Three cultural models of teacher interaction valued by Mexican students at a US high school

Using students’ interviews as data source, this study explores the interactional experiences of several Mexican students at a US high school in the Midwest with their teachers and discusses how three cultural models of teacher interaction valued by the students impact their affiliation, motivation, and engagement with school. Emphasis is given to the students’ voices to explore how teachers are perceived by them. The study found that several teachers displayed negative stereotypes influenced by cultural and social biases toward Mexicans and the anti-immigrant climate in society. Insights are provided regarding the manner in which Mexican students’ teacher interaction influences their high drop out rate, their low academic achievement, and their low graduation statistics. The findings suggest that there is an urgent need to improve teachers’ cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity toward Mexican students.     

Ideal liberal subjects and Muslim “Others”: liberal nationalism and the racialization of Muslim youth in a progressive Danish school

Drawing on an ethnographic case study of Muslim youth in a Danish lower secondary school, this article explores teacher talk about Muslim immigrant students and how teachers engaged liberal ideals of respect, individualism, and equality in ways that racialized immigrant students. I consider moments of vacillation in teacher talk to explore tensions between teacher’s desires to assimilate immigrant students to national norms of belonging and their desires to be perceived as inclusive and ‘open.’ In doing so, I ask how visions of liberal schooling impose ideas of what a ‘normal’ citizen should be and how teachers produce ‘ideal’ liberal subjects in their talk and in the everyday practices of schools. I argue that teachers engage the ideals of abstract liberalism to establish a colorblind discourse of non-racism. While educators described the school as an idealized space where students are encouraged to freely express themselves, to develop unique individual outlooks, it was clear that this vision of ‘openness’ did not include Muslim students’ attachments to religious and cultural identities.     

Challenging racism through schools: teacher attitudes to cultural diversity and multicultural education in Sydney,Australia

How school teachers act to challenge racism in schools is a vital concern in an immigrant society like Australia. A 10% response from a self-administered online survey of government (public) primary and secondary school teachers across Sydney, Australia’s largest EthniCity, examines attitudes of classroom teachers towards cultural diversity, goals of multicultural education, and strategies to implement anti-racist strategies. Principal components analysis (PCA) of attitudes tease out the varied influence of opinion on multicultural education, diversity, and anti-racism. Classroom teachers are overwhelmingly supportive of cultural diversity, multicultural education and strategies to combat racism and discrimination, and these views hardly vary across the different geographic zones of the city, unlike attitudes within the general community. However, teacher knowledge about the implementation of multicultural policy does vary, and is positively associated with the extent of population diversity and socio-economic status (SES) of the communities surrounding the schools.     

Racial and ethnic differences in high school students’ perceptions of school climate and disciplinary practices

This study examines the relationship between students’ perceptions of teacher treatment, school suspensions, and school climate in three high schools in Central New York (N = 1,444). Students completed an anonymous questionnaire about their perceptions of school climate and school disciplinary practices. Results showed racial and ethnic differences in perceptions of teacher treatment, suspension practices, and school climate. Race was the most significant predictor of perceptions of differential suspension practices and teacher treatment among students. For Black students, perceptions of differential treatment helped predict school climate perceptions. Students’ perceptions of unequal treatment of racial groups influence their experiences in school. We discuss research-based approaches that address systemic practices and policies, professional training of school personnel and provision of student services to help improve the school experiences of Black and other minority students and reduce the equity gap.     

Counter-narrative as method: race,policy and research for teacher education

The authors argue for a research and conceptual agenda that complicates and disrupts common narratives in teacher education that have serious implications for race. Building on the pivotal work of legal scholar Derrick Bell and through a critical race theory (CRT) lens, this article challenges researchers to broaden and complexify traditional ideologies related to: (1) characteristics of ideal teachers recruited into the field; (2) the amount of time teachers should be expected to remain in the field through alternative programs such as Teach for America; (3)weight placed on teacher entrance examinations; (4)racial diversity of P-12 teachers; (5)racial and ethnic makeup of teacher educators; and (6)over-reliance on subject matter knowledge in teacher preparation to the exclusion of other aspects of learning to teach. The authors argue given the present racial divide in schools between teachers and students it is imperative for teacher education programs to complicate and intensify the utility of race in their recruitment, retention, and support of teacher education practices and policies. The authors offer a counter narrative framework and agenda to advance policy and research through a CRT lens.     

