Cross-Cultural Book Clubs and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

• In Event: Multicultural Competence of Preservice Teachers/Teacher Candidates and Curriculum

Abstract

We aim for our teacher candidates (TC) to value and enact a social justice stance, to sustain their students’ diverse cultures and languages. Such a culturally sustaining stance is posited to develop through reflective spaces to understand others and develop the cultural competence to navigate diverse spaces. Teacher book clubs centered around multicultural literature have been identified as one vehicle to create these reflective spaces. Through a qualitative inquiry, we examined the development of TC’s culturally sustaining pedagogical stances while engaging in cross-cultural book clubs with other TCs from diverse regions in the US. Our findings indicate that the book club experiences fostered cultural competence and prompted TCs to rethink their pedagogical practices. Supportive structures and challenges will be shared.

Authors

• Steven Hart, California State University - Fresno

• Susan V. Bennett, University of South Florida - St. Petersburg

• Monica T. Billen, California State University - Fresno