Spanish Bilingual Preservice Teachers’ Leveraging Cultural Practices of Youth: A Change Laboratory Intervention

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)Mediation in Social Interaction (Table 9)

Abstract

This qualitative case study of twelve Spanish bilingual pre-service teachers examines how participants engaged in syncretic pivoting to transform multicultural curriculum. We define syncretic pivoting as a pedagogical move by which educators reposition themselves as cultural mediators to reorganize learning and subvert learning hierarchies between academic and everyday knowledge in multicultural classroom ecologies. The study examines pre-service teachers’ reflective process regarding how to leverage students’ cultural repertoires to transform curricula and design culturally responsive pedagogies. Data included participant journal entries, reflection papers, and curriculum artifacts from Change Laboratory sessions. The study found syncretic pivoting as a key pedagogical move that enabled pre-service teachers to weave consequential sociohistorical events and reorganize learning with culturally responsive games to support multilingual learners.

Authors

• Sharon Chang, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Edward Rivero, Teachers College, Columbia University