Race and opportunity in a public alternative school

This qualitative case-study explores questions about the stratifying role of public alternative schools created for ‘at-risk’ youth by analyzing the school experience of students who attend a single continuation high school and the process of student enrollment and referral to that school. Drawing on the concept of whiteness as property, this article demonstrates how the continuation high school maintained and protected the property functions of whiteness through acts of symbolic violence and the systematic removal of non-white students from the school district’s mainstream high school. Instead, students were placed in a substandard alternative school lacking in material and intellectual resources. Furthermore, teachers, counselors, and administrative staff at the mainstream and continuation high schools alike drew upon the racial ideology of merit to rationalize the overrepresentation of non-white youths at the study school and to ‘deracialize’ the student referral process.     

Unpacking racial identities: the salience of ethnicity in Southeast Asian-American youth’s schooling experience

This article reconceptualizes white teachers’ notion of their Asian-American students’ racial identity. Forty urban Southeast Asian-American (SEAA) students and seven of their white European-American teachers were examined to determine how the students responded to the white teachers’ assumptions about their identity. This study provides an overview of the U.S. historical and political contexts that shape the positionality of Southeast Asian-American youth in the black–white racial discourse. It found that despite the fact that the teachers lumped the SEAA students into one category, the students highlighted the salience of ethnicity in their lives. One implication of this study is for teacher education programs to train new teacher candidates to move beyond simple racial categorization or race-blind approaches. Instead, teachers should be taught to acknowledge the importance of ethnicity to their students; to examine their own positionalities; and to incorporate more culturally relevant pedagogies into their instructional practices.     

How student teachers (don’t) talk about race: An intersectional analysis

This study explores how student teacher talk about their students illuminates the identities ascribed to these same students. It uses a hybrid intersectional framework based on Disability Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Latino Critical Theory and methodologies (like examining majoritarian stories, counter-storytelling, coded talk, and post-civil rights race talk) to uncover how student teacher talk reveals oppressive discourses of race, disability (and language status). This article focuses on how the medicalization of disability facilitates student teachers not identifying the racialization of disability in school. It demonstrates the need for educational research to employ an intersectionality lens when exploring educational issues related to students’ identities.     

‘No more Turkish music!’ The acculturation strategies of teachers and ethnic minority students in Flemish schools

ABSTRACT

While considerable research has focused on the process and factors affecting acculturation, there is little research that investigates how members of minority and majority groups define acculturation in educational settings. Ethnographic research and qualitative interviews in three secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium) show that teachers and ethnic minority students have different ideas and expectancies regarding the concept ‘integration’, which appears to affect student–teacher relationship. Berry et al.’s [1989. “Acculturation Attitudes in Plural Societies.” Applied Psychology: An International Review 3 (2): 185-206. doi:10.1111/j.1464-0597.1989.tb01208.x.] acculturation orientations are used as a theoretical template to analyse teachers’ and ethnic minority students’ discourses about acculturation. Analyses reveal that students of immigrant descent perceive acculturation mainly in terms of the establishment of intergroup contact. In contrast, teachers find it harder to disconnect cultural maintenance from contact and participation. By suggesting some form of cultural adoption, teachers hope to socialise their ethnic minority students into the culture of the dominant ethnic group and prepare them for their future. These distinct interpretations of ‘integration’ in everyday life (which actually refers to acculturation) often leads to misunderstandings between ethnic minority students and their teachers, even to conflict, as many students feel that their cultural background is disparaged and not fully valued in school.     

