Interview of Christine Sleeter on Multicultural Education: Past, Present, and Key Future Directions

This is an interview of Christine Sleeter on her work in multicultural education over four decades. Links to videos of this interview are available in the Appendix after the references. Transcriptions and videos of Dr. Sleeter’s interview provide plain-spoken content for teacher educators, school administrators, and teachers interested in advancing multicultural education and its critical and practical translation into public school classrooms. The main topics covered in this interview are: (a) the “origins” of multicultural education, (b) the basics of multicultural teaching in student and community relationships, (c) advice for new teachers coming into the profession, (d) discussions of White racism and what White teachers can do, and (e) the new social movement on ethnic studies curriculum. Broadly speaking, this interview provides a plain-spoken account of multicultural education’s past, present, and key future directions from Christine Sleeter, one of the field’s founding and most committed members

Effects of a Dispersed and Undispersed Crude Oil on Mangroves, Seagrasses and Corals

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the application of dispersant to spilled oil as a means of reducing adverse environmental effects of oil spills in nearshore, tropical waters. The results of numerous laboratory and field studies have suggested that dispersants may play a useful role in reducing adverse impacts on sensitive and valued environments such as mangroves, seagrasses, and corals. However, the use of dispersants has not been allowed thus far in most situations because of a lack of direct experimental data on the various effects of dispersants and the environmental trade-offs presumed to occur as a result of their application to crude oils. To accomplish this objective, a 21/2- year field experiment was designed in which detailed, synoptic measurements and assessments were made of representative intertidal and nearshore subtidal habitats and organisms (man-groves, seagrass beds, and coral reefs) before, during, and after exposure to untreated crude oil and chemically dispersed oil. The results were in-tended to give guidance in minimizing the ecological impacts of oil spills through evaluation of trade-offs in the relative impacts of chemical dispersion to tropical marine intertidal and subtidal habitats

The Effect of Dispersed Oil on the Calcification Rate of the Reef-Building Coral Diploria Strigosa

Hermatypic corals represent environmentally and economically important components of the reef ecosystem. Oil spills and clean-up operations in reef areas are potential sources of pollution impact. This paper presents an evaluation of the calcification rate of specimens of the reef-building coral Diploria strigosa in response to 24 hour treatments of chemically dispersed oil at concentrations of 20 ppm. The concentrations and durations were chosen to represent a scenario of a short-term oil spill treated with dispersant passing over a coral reef. Calcification rates were determined by the buoyant weight technique at several day intervals for up to 29 days following treatment. Results from laboratory experiments (Winter and Summer) conducted in a flow-through seawater system indicate that treated corals, both in comparison to untreated controls as well as to their pretreatment rates, experienced no depression in calcification. In contrast, a possible short-term enhancement of calcification for the treated corals was observed

Behavioural Effects of Chemically Dispersed Oil and Subsequent Recovery in Diploria strigosa (Dana)

Survival and behaviour of the hermatypic coral Diploria strigosa was studied during 6–24 h doses with water-accomodated fractions of chemically dispersed crude oil, and for a subsequent recovery period of 1 month. Experiments utilized a flow-through laboratory dosing procedure and incorporated petroleum hydrocarbon measurements in order to simulate a major but short-term oil spill in shallow subtidal benthic reef environments. Chemically dispersed oil treatments consisted of Arabian Light Crude oil with Corexit 9527 or BP1100WD at 1–20 ppm concentrations of oil. In general, effects observed were sub-lethal, temporary, and associated with the highest concentrations tested. Responses to the presence of dispersed oil at 20ppm for 24 h included mesenterial filament extrusion, extreme tissue contraction, tentacle retraction and localized tissue rupture. The nature and severity of reactions during the dosing phase varied between colonies and treatments, but colonies typically resumed normal behaviour within 2 h to 4 d of the recovery period. It therefore seems unlikely that observed biological effects would impair long-term viability

The Effects of Oil and Oil Dispersants on the Skeletal Growth of the Hermatypic Coral Diploria strigosa

Specimens of the hermatypic coral species Diploria strigosa were exposed to various concentrations (1–50 ppm) of oil or oil plus dispersant for 6–24 h periods in four laboratory and two field experiments. After dosing, corals were transplanted to, or left in, the field and recollected approximately one year later for extension (linear) growth analysis by the alizarin stain method. The experiments were designed to assess the long-term effects of brief low-level concentrations of chemically dispersed oil and oil alone on corals in a situation, for example, where an oil slick (treated and non-treated with dispersants) passes over a reef. No significant differences between extension growth parameters (Septa increase, Columella increase) and a calical shape parameter (New Endotheca Length) of treated corals versus controls were found in any of the experiments. In two summer experiments calical relief (Fossa length) was found to be depressed in corals of some of the experimental treatments

