When I began teaching in higher education and mentoring teacher candidates whose ambitions were to teach in culturally diverse urban schools, I was shocked to find out that my course was one of the first in which many students were asked to explicitly address issues of educational equity and systemic racism. Cultural diversity in teacher education programs is often a one-shot, watered-down class about “celebrating diversity.” This approach doesn't support candidates in becoming teachers who can challenge how low-income students of color are stereotyped and labeled “at-risk,” with curricula sadly focusing more on compliance and discipline than learning, inquiry, and agency.
I wrote
Transgressing Teacher Education: Strategies for Equity, Opportunity and Social Justice in Urban Teacher Preparation and Practice
Bell Hooks bravely tells her own story of being a professor and the ways in which being a Black woman challenged the status quo of higher education.
Hooks directly addresses systemic racism in education and suggests that all teachers should view education as “the practice of freedom.” By this, she meant that education should have the explicit goal of empowering underserved populations and creating a more equitable society for communities of color.
"After reading Teaching to Transgress I am once again struck by bell hooks's never-ending, unquiet intellectual energy, an energy that makes her radical and loving." -- Paulo Freire
In Teaching to Transgress,bell hooks--writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual--writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal.
bell hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do…
This book is the first to look specifically at teacher education at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), which include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges (TCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), among other federally designated categories.
Petchauer and Mawhinney edited this collection of essays by teacher education faculty at MSIs, which emphasize the ways in which teacher education at MSI adopts a new model wherein: 1) teacher candidates are part of a larger cohort and community of educational activists; 2) all learning integrates culturally relevant pedagogy; and 3) there are diverse opportunities for teacher candidates to spend quality time in local schools prior to student teaching and graduation.
Winner of the 2018 AERA Division K Exemplary Research in Teaching and Teacher Education Award
The first of its kind, Teacher Education across Minority-Serving Institutions brings together innovative work from the family of institutions known as minority-serving institutions: Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions. The book moves beyond a singular focus on teacher racial diversity that has characterized scholarship and policy work in this area. Instead, it pushes for scholars to consider that racial diversity in teacher education is not simply an end in…
Many people from all walks of life, even after many accomplishments and experiences, are often plagued by dissatisfaction, pervasive longing, and deep questioning. These feelings may make them wonder if they are living the life they were meant to lead.
Living on Purpose is the guidebook these people have been…
This expansive collection of essays published in 2011 provides a historical accounting of the challenges involved in preparing teachers to work with diverse student populations, as well as a review of the research on multicultural education, culturally relevant pedagogy, and critical race theory.
With twenty chapters written by some of the most influential people in contemporary teacher education–such as Gloria Ladson-Billings, Carl Grant, Sonia Nieto, and Etta Hollis, to name but a few—this book is a classic that stands the test of time.
Studying Diversity in Teacher Education is a collaborative effort by experts seeking to elucidate one of the most important issues facing education today. First, the volume examines historically persistent, yet unresolved issues in teacher education and presents research that is currently being done to address these issues. Second, it centers on research on diverse populations, bringing together both research on diversity and research on diversity in teacher education. The contributors present frameworks, perspectives and paradigms that have implications for reframing research on complex issues that are often ignored or treated too simplistically in teacher education literature. Concluding the volume with…
Rita Kohli has emerged as one of the most innovative and influential scholars in teacher education. She has published broadly about both diversifying the profession and supporting teachers of color once they are in service.
This perspective is critically important as it doesn’t make sense to attract more teachers of color only to lose them due to hostile work environments and the perpetuation of an educational status quo that is unequal and discriminatory for students of color. Kohli is a proponent of professional learning communities and has been instrumental in creating those communities as the Co-Director of the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice (ITOC).
Teachers of Color describes how racism serves as a continuous barrier against diversifying the teaching force and offers tools to support educators who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of Color on both a systemic and interpersonal level. Based on in-depth interviews, digital narratives, and questionnaires, the book analyzes the toll of racism on their professional experiences and personal wellbeing, as well as their resistance and reimagination of schools.
Teacher educator and educational researcher Rita Kohli documents the hostile racial climate that teachers of color experience over the course of their academic and professional lives-first as students and preservice teachers…
Many people from all walks of life, even after many accomplishments and experiences, are often plagued by dissatisfaction, pervasive longing, and deep questioning. These feelings may make them wonder if they are living the life they were meant to lead.
Living on Purpose is the guidebook these people have been…
Although we’ve come a long way in supporting what has traditionally been called English Language Learners (ELLs), there is a long way yet to go. With a critical shortage of certified bilingual teachers, it is still the case in many schools that students for whom English is not their first language are placed in lower academic tracks and do not benefit from the growing body of research on supporting bilingual and multilingual learners.
This collection of essays adopts an asset-based approach to language learning, noting that: “bilinguals who speak another language possess linguistic, lexical, grammatical and cultural knowledge and are simultaneously acquiring dual languages.” The book includes new models and frameworks for culturally relevant, community-based, and inquiry-oriented pedagogy.
The growing number of bilingual students in public schools coupled with a critical shortage of teachers specially prepared to serve this population calls for a critical examination of policies and practices in bilingual and ESL teacher preparation. This volume focuses on understanding the structural, substantive, and contextual elements of preparation programs, and provides transformative guidelines for creating Educar signature programs. Designed to improve the practice of teacher preparation by promoting dialogic conversations and applications of praxis in the preparation of bilingual/ESL teacher candidates, it emphasizes that exemplary teacher preparation requires transformative teacher educators.
Simultaneously organizing the scholarship in the field…
As the demographic of students in America is quickly becoming a “majority-minority,” we need teachers more than ever who can teach to diverse student populations, can utilize culturally relevant pedagogy, and have critically reflected on their own biases and stereotypes.
This book provides original strategies that teacher educators, teacher candidates, and practicing teachers can use to think critically about issues of equity, diversity, opportunity, and social justice in urban education. It also includes participatory action research and counternarratives of urban teachers who are challenging systemic racism in their own schools.
