Involving the Community in Mentorship Preparation: The Promises and Challenges of Multicultural Education

• In Event: Culturally Responsive Mentoring Practices That Support Equality and Justice in Schools and Communities

Abstract

With increasing diversity in classrooms, teachers need to have understandings of their students, their students’ families, and the community. Teachers serving in the role of mentors are in a unique position to support beginning teachers in this endeavor. This qualitative study examined a mentorship preparation program, developed through a university-district partnership, that included a component related to fostering participants’ understandings of the community and asset-based pedagogies. From the lens of multicultural education (Banks & McGee Banks, 2010), findings illuminate the promises and challenges of this program design on achieving these intended outcomes. Suggestions are offered to strengthen related programs’ designs to better prepare mentors to support beginning teachers responding to the needs and assets of the community that they serve.

Authors

• Jill Patterson, William Paterson University

• Kathryn Luet, Rowan University

• Brie Morettini, Rowan University

• Lisa Jo Vernon-Dotson, Rowan University