Anecdotal and empirical evidence suggest that how teachers construct and interpret issues of race and diversity impacts significantly on their interactions with students from diverse backgrounds. At the same time, research shows that teacher education programs do not pay as much attention as would logically be expected given that many Canadian teachers will spend a good part of their career in racially and culturally heterogeneous settings. Conceptually grounded in critical race theory-a framework with increasing application in education, this paper explores the knowledge-base that preservice teachers require for successful teaching in a pluralistic society. A central argument in the paper is that a deep understanding of, and knowledge about race and diversity (beyond cursory familiarity) should be one of the required outcomes of preservice education.

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The re la tion ship be tween il lit er acy and the sub or di nate con di tion of women in Sub-Saha ran Af rica has been ex ten sively docu mented. Yet de spite this rec og ni tion and sig nifi cant edu ca tional ex pan sion since the coun tries gained their in de pend ence, il lit er acy re mains a per sis tent prob lem in the re gion with women ac count ing for about 62.4% of the es ti mated 138.8 mil lion il lit er ates (UNESCO, 1993). This chap ter ex am ines some of the eco nomic im pli ca tions of per sis tently ex clud ing women from access to lit er acy. It ar gues that women can not re al ize their full po ten tial both on the in d i vid ual and state levels with out equal ac cess to lit er acy. Across the re gion, women con tinue to con trib ute sig n ifi cantly to the de vel op ment of their re spec tive coun tries, yet most lack the edu ca tion to im prove their co n di tion or to reduce the so cial bar ri ers and eco nomic bur den they must en dure. But, ef fec tive lit er acy po li cies for women must tran scend rheto ric and re quire the adop tion of praxis-oriented in ter ven tions that are geared to wards criti cal so cial re con struc tion, link ing edu ca tional em pow er ment with women's eco nomic i n de pend ence. Only in this way can women's prac ti cal and stra te gic in ter ests be pro tected. The chap ter c on cludes with rec om men da tions for pol icy im ple men ta tion.