Program Content that Fosters Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

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A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and Their Families-Report of the Presidents Commission on Excellence in Special Education. (2002).
Branstad, Terry E., Chair of the U.S. Department of Education.
Emphasizes scientifically based teacher education practices, the importance of early reading instruction, the need for all teaching candidates to be prepared to use research-based practices to drive instruction, and other topics. Full text.
http://www.ed.gov/inits/commissionsboards/whspecialeducation/reports.html

Bueno Center for Multicultural Education
University of Colorado at Boulder.
Strongly promotes quality education, with an emphasis on multiculturalism, through a range of research, training, and service projects. Is committed to facilitating equal educational opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Among many other things, the web site offers a series of resources for teacher preparation and professional development on eight CD-ROMs. The web site also includes occupational opportunities for bilingual speakers.
http://www.Colorado.EDU/education/BUENO/

A Candid Talk to Teacher Educators about Effectively Preparing Teachers Who Can Teach Everyone’s Children (2006)
Carl Grant and Maureen Gillette
This article focuses on characteristics necessary to be an effective teacher for all children, regardless of their academic ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family structure, sexual orientation, and ability to speak English. The article gives attention to the issues of equity and social justice as it addresses the knowledge and skill base of effective teachers.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Grant_06.pdf

Center for Education and Equity in Mathematics, Science and Technology Website.
California State Polytechnic University in Pomona.
Activities include improving teaching and learning at all levels of science and math; promoting professional development of math, science, and technology educators; enhancing the study of science and math by all students, especially females and minority group members. Teachers As Agents of Systemic Change (TAASC) is a five-year project to encourage and implement systemic change in the secondary math programs of four major multicultural districts in eastern Los Angeles County.
http://www.ceemast.csupomona.edu/

Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence
University of California, Santa Cruz
Assists the nation's population of diverse students, including those at risk of educational failure, to achieve academic excellence. Research focuses on identifying and developing effective educational practices for linguistic and cultural minority students, such as those placed at risk by factors of race, poverty, and geographic location. During 2001-2003, seven Synthesis Teams are extracting key findings and practices from CREDE's research over the prior five years to produce an array of state-of-the art materials on diversity education, covering: (a) language learning and academic achievement; (b) professional development for diversity; (c) preservice teacher education for diversity; (d) schools, family, and community; (e) mathematics and diversity; (f) science and diversity; and (g) teacher-school-systemic integration for effective reform.
http://www.crede.ucsc.edu

Cradleboard Teaching Project
Cradleboard encourages public education about Native American culture. Backed by lesson plans and curriculum, the project is also live and interactive, linking children and teachers in various locations. Electronic Powwow participants pay a small fee for year-long privileges of private chat rooms and discussion boards, and also have access to the core curriculum, supplements, and teacher training workshops. The Cradleboard Cross-Cultural Partnering Program is offered to veteran Cradleboard classes who have participated in Electronic Powwow for at least a year. A private Cradleboarders web site is created for these classes to share with their partner classes. Teachers receive an immediate email of test results as each students takes online quizzes. Resources are available at the web site.
http://www.cradleboard.org

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Ingredients for critical teacher reflection (2003)
Tyrone C. Howard
This article offers critical reflection as a prelude to creating culturally relevant teaching strategies. The author outlines theoretical and practical considerations for critical reflection and culturally relevant teaching for teacher education. The author argues that the development of culturally relevant teaching strategies is contingent upon critical reflection about race and culture of teachers and their students.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Howard_03.pdf

Culture and Language in Native American Education. (2003)
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
With support from the federal Institute of Education Sciences, a NWREL-led coalition has been examining the research base on Native American education, and reviewing past and present Native education projects across the country. This is a search for studies that show a causal link between culturally based education (CBE) and academic achievement, as well as existing projects that might lend themselves to rigorous scientific study. This site summarizes events and studies leading to this effort and provides a link to the full text of A Review of the Research Literature on the Influences of Culturally Based Education on the Academic Performance of Native American students.
http://www.nwrel.org/indianed/cbe/

Culturally Competent Practice for School Psychologists.
National Association of School Psychologists Website
A set of papers that address (a) culture and cultural competence, (b) providing culturally competent services, (c) NASP cultural competence resources, (d) relevant committees and task forces. Also includes a directory of bilingual school psychologists, Powerpoint presentations, and a reference list.
http://www.nasponline.org/culturalcompetence/index.html

