, relational, contextual, and community-based. As a team, we engaged in a critical case study seeking to understand if and how we made space for social justice in our teaching. We looked across interview data from the 2021–22 academic year to examine how nine teacher candidates (TCs) experienced our efforts to respond to and address issues related to equity and diversity within our courses. In this chapter, we address the research question: Across our courses, how did our pedagogical approaches help or hinder our efforts to address equity, diversity, and inclusion? Our analysis identified several pedagogy-related themes. We found that our pedagogical efforts supported TCs by validating their ways of being and doing and connecting theory and practice. However, the impetus for this chapter came from a recogni-tion that TCs often did not recognize attention to equity across coursework and felt ill-equipped to engage in equity-related classroom discussions. Additionally, TCs identified issues related to power, privilege, and voice in experiences with our instruc-tional team. These more critical aspects from our findings point to three implications for teacher education.