Section archive - Multiculturalism & Diversity

The goal of this article is to report a preliminary work on student-centered teacher preparation to promote school success among culturally and linguistically diverse learners. The authors believe that teacher education programs need to be very purposeful in their approach to multicultural literacy teacher education. Drawing upon Vygotskian perspective on learning, they chose two cases from the beginning of their teacher education program and during student teaching, which often marks the end of teacher education program.

The authors argue for the development of racial literacy in preservice teacher education programs as a pedagogical method to mitigate the misreading of Black male students in teacher candidates’ fieldwork experiences and subsequently in their future classrooms. Their argument operates from the premise that in a time when diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion are more widely recognized than ever before, the notion of race, and popular education films that depict race, still influence how teacher candidates view Black male students, and race remains a predictor for how these students experience school.

This study focused on students enrolled in the advanced history classes. It aimed to obtain an accurate picture of minority student enrollment in advanced placement classes at Wichita High School East. The author was interested in developing a plan of action to close the achievement gap between White and non-White students. She determined that the initial action needed was to disseminate the data to teachers and administrators to increase their awareness of the high school’s current status. The results reveal that enrollment in advanced history classes by ninth graders increased. The positive results of this study were the enhanced teacher awareness, and the increased overall student enrollment in the advanced history classes.

This paper shows how young people in a Swedish upper-secondary school negotiate identities through social relations in a particular part of a school corridor that they call the ‘immigrant corner’. However, the ‘immigrant corner’ is not only a place where identifications are performed, it is also a place that gives rise to discussions and challenges of the school’s official integration policy. Thus, the place affects those who usually sit there as well as those who do not, and is therefore important for discussions on integration issues on a local, national, European and global level. With regard to place and space, the article outlines and applies the young people’s identity formations, as well as their discussions about integration issues with help from the concept of power geometry – that is, networks of social/power relations.