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Special Education for Ethnically Diverse Students: Setting the Stage. (2002)
Gay, Geneva. (2002). International Journal of Qualitative Studies In Education, 15(6).
Discusses the nature of culturally responsive teaching (CRT). CRT incorporates the cultural orientations, background experiences, and ethnic identities of students of color into teaching styles. Obstacles to CRT include negative teacher attitudes and expectations for students of color, and confusing learning disabilities with cultural diversity. Because of these 2 obstacles, students of color are disproportionately assigned to special education because educators lack knowledge about or appreciation for their cultural values and socialization, and how these affect learning behaviors. Components of CRT include the educational critical cultural consciousness of teachers, culturally pluralistic classroom climates, diverse communities of learners, and multicultural curriculum and instruction.

Developing Cultural Critical Consciousness and Self-Reflection in Preservice Teacher Education.
Gay, Geneva & Kirkland, K. (2003). Theory into Practice, 42 (3).
Asserts that developing personal and professional critical consciousness about racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity should be a major component of preservice teacher education; discusses how teacher education students avoid engaging with racial issues in education (silence, diversion, guilt, and benevolent liberalism); and suggests strategies to counter them (creating learning expectations of criticalness, modeling, providing opportunities to practice critical consciousness, and translating conceptual multicultural education into K-12 instructional possibilities).

Examining the Role of Critical Inquiry for Transformative Practices: Two Joint Case Studies of Multicultural Teacher Education. (2002)
Jennings, Louise, & Smith, Cynthia Potter. (2002). Teachers College Record (Louise Jennings, University of South Carolina, & Cynthia Potter Smith, Rock Hill District Three Schools, SC)
Describes two related ethnographic case studies to discuss how an emphasis on critical inquiry in a multicultural education course (first case) influenced one teacher's understandings and actions during two years following the course (second case). The article also describes the tools and structures that supported this teacher in creating transformative multicultural practices across classrooms in her school district. Full text.
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=10845

Faculty First: The challenge of infusing the teacher education curriculum with scholarship on English language learners (2005)
Jennifer Costa, Gary McPhail, Janet Smith, and María Estela Brisk
This article describes a faculty institute in which faculty, doctoral students, and public school personnel participated as a catalyst for educating teacher education faculty in the scholarship on English language learners. The study monitors the change process occurring among individual faculty and the resulting course syllabi changes, illustrating how context influenced this change effort.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Costa_05.pdf

The Impact of a Field Immersion Program on Pre-Service Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Teaching in Culturally Diverse Classrooms (2007)
Robert Wiggins, Eric Follo, and Mary Eberly
This study sought to influence both an understanding of community and a positive attitude toward cultural diversity through on-site coursework and a long-term field placement at a culturally diverse urban elementary school. Questionnaire responses from predominantly single, white females from suburban communities suggest that this immersion program improved the attitudes of these pre-service teachers. Findings support the idea that a targeted field placement, support from peers and teachers, and meaningful coursework facilitates the preparation of culturally responsive teachers—even for those with little or no prior experience in culturally diverse communities.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Wiggins_07.pdf

Increasing Preservice Teachers' Diversity Beliefs and Commitment. (2002)
Middleton, Valerie A. (2002). Urban Review, 34 (4).
Explored the attitudes, beliefs, and commitments to diversity of a predominantly Anglo-American population of preservice teachers enrolled in a diversity course. Results described beginning ethnorelative attitudes, beliefs, and commitments after participation in the diversity course; some theoretical underpinnings for understanding change (or lack of change); and a framework for facilitating positive multicultural experiences The Integration of Social Justice in Teacher Education: Dimensions of prospective teachers’ opportunities to learn (2005)
Morva McDonald
How are teacher education programs preparing teachers to teach well in increasingly diverse classrooms? This article addresses this question by examining how two teacher education programs aim to improve how they prepare prospective teachers to teach racially diverse and low-income students well. Demonstrating that the literature has shown that teacher education programs have typically aimed to address diversity with add-on or piecemeal approaches, the author shows how recent approaches have suggested that program that integrate a social-justice orientation across program setting are likely to fare better.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/McDonald_05.pdf

Iris Center for Faculty Enhancement Website
Vanderbilt University.
A national effort to ensure that K-12 general education teachers, school administrators, school nurses, and school counselors are well prepared to work with students with disabilities who are educated in inclusive settings, and their families. Web-based learning modules based on validated practices, as well as case studies, and other materials are becoming available for pre-service preparation, including practices in reading and other basic skills.
http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu

