ESC 433 / 533: Teaching World History in Middle and High School

This course is designed to introduce students to the methods of teaching world history to urban middle and high school students. This course will help prepare candidates to become effective social studies educators capable of teaching students the content knowledge, the intellectual skills, and the civic values necessary for fulfilling the responsibilities of citizenship in a participatory democracy. Special attention is given to effective teaching strategies and to addressing the individual and cultural diversity of all learners. We will examine methods for teaching world history and developing curriculum in an urban classroom. This syllabus was designed to be zero-cost for students, drawing on freely available resources and electronic materials provided by the Lehman College Library

Managing Race and Race-ing Management: Teachers’ Stories of Race and Classroom Conflict

Little is known about how novice teachers construct and interpret classroom management moments—instances when they perceive their ability to maintain order and promote sanctioned behavior is tested—in a way that contributes to or challenges racial bias. Using data from a hybrid, online/in-person professional development course for beginning teachers, I find two patterns of connecting race and classroom management. Teachers in this study tended to share stories either about “managing race”—narratives about deescalating racial tension or reproaching transgressors of racial colorblindness—or “race-ing management”—stories that read race into incidents in such a way as to reveal latent racial dynamics. Further, these patterns aligned with teachers’ self-identified racial backgrounds, with teachers who expressed a strong minority racial identity tending to focus on race-ing management, and those who expressed a more tenuous racial identity or who described themselves as White, tending to focus on managing race. This research can inform efforts to restore racial proportionality and justice in student discipline, to retain an experienced teacher workforce in under-resourced schools, and to support school administrators’ reflective inquiry when called to interpret management decisions made by classroom teachers in taking larger disciplinary action

Classroom management #Karen: What can educators learn from a meme?

Much has been written about how race and the demographic mismatch of mostly white teachers teaching mostly Black and brown students has contributed to the over-disciplining of this same population of students. Further, research has shown that when students have teachers of the same race they are less likely to experience exclusionary discipline practices. While recent studies have considered the role of gender, along with race, in school discipline, the focus remains primarily on the gender and race of the students, with fewer studies considering specifically what it might mean for school discipline that U.S. teachers are mostly white women. This paper takes up that focus and applies the recent #Karen meme to an analysis of the school discipline gap, ultimately offering implications for education practitioners and researchers

“Distressing” situations and differentiated interventions: Preservice teachers’ imagined futures with trans and gender creative students

Context: Teachers can help ensure trans and gender creative students’ opportunity and equal access to education, yet the field of educational research has just begun to explore how teachers understand trans and gender creative students’ experiences and negotiate their responsibilities to protect these students’ rights. Purpose/Research Question: This paper aims to address this essential gap by exploring preservice teachers (PSTs’) understandings of, and preparation for, creating supportive educational contexts for trans and gender creative students by exploring the following research question: How do PSTs construct their responsibilities as future teachers to support trans and gender creative students? Ultimately, this study aims to inform the development of effective teacher education curricula and related policy on trans and gender creative identities. Participants: Participants included 183 undergraduate preservice teachers enrolled in ten sections of an educational equity course. Research Design: We conducted a qualitative, inductive, thematic online discourse analysis. Utilizing a queer, social justice teacher education framework, we qualitatively analyzed 549 online PST-authored posts. Findings: Three themes emerged: 1) PSTs voiced discomfort negotiating conflicting values and roles in supporting trans and gender creative students, and PSTs suggested 2) individualized, differentiated interventions, and 3) community education approaches to promote comfort for trans and gender creative students, strategies which may reinscribe normative, institutionalized views of gender identity. Recommendations: Findings suggest the pressing need for innovative teacher education on gender identity and fluidity: PSTs need more opportunities to learn about supporting trans and gender creative students, to critically consider constructs of gender and sexuality, and to explore how systemic gender oppression intersects with other forms of oppression through schooling practices

Caricature and Hyperbole in Preservice Teacher Professional Development

Professional development (PD) “for diversity” aims to prepare teachers to support students from varying backgrounds to succeed, often in underresourced contexts. Although many teachers invite such inquiry as part of learning to teach, others resist “diversity” inquiry as extra to teaching, saying they cannot “do it all.” In this article, we discuss how preservice teachers at times caricature the requests of PD for diversity, hearing the task as a call to undertake superhuman tasks and to be people other than who they are. We argue that these caricatures require direct acknowledgment by both preservice teachers and teacher educators working in diverse contexts

Numbers are Just Not Enough: A Critical Analysis of Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Elementary and Middle School Health Textbooks

