In this article the authors describe pedagogy which rests on commitments to solidarity, activism, and intersectional understandings of personhood and social (in)justices. The authors seek to create accessible classrooms where our many selves and critical consciousness can be in (dis)comforting conversation with one another. Then, they hope to…

School teachers have been used as heroic characters in movies for a long time. Their heroism compensates for the failures of social life in our society by treating problems in the classroom, not the real world, and by acting as the mediators between diverse sub-cultures and the larger society. They are the agents of rationality, scholarship, and…

"Red Tails," a recent movie about the Tuskegee Airmen in battle, is the latest in a line of movies that seem to petition for admission to the fellowship of the mainstream American society by showing stories of groups overcoming discrimination and proving their strength and their patriotism. As the most excluded and longest-lasting pariah group,…

Cultural diversity is often attributed to groups in a society from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Assimilation then blends subcultures into a mainstream culture. However, history and circumstance give rise to new groups whose experiences and activities produce new diversity. Big events and big changes give rise to important differences between…

The figure of the vampire has been an important element of popular culture for more than a century. The movies have been a home for vampire stories, and they have presented them as unusually frightening images. A recent explosion of vampire screen works reveals a new emphasis on addressing female issues as opposed to male issues and focusing on…

Three recent movies about war are examined. All have been honored by critics and welcomed by audiences. The three movies are very different from one another. They reflect different ways of thinking and feeling about war. More specifically, they represent ways we relate to the troops we send into battle and our concerns about whether we have done…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to build candidate knowledge utilizing Katz and Chard's Project Approach (1989) promoting movement across Nieto's (2000) levels of support for multicultural education. Three major preliminary steps advancing multicultural sensitivity and teaching practice were identified as foundational for the future…

In this article, I reflect on my personal experiences of racial queerness. In an effort to speak my secrets, I explore my identity production as a Multiracial person by critically examining my positionality throughout various key stages in my life. I present Multiracial microaggressions--those accumulated moments that underscore my racial…

Using methods of naturalistic inquiry, this study examines preservice teachers' conflict with classroom management strategies used in a predominantly African-American urban elementary school. It highlights the theory/practice dilemma, focusing on the tensions between the democratic strategies taught in university classes and the more authoritarian…

As children begin to construct an understanding of human differences and similarities during their earliest years, early childhood teachers are challenged to be culturally responsive to the diversity of the children and families. Based on our review of the literature and other existing tools, this article discusses a framework for thinking about…

Through television, many different images of ethnic, cultural, and ability groups are presented. Different people perceive these images in different ways. These perceptions affect how people value themselves and judge and interact with others. This article first summaries research on TV images and people's meaning and reaction to them. Second, it…

A conceptual framework was developed to provide proactive relationship building strategies for professionals in special education and the African American families they serve. Cultural clashes have occurred between the respective groups because of the dissimilar cultural and personal experiences that shape one group's perceptions of the other.…

Paterson Teachers for Tomorrow (PT4T) is a collaborative project between the Paterson, NJ Public Schools and the College of Education at William Paterson University of New Jersey (WPUNJ), created to attract talented high school students from Paterson to careers in teaching, prepare them to be effective teaching professionals, and return them to…

Culture offers people suggestions for dealing with life's vicissitudes, and people find different suggestions in different cultures. In a multicultural society, they have a variety of alternatives to choose among: ethnicities, regionalisms, lifestyles, religious movements, occupations, hobbies, and more. In American society, the groups that are…