Knowledge and Skills Needed by Speech-Language Pathologists with Respect to Reading and Writing in Children and Adolescents. (2002).
ASHA Ad Hoc Committee on Reading and Writing
This knowledge and skills document is an official statement of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. It is among the ASHA Preferred Practice Patterns that define universally applicable characteristics of practice.
http://www.asha.org/NR/rdonlyres/7EA339AB-A7EB-453D-9B09-ECCBB50C6ADB/0/19443_2.pdf

Learning and Unlearning: The education of teacher educators (2003)
Marilyn Cochran-Smith
This article draws on the authors own participation in a variety of teacher educator learning communities. Highlighting key examples from four communities, Cochran-Smith suggests that the education of teacher educators in different contexts and at different entry points over the course of the professional career is substantially enriched when inquiry is regarded as a stance on the overall enterprise of teacher education and when teacher educators inquire collaboratively about assumptions and values, professional knowledge and practice, the contexts of schools as well as higher education, and their own as well as their students’ learning.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Cochran-Smith_03.pdf

Learning to Advocate for Educational Equity in a Teacher Credential Program (2006)
Steven Athanases and Kathleen Martin
Using focus group and survey research methods, graduates of a 5-year program reported on two broad categories of program strength. The first was the value of infusion of culture, language, and equity content in coursework. The second, which extended coursework, was sustained and scaffolded apprenticeships in teaching for equity, including student teaching supervisors as equity mentors, placements that support teaching for equity, and ongoing cohort discussions of equity teaching.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Athanases_06.pdf

Linguistic Minority Research Institute Website
University of California
A multi-campus research unit on development of educational practice and policy for academic achievement of language minority students. Provides information to researchers, students, practitioners, and policymakers in California, which generalize to other areas of the country. Policy reports, technical reports, and working papers may be downloaded.
http://lmri.ucsb.edu/

Mathematical Proficiency for All Students Toward a Strategic Research and Development Program in Mathematics Education. (2003).
RAND Mathematics Study Panel, RAND Corporation. Ball, Deborah Loewenberg, Chair of the RAND corporation.
Proposes an R&D program to support the improvement of mathematics proficiency among ALL school students in the U.S., and to eliminate differences in levels of math proficiency among students in different social, cultural, and ethnic groups. The focus is on: (a) development of teachers' mathematical knowledge: (a) teaching and learning of skills for mathematical thinking and problem solving; and (c) teaching and learning of algebra from kindergarten through grade 12. Full text.
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1643/

Multicultural Pavilion
EdChange Website.
Resources and dialogues for equity in education, including forums for educators to interact and collaborate toward a critical, transformative approach to multicultural education. The web site includes teaching materials, lists, tools, fact sheets, and links to papers and additional sources.
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/

National Association for Multicultural Education. Films on Multiculturalism and Diversity.
Annotations of a large number of films selected for screening at the annual conferences of the National Association for Multicultural Education. Includes contact information on the producers and a list of other film companies to contact.
http://www.nameorg.org/resources/films.html (1996-00 conferences) http://www.nameorg.org/resources/films2001.html (2001 conference) http://www.nameorg.org/resources/films2002.html (2002 conference)

National Center for Improving Student Learning and Achievement in Mathematics and Science Website.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Focuses on research on student reasoning, assessment strategies, teacher practices, professional development models, school features that support learning and achievement. NCISLA research briefs, newsletters, reports, articles, and teacher resources may be downloaded.
http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/NCISLA/

National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and Language Instruction Education Programs Website.
George Washington University
Collects, analyzes, and disseminates information relating to the effective education of linguistically and culturally diverse learners in the U.S. Addresses critical issues; serves as a broker for exemplary practices and research related to linguistically and culturally diverse students; and provides information for personnel working in foreign language programs, English-as-a-Second-Language programs, Head Start, Title I, migrant education, and adult education.
http://www.ncela.gwu.edu

Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching
Gay, Geneva. (2002). Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2).
Promotes the improvement of school success for ethnically diverse students via culturally responsive teachers and the preparation of preservice teachers with necessary knowledge, attitudes, and skills to do this, highlighting: development of a cultural diversity knowledge base; design of culturally relevant curricula; demonstration of cultural caring; development of a learning community; cross-cultural communication; and cultural congruity in classroom instruction.

