Beyond Celebrating Diversity: Exploring the Multicultural Curriculum

1. Beyond Celebrating Diversity: Exploring the Multicultural Curriculum By Paul C. Gorski March 2008

2. I. Introduction: Who We Are • Who is in the room? • My background and lenses

3. I. Introduction: Agenda • Introductory Blabber • Starting Assumptions • Warm-Up Activity • Conceptualizing Multicultural Education • Dimensions of Equity in a Learning Environment

4. I. Introduction: Agenda Cont’d • Inclusion/Exclusion • Intro. to Multicultural Curriculum • Stages of Multicultural Curriculum Development

5. I. Introduction: Primary Arguments • Multicultural education, at its heart, is about creating equitable and just learning environments for all people in a learning community • It is about curriculum, and it’s about more than curriculum • Being a multicultural educator involves shifts of consciousness that inform comprehensive shifts in practice

6. I. Introduction: Primary Arguments 4. Much of the work that goes into eliminating the achievement gap is misguided, and creates more inequity than equity 5. There is something we can do about it

7. I. Introduction: Objectives • Develop deep understanding of the process of creating an equitable learning environment (multicultural education) • Connect curriculum development to pedagogy, classroom climate, and context for a broad vision of “equitable learning environment”

8. II. Starting Assumptions

9. II. Starting Assumption #1 • All students deserve the best possible education we can provide, regardless of: • Socioeconomic status or class • Gender • Religion • Citizenship status • (Dis)ability • Race or ethnicity • Sexual Orientation • Etc.

10. II. Starting Assumption #2 • Multicultural education is deeper than simple curricular content • Pedagogy • Assessment • Classroom/School Climate • Distribution of Power

11. II. Starting Assumption #3 • Education is NOT politically neutral • We decide which readings and activities to use in class • We decide how students are to be assessed • We decide engage (or don’t engage) students in the learning process • And so on...

12. II. Starting Assumption #4 • The problem of educational inequity is one of consciousness, not only one of practice • Impossibility of implementing a multicultural education if one doesn’t think and see multiculturally • Even with a great curriculum, I cannot teach against racism if I am a racist

13. II. Starting Assumption #5 • The “achievement gap” is not as much an “achievement gap” as an “opportunity gap”

14. II. Starting Assumption #6 • A single teacher cannot undo systemic inequities in the school system or larger society. • But at the very least we can make sure we’re not replicating those inequities in our own curricula and pedagogies.

15. II. Starting Assumption #7 • I can teach multiculturally and still meet standards.

16. II. Starting Assumption #8 • Gross inequities exist in our public schools • And these inequities, and the resulting achievement gap, will not be eliminated by Taco Night, the International Fair, or other activities that, however fun, do not address racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and other oppressions in educational policy and practice.

17. II. Starting Assumption #9: Gross Inequities Compared with low-poverty U.S. schools, high-poverty U.S. schools have: • More teachers teaching in areas outside their certification subjects; • More serious teacher turnover problems; • More teacher vacancies; • Larger numbers of substitute teachers; • More limited access to computers and the Internet; • Inadequate facilities (such as science labs);

18. II. Starting Assumption #9: Gross Inequities (references) Barton, P.E. (2004). Why does the gap persist? Educational Leadership 62(3), 8-13. Barton, P.E. (2003). Parsing the achievement gap: Baselines for tracking progress. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Carey, K. (2005). The funding gap 2004: Many states still shortchange low-income and minority students. Washington, D.C.: The Education Trust. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (2004). Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education: A two-tiered education system. Washington, D.C.: Author. Rank, M.R. (2004). One nation, underprivileged: Why American poverty affects us all. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

19. Warm-Up Activity Calisthenics

20. III. Conceptualizing Multicultural Education Contextualizing Multicultural Curriculum

21. III. Conceptualizing Multicultural Education • Multicultural education is a movement and process for creating an equitable and just learning environment for all students • Definitions vary, but five key principles are agreed upon across the literature

22. III. Conceptualizing Multicultural Education Principle #1 Multicultural education is a political movement that attempts to secure social justice for individuals and communities, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, home language, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, religion, socioeconomic status, or any other individual or group identity.

23. III. Conceptualizing Multicultural Education Principle #2 Multicultural education recognizes that, while some individual classroom practices are consistent with multicultural education philosophies, social justice is an institutional matter, and as such, can be secured only through comprehensive reform.

