“Wrong Moves” and “Epiphanies”: Examining Group and Individual Narratives Expressed in Multicultural Teacher Education

• In Event: Multicultural/Multiethnic Education: Perspectives on Teacher Education

Abstract

This study highlights the work of a practitioner inquirer who examines the instruction of a graduate course for teachers entitled “Perspectives on Multicultural Education”. This project centers on a definition of multicultural education for social justice, which considers engagement and examination of one’s own autobiography especially important (Cazden, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Paris, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 2002; Sleeter, 1996). All participants were white, including the instructor, and it is in this setting that this paper asks, how did course participants take up this work together? What were the moves made and the narratives expressed by each that contributed to the shaping of the course? The author draws upon Rymes’ (2009) critical discourse analysis as a framework for understanding dimensions of identity.

Author

• Ellie Fitts Fulmer, University of Pennsylvania