Building Racial And Cultural Competence In The Classroom

In this compelling anthology, a diverse group of experienced teacher educators and practicing teachers tackle the impact of race and culture on teaching and learning. Sharing their personal experiences, research, and reflections, they focus on the connections among teacher quality, teacher preparation, and the achievement gap for African Americans and other children of color. They address ways that teachers can assess and enhance their own racial and cultural competence and in so doing better educate their students, especially in inner-city schools. Providing an inspiring and practical tool for engaging in successful, meaningful education with K–12 students of color, this stellar group of contributors offers: Concrete ideas and advice on what educators can do to support teachers to become more racially and culturally competent. Multiple perspectives providing a variety of new insights on current research and practice. Honest and thought-provoking personal narratives on race and schooling.

What will it take to create equitable educational opportunities for all students? According to veteran educator Vernita Mayfield, teachers and school leaders need to learn how to recognize culturally embedded narratives about racial hierarchy and dismantle the systems of privilege and the institutions that perpetuate them with knowledge, action, and advocacy. Cultural Competence Now provides a structure to begin meaningful conversations about race, culture, bias, privilege, and power within the time constraints of an ordinary school. The 56 exercises include activities, discussions, and readings in which to engage during each of the four quarters of the school year. School leaders will discover how to facilitate learning through the four steps—awaken and assess; apply and act; analyze and align; advocate and lead—as you and your colleagues * Increase your awareness of privilege and bias. * Adapt your professional practices to meet the needs of all students. * Examine policies and practices that inhibit opportunities for marginalized populations. * Align resources to eradicate inequity in your school. Mayfield offers advice on establishing a safe environment for professional conversations, setting goals for cultural competency, overcoming resistance, reviewing school data and the school's vision and mission through the lens of race and culture, and strategically managing what can be a transformative yet uncomfortable change process. Cultural Competence Now responds to the urgent need to build the cultural competency of educators—for the sake of children and in the interest of supporting and retaining all educators.

The achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionately low at all levels of education. More than ever, Geneva Gay's foundational book on culturally responsive teaching is essential reading in addressing the needs of today's diverse student population. Combining insights from multicultural education theory and research with real-life classroom stories, Gay demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through their own cultural experiences. This bestselling text has been extensively revised to include expanded coverage of student ethnic groups: African and Latino Americans as well as Asian and Native Americans as well as new material on culturally diverse communication, addressing common myths about language diversity and the effects of "English Plus" instruction.

Issues tied to race and culture continue to be a part of the landscape of America’s schools and classrooms. Given the rapid demographic transformation in the nation’s states, cities, counties, and schools, it is essential that all school personnel acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to talk, teach, and think across racial and cultural differences. The second edition of Howard’s bestseller has been updated to take a deeper look at how schools must be prepared to respond to disparate outcomes among students of color. Tyrone Howard draws on theoretical constructs tied to race and racism, culture and opportunity gaps to address pressing issues stemming from the chronic inequalities that remain prevalent in many schools across the country. This time-honored text will help educators at all levels respond with greater conviction and clarity on how to create more equitable, inclusive, and democratic schools as sites for teaching and learning. “If you thought the first edition of Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools was impactful, this second edition is even more of a force to be reckoned with in the fight for social justice. By pushing the boundaries of the ordinary and the normative, this book teaches as it transforms. Every educator, preservice and inservice, working with racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse young people should read this book.” —H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Education, Vanderbilt University “On the 10th anniversary of this groundbreaking book, Tyrone Howard not only reminds me of the salient role that race and culture play in education, but also moves beyond a Black–White binary that reflect the nuances and contours of diversity. This book should be in the hands of all teachers and teacher educators.” —Maisha T. Winn, Chancellor’s Leadership Professor, School of Education, University of California, Davis

Featuring content-specific strategies, assignments, and classroom activities, this book provides strategies to help pre- and in-service teachers develop the dispositions and knowledge they need to teach all students well. Focusing on the importance of creating a classroom community in which necessarily difficult dialogues are inspired and supported, the authors present content-area chapters on language arts, social studies, mathematics, science, ESOL, foreign language, and teaching exceptional students in the inclusive environment. Each content-area chapter includes a vignette illustrating a difficult conversation dealing with diversity and presents research-based, classroom-ready exercises, effective pedagogic strategies, and action-oriented interventions—many of which the authors created and used in their own classrooms. The book concludes with an appendix of instructional and curricular resources. This practical volume provides teacher educators and professional development personnel with a framework for: Inspiring challenging and productive discussions about diversity in education.Using content-specific, research-based strategies for discussing diversity issues in deep and complex ways.Understanding how teacher candidates develop as culturally competent educators.Addressing conflicts that might arise when talking about diversity and self-awareness. Contributors: Vonzell Agosto, Sylvia Celedón-Pattichis, Kathryn B. Chval, Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, Bárbara C. Cruz, Cheryl Ellerbrock, Elaine V. Howes, Zorka Karanxha, Deoksoon Kim, Miyoun Lim, Patricia Alvarez McHatton, Adam Schwartz, Roseanne K. Vallice, Anete Vásquez, Eugenia Vomvoridi-Ivanovic, and Eric Williams “The stories in Talking Diversity are both instructive and inviting, affirming and empowering. They encourage and entice other teacher educators to join in promoting diversity in action as well as ideology, and they provide some reasonable and viable windows of opportunity for how these participations can occur successfully. In this sense, the style of this volume is as enriching, enlightening, and insightful as diversity is itself. It is a conversation of necessity and significance, and certainly one worth joining!” —From the Foreword by Geneva Gay, professor of education, University of Washington–Seattle

Teaching across Cultures: Building Pedagogical Relationships in Diverse Contexts captures the tensions, complexities as well as the transformational potentials of teaching across multiple cultural contexts. The book evolved from cumulative self-studies that examined one teacher educator’s teaching practice, the cultural impact on this practice, and how she facilitated transformative teaching and learning. While every act of teaching occurs across cultures such as institutional culture, invisible cultures, classroom cultures, among others, educators who teach as cultural outsiders have to navigate the tensions, complexities and contradictory realities of cross-cultural teaching. The tensions can be reduced or managed through responsive pedagogy, relationship building and teaching in the third space. These transformational approaches not only help to identify and close the perpetual gaps in teaching and learning but also position effective teaching within a pedagogical common ground that values student voices, facilitates pedagogical flexibility and uses diversity as a teaching tool. In a world of ubiquitous and interactive learning environments, both the physical and virtual spaces play a vital role in teaching and teacher-student relationships. The book points to the necessity of teacher educators’ learning through diverse professional networks but more importantly through self-study. It is only through this introspective examination of one’s teaching and students’ learning as well as taking an ontological attitude to teaching that educators can achieve success in diverse contexts.

Cultural Competence in America’s Schools: Leadership, Engagement and Understanding focuses on explicating the impact of culture and issues of race and ethnicity on student learning, teacher and leadership efficacy, and educational policy making in our nation’s public school system. The authors agree with Levin (2012), who pointed out that the challenge of dealing effectively with racial and ethnic diversity in education in traditionally homogeneous societies is a global problem. One indicator of this point is revealed in a U.S. study that was commissioned by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, which reported on the serious consequences for student achievement and teacher effectiveness in the face of “the gap between teacher training and the realities of the classroom when it comes to teaching diverse populations and students with special needs.” (Public Agenda, 2008, p. 2).

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection