Beyond Awareness: Preparing Culturally Responsive Preservice Teachers.
By Teacher Education Quarterly
- Release Date: 2005-03-22
- Genre: Education
Description
Educating preservice teachers for culturally responsive teaching in increasingly diverse contexts remains a substantive challenge. Research findings have suggested that courses in multicultural education have not had much impact on instructional practices of preservice teachers as they enter schools and classrooms (Xu, 2001; Zeichner, Grant, Gay, Gillette, Valli, & Villegas, 1998). Other scholars have argued that student preservice teachers and teacher educators must reconsider their own assumptions and work towards a better understanding of values and practices of families and cultures different from their own (Cochran-Smith, 1995; Derman-Sparks, 1995). Only through this type of reflective analysis of their own beliefs and systematic inquiry into diverse cultures can preservice teachers and teacher educators begin to construct a pedagogy that makes diversity an explicit part of the curriculum (Cochran-Smith, 1995). However, how this analysis and inquiry can best be realized and translated into classroom practice remains unclear. The Beyond Awareness Research Project was designed to develop more effective ways to address culture and cultural differences in the preparation of preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and university faculty. Its purpose was to provide a more adequate preparation for working in high-need schools by assisting educators in the development of habits of mind that incorporate an understanding and valuing of students' cultures and recognition of the need to consider those cultures in teaching practices. This report focuses on findings from the analysis of students' field notes, interview data, and artifacts selected from the larger project.
