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
We ground our vision of culturally responsive teaching in constructivist views of learning.
From a constructivist perspective, learning is a
process by which students generate meaning in
response to new ideas and experiences they
encounter in school. In this interpretive process,
learners use their prior knowledge and beliefs
which they store in memory as mental structures (described variously by cognitive scientists as knowledge frameworks, schemata, mental models, and personal theories)to make
sense of the new input (Glasersfeld, 1995;
Piaget, 1977). As this suggests, the knowledge
children bring to school, derived from personal
and cultural experiences, is central to their
learning. To overlook this resource is to deny
children access to the knowledge construction
process. The conventional empty vessel metaphor of the learner yields to the image of a
builder who is constantly striving to construct meaning. Similarly, the traditional belief
that knowledge resides, intact, outside the
learner gives way to an understanding that
information that is external to the student
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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,
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Delpit, L. D. (1995). Other peoples children: Cultural conflict
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(Eds.), Exploring teaching: Reinventing an introductory
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Fullan, M. (1999). Change forces: The sequel. London: Falmer.
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Annotations
Mendeley User
Page no. 1
21/10/2015 1:21
The inclusion classes we have taken in our program, whether its for special education or ELL students
is not very helpful in preparing us. The assignments we are asked to do rarely seem to connect with
what we would actually do in the classroom. My IMTs are unable to help their ELL or SPED students
because they do not know how to help them. This cycle is going to keep reoccuring unless we change
the way the teacher prep programs are organized. Instread of reading the textbooks and then reflecting
on what we read every week, by drawing a picture, we should be learning SPECIFIC ways to
communicate with our ELL students, how to reach them, and how to get them involved in our content
area.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 2
21/10/2015 1:38
I took a BLE class 4 semesters ago, I am now "learning" the exact same things in this semester's BLE
course. What is the point of that?
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Mendeley User
Page no. 2
21/10/2015 14:57
Get to know your students. Learning about student's background and interests can help the teacher
engage lessons with materials and activites that interest the students.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 3
21/10/2015 15:09
During my childhood, I lived in a wealthy neighborhood with both parents. I was fortunate enough to
have the childhood I had. In my early teens however, that totally changed. My parents were divorced
and my mom, sister, and I moved around a lot. Going from wealth to poverty definitely changed my
outlook on life and I think having experienced both sides of the equation has helped with my
sociocultural consciousness. I hope that my past will help me understand my student's lives and that in
certain cases, school is not their first priority because of their home situation. Students in that situation
need extra help in order to maintain good grades and keep up with prioritites at home.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 4
21/10/2015 15:13
Race should never be an issue in the classroom, between students or between students and the
teacher. This would help students feel like they are equal and that their teacher thinks that they are all
capable of achieving the same goals.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 5
21/10/2015 16:14
Teachers do not have the same freedom they had in the past. There are so many rules and
expectations for teachers that have developed in the last 10 or so years. The stories in the news about
teachers being inappropriate with students give teachers a bad image. This is probably the scariest
part of being a future teacher. The allegations can be detremental to a teaching career, even if the
allegations are proved false.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 7
21/10/2015 16:23
Educator programs focus on teaching about education and not what it is teachers are going to be
teaching. This is a huge problem because rookie teachers are not prepared for their content. The
classes we take are somewhat interactive and have learned some great strategies but how to actually
relate them to specific topics, particurally in history, can be tricky. While I was in high school, my history
classes stuck with the tradtional approach of lecturing and testing. Just like the article says, thats what
I would be most comfortable doing because thats how I was taught in high school. However, students
are not as enganged with that type of approach.
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Mendeley User
Page no. 8
21/10/2015 16:27
The thing that I am most excited about is that I can teach my students different perspectives about
topics in history. This was not done in my history classes in high school and I think it is a great way to
give students the opportunity to develop their own thoughts and opinions about the topic.