Preparing Preservice Teachers to Teach in a Culturally Responsive Way (2006)
Charline J. Barnes
A teacher education program designed to adequately prepare preservice teachers to instruct culturally and linguistically diverse students in their classrooms is described. Data were collected from the class and field experiences of 24 preservice teachers using a culturally responsive teaching framework in the areas of (a) autobiographical poem and cultural artifact, (b) cultural diversity awareness inventory, (c) book discussion groups, (d) inquiry project, and (e) structured field experience. These data were discussed and used to enhance their preparation for instructing culturally and linguistically diverse students.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Barnes_06.pdf

Preparing Teachers for Diverse Classrooms: Creating Public and Private Spaces to Explore Culture through Poetry Writing. (2003)
Rosaen, Cheryl L. (2003). Teachers College Record, 105(8).
Examined how one teacher educator transformed her curriculum, teaching, and assessment practices to better prepare beginning teachers for diversity by using poetry as a site for exploring one's own culture and sharing the knowledge with others in a literacy methods course. Results highlighted teacher candidates' perceptions of the poetry writing activity and their learning about curriculum, pedagogy, multicultural competence, and social justice.

Programs that Prepare Teachers to Work Effectively with Students Learning English. (2000)
Gonzales, Josue E. & Hammond, Linda. (2000). ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics. Summarizes some of the issues associated with traditional teacher education and describes several pre-service and professional development programs that prepare teachers to work effectively with English language learners.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/ericlearningenglish.pdf

Reducing Disproportionate Minority Representation in Special Education Programs for Students with Emotional Disturbances: Toward a culturally responsive response to intervention model (2006)
Nancy Harris-Murri, Kathleen King, and Dalia Rostenberg
Here the authors present an overview of the RTI model as initially intended for use in determining IDEA eligibility category of Specific Learning Disability (SLD), discuss current literature that examines the use of RTI for evaluation of Emotional Disturbances (ED), and highlight research-based instruction and intervention practices of culturally responsive pedagogy. This is followed by a discussion of the integration of such practices into an RTI model for the evaluation of ED.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Harris-Murri_06.pdf

Special Education, Multicultural Education, and School Reform: Components of Quality Education for Learners with Mild Disabilities (2003)
Cheryl A. Utley and Festus E. Obiakor, Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas
In their book, Utley and Obiakor seek to address the complexities surrounding the discussion of culture, race, and disability. One question sets the tone for the book: “How can an equitable and culturally responsible education be provided for multicultural learners with mild disabilities in inclusive classroom settings?”(p. xv). While many researchers have found linking diversity and disability problematic, Utley and Obiakor present valuable knowledge and strategies that can help our profession bridge the two fields effectively.

Self-Assessment for Cultural Competence (ASHA)
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Cochran-Smith2_03.pdf

Stereotypes of Asian American Students. (2002)
Kim, Angela & Yeh, Christine J. (2002). ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education.
Discusses the various negative and positive Asian American stereotypes, and explores how school practices and individual educators may reinforce them, consciously or unconsciously. Full text.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/ericstereotypesasian.pdf

What Precipitates Change in Cultural Diversity Awareness During a Multicultural Course: The message or the method? (2004)
Elinor L. Brown
In a unique study using both quantitative and qualitative measures of change, the relationship between instructional methodology and changes in resistance to cultural diversity sensitivity among Caucasian teacher education students was investigated. Study results indicated that the message can precipitate some change in cultural diversity sensitivity, but the methodology used to reduce resistance and nurture and reinforce the message has a greater influence.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Brown_04.pdf

Widening the Circle: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for American Indian Children (2004)
Beverly Klug and Patricia Whitfield, New York: Routledge Falmer
This book provides non-Native teachers with information about Native American cultures and offers a pedagogical model that blends Native and non-Native worldviews and methodologies. The book aims to describe the process of becoming bicultural as it relates to success in teaching Native students; provides a short history of American Indian nations, including educational practices and legislation related to American Indian education; assists teachers in developing a better understanding of culture; and presents examples of culturally relevant pedagogy and ways of partnering with Indian communities.

Working with Communities to Explore and Personalize Culturally Relevant Pedagogies (2007)
Barbara Seidl
Conducting collaborative research with her M.Ed. students, the author reports the results of a year-long study on how preservice teachers can make cultural and political knowledge concretely available. Although the author is careful to avoid describing the work as a “model,” the description of one particular group of preservice teachers in one community shows one way of developing bicultural competency and personalized cultural and political knowledge.
http://www.monarchcenter.org/pdfs/Seidl_07.pdf