Ecosystem carbon balance in the Hawaiian Islands under different scenarios of future climate and land use change

The State of Hawai\u27i passed legislation to be carbon neutral by 2045, a goal that will partly depend on carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future direction and magnitude of the land carbon sink in the Hawaiian Islands. We used the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS), a spatially explicit stochastic simulation model that integrates landscape change and carbon gain-loss, to assess how projected future changes in climate and land use will influence ecosystem carbon balance in the Hawaiian Islands under all combinations of two radiative forcing scenarios (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5) and two land use scenarios (low and high) over a 90 year timespan from 2010 to 2100. Collectively, terrestrial ecosystems of the Hawaiian Islands acted as a net carbon sink under low radiative forcing (RCP 4.5) for the entire 90 year simulation period, with low land use change further enhancing carbon sink strength. In contrast, Hawaiian terrestrial ecosystems transitioned from a net sink to a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere under high radiative forcing (RCP 8.5), with high land use accelerating this transition and exacerbating net carbon loss. A sensitivity test of the CO2 fertilization effect on plant productivity revealed it to be a major source of uncertainty in projections of ecosystem carbon balance, highlighting the need for greater mechanistic understanding of plant productivity responses to rising atmospheric CO2. Long-term model projections such as ours that incorporate the interactive effects of land use and climate change on regional ecosystem carbon balance will be critical to evaluating the potential of ecosystem-based climate mitigation strategies

(Un)becoming tourist-teachers: Unveiling white racial identity in cross-cultural teaching programmes

The importance of cross-cultural experiences in teacher education has become more pressing than ever. The composition of schools across Australia is increasingly more diverse, therefore it is pertinent to examine and develop pre-service teachers’ worldview and culturally sensitive dispositions critical for teaching in predominantly multicultural classrooms. This paper examines whiteness and otherness within the notion of tourist gaze and its implication in the development of racially aware teachers in cross-cultural teaching programmes and mostly in retrospect, a programme that could dismantle the naturalisation of privilege identities and structures. It presents students’ dispositions and observations about cultural and pedagogical practices different from their own. The fragmented journal accounts of participants were juxtaposed using the active methodology of bricolage and represented through critical reflection and racial understandings. This enacts a provocative stance between the personal and analytical towards becoming white teachers by turning one’s gaze of the non-white other towards the self-as-white

From Ideal to Practice and Back Again: Beginning Teachers Teaching for Social Justice

The five authors of this article designed a multicase study to follow recent graduates of an elementary preservice teacher education program into their beginning teaching placements and explore the ways in which they enacted social justice curricula. The authors highlight the stories of three beginning teachers, honoring the plurality of their conceptions of social justice teaching and the resiliency they exhibited in translating social justice ideals into viable pedagogy. They also discuss the struggles the teachers faced when enacting social justice curricula and the tenuous connection they perceived between their conceptions and their practices. The authors emphasize that such struggles are inevitable and end the article with recommendations for ways in which teacher educators can prepare beginning teachers for the uncertain journey of teaching for social justice

Employing culturally responsive pedagogy to foster literacy learning in schools

 In recent years it has become increasingly obvious that, to enable students in schools from an increasingly diverse range of cultural backgrounds to acquire literacy to a standard that will support them to achieve academically, it is important to adopt pedagogy that is responsive to, and respectful of, them as culturally situated. What largely has been omitted from the literature, however, is discussion of a relevant model of learning to underpin this approach. For this reason this paper adopts a socio-cultural lens (Vygotsky, 1978) through which to view such pedagogy and refers to a number of seminal texts to justify of its relevance. Use of this lens is seen as having a particular rationale. It forces a focus on the agency of the teacher as a mediator of learning who needs to acknowledge the learner’s cultural situatedness (Kozulin, 2003) if school literacy learning for all students is to be as successful as it might be. It also focuses attention on the predominant value systems and social practices that characterize the school settings in which students’ literacy learning is acquired. The paper discusses implications for policy and practice at whole-school, classroom and individual student levels of culturally-responsive pedagogy that is based on a socio-cultural model of learning. In doing so it draws on illustrations from the work of a number of researchers, including that of the author