24. III. Conceptualizing Multicultural Education Principle #3 Multicultural education insists that comprehensive reform can be achieved only through a critical analysis of systems of power and privilege.

25. III. Conceptualizing Multicultural Education Principle #4 The underlying goal of multicultural education—the purpose of this critical analysis—is to provide every student with an opportunity to achieve to her or his fullest capability.

26. III. Conceptualizing Multicultural Education Principle #5 Multicultural education is good education for all students.

27. V. Critical Concepts

28. V. Critical Concepts • Hegemony • Deficit Theory • Systemic Inequities • Cognitive Dissonance

29. IV. Dimensions of Equitable Education

30. IV. Dimensions of Equitable Education Adapted from the work of Maurianne Adams and Barbara J. Love (2006).

31. IV. Dimensions of Equitable Education 1. What Students Bring to the Classroom • Past educational experiences (it’s not always all about us) • Complex identities, prejudices, biases • Expectations about the roles of students and teachers • Varying learning styles, intelligences, ways of illustrating learning

32. IV. Dimensions of Equitable Education 2. What We Bring to the Classroom • Complex socializations, identities, biases, and prejudices • Notions about the purposes of education and our roles as teachers • A teaching style, often related to our own preferred learning styles and how we’ve been taught

33. IV. Dimensions of Equitable Education 3. Curriculum Content • Course materials: Who’s represented in readings, examples, illustrations • Perspective and worldview: Whose voices are centered, whose are “other”ed • Is content, whenever possible, made relevant to the lives of the students? • What is the “hidden curriculum”? • Are multicultural issues addressed explicitly?

34. IV. Dimensions of Equitable Education 4. Pedagogy • Focus on critical, complex thinking and asking critical questions • Paying attention to inequity in classroom processes • Attending to sociopolitical relationships (power and privilege) in the classroom • Acknowledging student knowledge through problem-posing, dialogue, and general student-centeredness • Using authentic assessment techniques

35. VI. How We Get There: The Equitable Learning Environment

36. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment Part 1: What Your Students Bring to the Classroom

37. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 1. What Students Bring into the Classroom A. Find ways to challenge stereotypes (both in society and your own field) Example: Albert Einstein as a white, male scientist who wrote very progressive essays about racism, imperialism, etc.

38. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 1. What Students Bring into the Classroom B. Watch for and challenge student behaviors and relationships that reflect stereotypical roles Example: Men assuming the lead in lab activities, women being “note-taker” in small groups

39. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 1. What Students Bring into the Classroom C. Be thoughtful about how you create cooperative teams or small groups Example: Avoid temptation to “distribute” people from under-represented groups (tokenism)

40. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 1. What Students Bring into the Classroom D. Understand students’ reactions to you and your social identities in context Example: Even if you don’t think much about your whiteness (for example), it may mean something significant to students of color who may only rarely not have white professors

41. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 1. What Students Bring into the Classroom E. Help students un-learn the ways of being and seeing that lend themselves to prejudice Example: Dichotomous thinking, competitive nature of learning (NOTE: this also means WE have to un-learn)

42. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment Part 2: What You Bring to the Classroom

43. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom A. Identify and work to eliminate your biases, prejudices, and assumptions (yes, you do have them) about various groups of students Example: Race/ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, (dis)ability, first language, etc.

44. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom B. Identify and work to broaden your teaching style (which, according to research, probably suits your learning style) Note: Research shows that two elements most effect how somebody teaches: (1) their preferred learning style, and (2) how they were taught what they’re teaching

45. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom C. Identify and work on your “hot buttons” Question: What are the issues that set you off to the point that you become an ineffective educator/facilitator?

46. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom D. Provide students with periodic opportunities to share anonymous feedback Note: Students already feeling disempowered and disconnected are not likely to approach you about your teaching or curriculum

47. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom E. Share examples of when you’ve struggled to climb out of the box and to see the world and your field in their full complexity Note: When we make ourselves vulnerable we make it easier for students to do the same

48. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom F. Consider the significance of the professor/student power relationship and what this means re: student learning Question: What might it mean to be a white male computer science professor teaching a young African American woman in a field historically hostile to African American women?

49. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom G. Identify the gaps in your knowledge about equity issues and pursue the information to fill those gaps Point: I cannot teach anti-classism if I’m unwilling to deal with my own classism

50. VI. The Equitable Learning Environment 2. What You Bring into the Classroom H. Build the skills necessary to intervene effectively when equity issues arise Examples: Racist joke or comment, sexual harassment, men talking over women