Culturally Responsive Pedagogies
Evolution of a Multicultural Education Course Offering to Pre-Service Teachers
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paoze Thao
Multicultural education is a school reform that emerged from the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s with the goals that “students from all social class, gender, racial, language, and cultural groups would have an opportunity to learn” (Banks & Banks, 2001, p. 4). Given this movement, curriculum and instructions, and course offerings for pre-service teachers at the California State University Monterey Bay were redesigned to prepare undergraduate Liberal Studies’ students with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to be able to teach cross-culturally. The goals of Multicultural Education were to ensure that by educating university students, they would in turn educate K-12 students to respect and appreciate people of different ethnicities, cultures, abilities, and social economic status. Armed with a diverse perspective, K-12 students would become literate and socially adept in cross-cultural interactions and possible decrease and or eliminate discrimination, racism, and ethnocentrism. Banks, Sleeter, Grant and many others multicultural educators foresaw that students taught courses in Multicultural Education would be the catalysts for environments that could improve race relations, decrease racial misunderstandings, and become stewards for a pluralistic society.
Engaging Teacher Candidates in Discussing Controversial Issues in Multicultural Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ernest Oluwole Pratt
The goal of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) is to ensure that educator preparation providers (EPPs) prepare future teachers who know the content of the subject(s) they will teach, know how to teach that content effectively to students from diverse groups... With the emphasis on diversity in teacher preparation, multicultural education plays an important role in preparing future teachers. But according to Villegas & Lucas (2002), a singular focus on the “what’s” of multicultural education without addressing the critical elements of organizational culture and climate may produce virtuous feelings but inconsequential and perfunctory results. This approach to multiculturalism assumes teacher candidates lack relevant knowledge and gives limited attention to other models of cross-cultural education (Irvine, 2003). The essence of a healthy democracy is open dialogue about issues of public concern (Harwood & Hahn, 2009). A multicultural education course provides an important platform in a teacher education program for addressing controversial issues. As future teachers, teacher candidates need to be equipped with the tools necessary to succeed in the modern world.
Lack of Socio-economic and Ethnic Diversity in Appalachian Colleges and Educational Solution Strategies
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brigitte Anderson, Andrew Reed
As faculty at the University of Pikeville, a small liberal arts university in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky, Dr. Brigitte Anderson and Mr. Andrew Reed primarily teach students descended from 19th-century Scotch-Irish settlers. Ethnic diversity is limited. The situation is similar regarding socio-economics. Students belong to the working middle class. Interested in this phenomenon, Anderson and Reed, consulted recent scholarship (2010-2017) and conducted their own primary research at five Appalachian colleges and universities. Their goal was to assert the lack of diversity at Appalachian colleges, and to identify educational strategies to compensate for this lack. They learned, the primary vehicle for students to immerse themselves in diversity is Experiential Learning in various forms.
