Although a significant body of research addresses teachers’ perceptions of student disruption, the views of African American teachers remain underrepresented. In particular, little is known about African American teachers’ disciplinary practices with students of the same race. The purpose of the current study was to examine if and how the concept of cultural synchronization relates to an African American middle-school teacher’s responses to student disruption. Qualitative data were gathered from an eighth-grade classroom in a public, urban middle school. The findings suggest that cultural synchronization between the teacher and her students contributed to an effective style of classroom management that differs from traditional models. The discussion highlights the importance of cultural issues as related to effective disciplinary tactics for urban African American students.

Despite the ongoing debate about the nature, goals, and politics of multicultural education, the discipline has taken hold in the minds and hearts of educators— prekindergarten through graduate school. However, for some of us who teach multicultural education, we approach our classrooms far more confident about what we want to teach, than about how we will teach it. Moreover, an examination of the assumptions underlying a multiculturalist discourse leads to questions about pedagogy; that is, what kind of pedagogy is necessary to teach multiculturalism, and how is pedagogy informed by a reconceptualization of the discipline's underlying assumptions. This article presents one professor's reflections on the challenges of mediating the boundaries of race, class, and professorial authority in an undergraduate multicultural education course.

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Despite the ongoing debate about the nature, goals, and politics of multicultural education, the discipline has taken hold in the minds and hearts of educators— prekindergarten through graduate school. However, for some of us who teach multicultural education, we approach our classrooms far more confident about what we want to teach, than about how we will teach it. Moreover, an examination of the assumptions underlying a multiculturalist discourse leads to questions about pedagogy; that is, what kind of pedagogy is necessary to teach multiculturalism, and how is pedagogy informed by a reconceptualization of the discipline's underlying assumptions. This article presents one professor's reflections on the challenges of mediating the boundaries of race, class, and professorial authority in an undergraduate multicultural education course.