Textbooks are a multimillion dollar publishing business in the United States. Even as 21st-century classrooms become more multimodal, digital and hardcopy textbooks remain a key feature of American education. Consequently, classroom textbooks have been shown to control knowledge dissemination across the content areas. In particular, health texts have been uniquely shown to communicate values that validate or marginalize students and encourage healthy or harmful activity. Thus,what textbook makers choose to include as worthy of study, and how they portray various groups of people with regard to race, gender, and sexuality has societal implications. Employing quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods, we analyzed 1,468 images across elementary and middle school health textbooks to examine the portrayal of race, gender, and sexuality.We found that, although gender and racial diversity are well-represented in texts, women and people of color were frequently portrayed in stereotypical roles. For example, girls were depicted daydreaming about heterosexual marriage. Furthermore, this analysis revealed limited representations of sexuality. Findings suggest that focusing on the numerical representation of marginalized groups is not enough to address issues of equity and power in classroom curricula. Instead,we argue, educators must consider the ways in which people are positioned in curricular materials, and ask if portrayals perpetuate or challenge traditional stereotypes

(Un)affirming assimilation: depictions of dis/ability in health textbooks

Purpose – In light of the systemic and pervasive nature of ableism and how ableist ideology structures – or limits – educational opportunities, this paper aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation within the field of multicultural education regarding how to meaningfully include dis/ability in K-12 curricula. Design/methodology/approach – This paper explores how elementary and middle school health textbooks from two prominent publishers in the USA portray dis/ability through quantitative and qualitative content analysismethods of 1,468 images across texts. Findings – Findings indicate that the majority of the textbook portrayals of dis/ability tacitly forward assimilationist ideals. Specifically, the textbooks assume and speak to a normatively-abled reader, pointing out those with dis/abilities as different from the reader. Additionally, mainstream or normative markers are provided as evidence of success and those with dis/abilities who have been successful as such are positioned as overcoming their limitations. Practical implications – Such portrayals stifle the possibility of social transformation by reinforcing and privileging dominant, ableist views. Therefore, teachers are recommended to take steps that might counter such messages in curricular materials and teacher educators are called on to support these efforts. Originality/value – This paper extends the tradition of curricular analysis as one of the first studies to examine the portrayals of dis/ability in US health textbooks and offer practical implications for educators

Leaving the space better than you found it through song: Music, diversity, and mission in one black student organization

In recounting the history and present dynamics in the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, Sherry Deckman presents a portrait of what it means to leave a space better than you found it through song. The story of Kuumba-Harvard\u27s oldest black student organization and now its largest multicultural organization-is told through the experiences of Sheldon K. X. Reid, the group\u27s professional director. Issues and tensions of diversity and community surface, and we learn how Kuumba has become a space where lost cultural practices are revived through music to create a campus home and family for members of diverse backgrounds. Copyright © by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Beyond the numbers: Institutional influences on experiences with diversity on elite college campuses

In this article we bring together the burgeoning qualitative literature on the socializing influence of residential colleges, the survey-based literature on campus racial climate, and the literature on diversity work in organizations to analyze how two elite universities\u27 approaches to diversity shape students\u27 experiences with and feelings about diversity. We employ 77 in-depth interviews with undergraduates at two elite universities. While the universities appear comparable on measures of student demographics and overall diversity infrastructure, they take different approaches. These varying approaches lead to important differences in student perspectives. At the university that takes a power analysis and minority support approach, students who participate in minority-oriented activities develop a critical race theory perspective, while their white and nonparticipating minority peers frequently feel alienated from that programming. At the university that takes an integration and celebration approach, most students embrace a cosmopolitan perspective, celebrating diversity while paying less attention to power and resource differences between racial groups. The findings suggest that higher education institutions can influence the race frames of students as well as their approaches to multiculturalism, with implications for their views on a variety of important diversity-related issues on campus and beyond

“We cannot imagine”: US Preservice teachers’ Othering of trans and gender creative student experiences

Research suggests that teachers are not meeting the needs of trans and gender creative students. Thus, we ask: How do US preservice teachers (PSTs) discursively construct the experiences of trans and gender creative students? How are these constructions informed by and reinscribe broader gender normativities in educational contexts? We analyzed 549 PST authored, online discussion posts from an educational foundations course, finding PSTs lacked familiarity with and engaged in rhetorical distancing from trans and gender creative student experiences suggesting barriers to empathy that may obstruct teacher-student relationships and promotion of equity, which teacher education is called to address