The Demographic Divide: The Diverse Literacy and Social Experiences Students of Color and White Teachers Bring to School

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Nine
  In Roundtable Session: Multimodal Teaching Across Classrooms and Digital Divides (Table 6)

Abstract

In teacher preparation programs, pre-service teachers should learn to include Culturally Diverse Children's Literature (CDCL) in their future classrooms to reflect the diversity in society and to support students of color (SOC) literacy development (Souto-Manning et al., 2018). Currently, more than fifty-three percent of SOC comprise public schools in the United States; meanwhile, seventy-nine percent of teachers are White (NCES, 2021). This "demographic divide" (Gay & Howard, 2000, p. 1) between SOC and teachers' racial and cultural identities is crucial to acknowledge. This divide manifests in the literacy, and social experiences teachers and SOC bring to school (Carey et al., 2018). The purpose of this study is to examine PST knowledge and perceived competencies regarding implementing CDCL in their classrooms.

Authors

• Amber Lawson, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author

• Alexis Morgan Young, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author