(Re)Framing Diverse Preservice Classrooms as Spaces for Culturally Relevant Teaching

• In Event: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Diverse Teachers

Abstract

Our field is ushering in a new generation of teachers who need experiences that will prepare them to acknowledge the multiple worldviews of the diverse student population they will teach. For pre-service teachers working in urban under-resourced classrooms, constructing alternative practices rooted in critical ideology that honors their students’ inquiry is difficult task. To examine the complexities of this process, this article presents findings from a case study (Stake, 1995) designed to understand how one pre-service teacher navigated the sociopolitical terrain of her middle school curricula and the pedagogical choices she made to create an engaging learning environment. Findings indicate that she fostered pedagogical third spaces to mediate conversations about diversity, equity, and social change with her middle school students.

Authors

• Detra Price-Dennis, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University