According to the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) (2008), social studies programs should provide meaningful opportunities for students to view human experience from past, present, and future perspectives. NCSS calls for schools to provide children with a sense of history in order to develop an appreciation of the diverse heritage of the…

In an earlier article appearing in "Multicultural Education" (Volume 16, Number 1, Fall 2008) a number of pedagogical techniques were presented for teaching White students about White privilege and racism (Heinze, 2008). That article emphasized that racism exists along a continuum and that the instructor needs to examine and disclose his or her…

Teacher educators are pivotal in the effort to prepare teachers to teach in culturally responsive ways (Vescio, et al., 2006). In subject areas such as social studies and English, multicultural literature is viewed as a prime resource for creating a culturally inclusive curriculum. Yet, effective inclusion of these texts--many of which are filled…

There is a clear and explicit expectation for immigrants in the United States to learn the English language as part of their schooling, and there is too often a tacit understanding that immigrants are to lose their heritage language (HL) at the same time. Most second-generation immigrant children remain monolingual in their HL until they enter…

Raising tolerance for people of different ethnic and racial groups is the goal of the Multicultural Mosaic program, a grass-roots multicultural education effort initiated by a small group of middle school teachers in a private school in the northeast. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of the first year of the Multicultural…

It was in late May of 2010 that the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) took their final vote on the curriculum standards that will have an impact on what millions of students in Texas as well as dozens of other states will learn about history and social studies for the next 10 years. These "Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills" (TEKS) standards…

In this article, the authors argue for a critical analysis of the books that are used to represent different cultural groups in the United States. They advocate exposing preservice teachers and others to the diverse experiences of young children in books, to the ways in which these books can be used in classrooms, and they argue that the stories…

This article seeks to evaluate the social and cultural context of education among Chinese learners in order to identify ways through which American educators can best serve such students. It is intended that such efforts will create multiple pathways to knowledge for Chinese learners by accommodating their varying learning needs. Several common…

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the concept of Language Across the Curriculum (LAC) in postsecondary instruction. The author will first define key terms relevant to the discussion of LAC and then describe the elements of LAC along with a number of its curricular variations. She will then discuss one of the major forces…

Given the increase in the number of culturally and linguistically diverse students in American schools, it is vital for teacher education programs to address the needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) in their courses. Mainstream, general education teachers who did not previously experience this student population in their classes are now…

In this paper, we examined data collected as part of a 5-year project designed to foster reform-based urban science teaching through teachers' communities of inquiry. Drawing upon a distributed leadership framework, we analyzed teacher "talk" during professional learning community (PLC) meetings. This analysis yielded five elements: teacher…

Previous research confirms that many employees work in jobs not well matched to their skills and education, resulting in lower pay and job satisfaction. While this literature typically uses cross-sectional data, we examine the evolution of mismatch and its consequences over a career, by using a panel data set of scientists in the USA. The results…

Developing positive school climates and improving school discipline policies and practices are critical steps to raising academic achievement and supporting student success. However, there is no single formula for doing so. Rather, the growing body of research and best practices in the field should inform locally developed approaches to improving…

For accreditation and programmatic decision making, education school administrators use inter-rater reliability analyses to judge credibility of student-teacher assessments. Although weak levels of agreement between university-appointed supervisors and cooperating teachers are usually interpreted to indicate that the process is not being…

In this article, the authors use an explanatory narrative of participation and transformation across two consecutive early childhood communities of practice to chronicle the evolution of a teacher leader, Michelle. This narrative illustrates how the continuity of experience spawned her development from apprentice toward an agentic teacher leader,…