Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers to Meet the Diverse Needs in Today’s Classroom: Phase One of a National Study of Literacy Teacher Educators

A Collaborative Journey Toward Understanding the Role of Social Class in Teaching and Learning

“…Our collective observation that local guest speakers and field trips to schools would afford this are well founded for creating a richer, more authentic learning experience. This suggestion for including direct experiences in learning to work with diverse learners resonates with recommendations in the literature (Murdock & Hamel, 2016;Sharma et al, 2016). Kumar and Hamer (2012) emphasize a need to examine how effectively teacher preparation programs empower preservice teachers to recognize their biases, overcome stereotype beliefs about less affluent and minority students, develop a sense of comfort in interacting with different others, and engage in classroom practices that reflect an openness to culturally diverse beliefs, values, and practices.…”

“…Preservice and practicing teachers tend to have weak knowledge, dispositions, and practices in relation to working with diverse learners, which can negatively influence their self-efficacy and classroom effectiveness (DeVillar & Jiang, 2012;Kumar & Hamer, 2012;Murdock & Hamel, 2016;Robinson, 2017;Sharma et al, 2016). Based on their study with 784 preservice teachers, Kumar and Hamer (2012) report, "More than 25% of preservice teachers in this study explicitly endorse stereotypic beliefs about poor and minority students.…”

“…Educators tend to be insufficiently prepared to work with diverse learners. For one thing, they tend to have a limited conception of the meaning of diversity, often equating it mainly with race and ethnicity (e.g., Sharma et al, 2016). This constrictive view of diversity means that social class is not adequately addressed in the field of education (e.g., Stirrup et al, 2017).…”

“…Indeed, a study of teacher educators, the very individuals who prepare P-12 teachers, reported not feeling comfortable or equipped to teach about social class (Jett & Cross, 2016). Thus, the need for greater preparation for educators on teaching diverse students has been expressed for core curricular areas and co-curricular subjects, such as music (Robinson, 2017), and for educators at all levels, including prospective and practicing teachers, as well as teacher educators (Jett & Cross, 2016;Murdock & Hamel, 2016;Sharma et al, 2016). Speaking specifically about social class, Hunt and Seiver (2018) say:…”

“…Regarding social class, for example, Hunt and Seiver (2018) say educators should explore student differences based on family income and deficit perspectives that might associate with students from lower-class families. Other suggestions for helping educators develop a stronger foundation in teaching diverse learners are use of direct instruction that includes specific examples of culturally relevant practice at different grade levels (Murdock & Hamel, 2016;Ünver, 2014), tasks involving critical evaluation of curricular materials for representation of diverse individuals and for perspectives portrayed (Hunt & Seiver, 2018), direct experiences (e.g., field experiences) with a variety of students (Murdock & Hamel, 2016;Sharma et al, 2016), and application of culturally competent understandings by developing action plans and lesson plans (Murdock & Hamel, 2016;Ünver, 2014).…”