学校教育中传承民族文化存在的问题及对策——以北川羌族自治县的学校教育为例

The Qiang are one of the most ancient ethnic groups in China, and their rich cul-ture is an important part of Chinese culture. Bei-chuan Qiang Autonomous County, in Sichuan province, is a unique Qiang Autonomous County in China, which has an exceptional foundation for transmitting Qiang ethnic culture through school education. However, the county’s transmission of Qiang ethnic culture through school education still faces some problems, such as lack of educational investment, poor teacher resources, lack of ethnic cultural inheritors, and students’ lack of ethnic self-confidence. In view of series dilemmas faced by Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County in trans-mitting Qiang ethnic culture through school educa-tion, this article proposes the following suggestions based on our investigations:1 . Increase the investment in school educa-tion In view of the lack of educational investment, we suggest the following measure be adopted: 1 ) increase educational investment from various levels of the government, especially increasing special in-vestment in transmitting Qiang ethnic culture through school education;2 ) raise funds from the public;3 ) have the schools engage in their own fundraising, and 5 ) make efforts to get foreign aid. 2 . Strengthen the investment in improving teacher resources In view of the problem of poor teacher re-sources, we suggest the following measures: 1 ) strengthen policy support from the national level, and solve the problem of poor teacher resources through training teachers in universities for nation-alities. 2 ) invite Qiang cultural inheritors to be teachers; 3 ) strengthen the technical training of the school teachers, and improve the teachers’ skills;4) add more teacher positions, and improve the treatment of teachers;5 ) encourage teachers to devote their life to the education and inheritance of Qiang culture. 3 . To promote the motivation for studying eth-nic culture In view of the students’ lack of motivation for studying ethnic culture, and the lack of people who go on to inherit the ethnic cultural heritage, we suggest the following: 1 ) Beichuan Autonomous County should help the young Qiang people to be locally employed through developing ethnic econo-mies, and to inherit ethnic culture via developing tourism with ethnic characteristics. 2) Family edu-cation should be closely connected with school edu-cation;3 ) to include an exam on Qiang ethic cul-ture in school entrance examinations in order to re-flect the importance of ethnic culture study;4 ) to add some ethnic culture courses in schools for na-tionalities. 4 . To strengthen the ethnic pride and confi-dence of Qiang students In view of the issue of Qiang students’ lack of ethnic confidence and pride, we suggest the follow-ing:1 ) open Qiang language courses in schools in Qiang areas; 2 ) enlarge the usage range of the Qiang language; 3 ) help students to understand the charm of Qiang culture, and let them feel eth-nic pride. 5 . To standardize and promote a common Qiang language In view of the issue that Qiang have no written language, their spoken language is too complicat-ed, and there are too many dialects, we suggest that the National Languages and Scripts Work Committee should work with Qiang scholars and ex-perts to create a basic dialect of the Qiang-a com-mon Qiang language, which should be promoted in school education, just like mandarin Chinese in school education.     

Denying systemic inequality in segregated Chilean schools: race-neutral discourses among administrative and teaching staff

This article addresses the educational context in which ethnically segregated high poverty schools operate in Chile, and the ways that inequalities within these establishments are understood by members of their administrative and teaching staff. In particular we draw attention to the unwillingness of the majority of these employees to name or recognize specific forms of institutional inequality. Following critical pedagogy literature we argue that the Chilean education system reproduces a fear of talk among teachers working in areas with high density indigenous populations, which obscures unequal social structures and opportunities for specific (class, gender, ethnic) groups in school contexts. Based on data from 12 interviews with school staff and observations from four schools in southern Chile, we analyze how intersecting inequality is discursively reduced by predominantly white teachers to individual deficit, de-politicized geographical problems of access to schooling, and the normalizing of low achievement across schools with students from similar backgrounds.     

‘It wasn’t racism; it was more misunderstanding.’ White teachers,Latino/a students,and racial battle fatigue

This article explores how and why a group of Latino/a high school students identify and explain racism differently over the course of an 18-month participatory action research (PAR) project. To do this we examine what recent scholarship has termed racial microaggressions in what is thought of as the Post-Racial America public school system. Pulling examples from student and teacher interview, focus group, and class discussion data we first examine how these students’ teachers conceptualize and talk about racism, cross-racial relationships, and racial misunderstandings, and then we juxtapose that with students’ discursive work to make sense of the ways their teachers make their conceptualizations known and/or seen in school. Focusing on the K-12 context, this study finds racial battle fatigue may be why students switch between how they label these aggressions.     

Confucius institute teachers in the UK: motivation,challenges, and transformative learning

Academic mobility has attracted much attention in recent educational research. Previous studies focus mainly on study abroad students; relatively little attention, however, has been paid to the growing numbers of teachers of Chinese as a second language working abroad in Confucius Institutes, non-profit public institutions that aim to promote Chinese language and culture, currently operating in some 500 Confucius Institutes and 1000 Confucius classrooms (local hubs in schools) in 134 countries. This paper explores the intercultural experience of a cohort of Confucius Institute Chinese Teachers working in the UK. Drawing on focus group discussions and interviews, it examines the factors associated with their motivation and the adjustments they make professionally and personally and the transformational power of intercultural experiences on teacher development. Finally, it offers suggestions for possible improvements in future international exchange programs.     

Unpacking internalized racism: teachers of color striving for racially just classrooms

Within racial inequitable educational conditions, students of color in US schools are susceptible to internalizing racism. If these students go on to be teachers, the consequences can be particularly detrimental if internalized racism influences their teaching. Framed in Critical Race Theory, this article investigates the process pre-service teachers of color took in unpacking their internalized racism as they strive for racially just classrooms. In-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with black (four) Latina (four) and Asian American (four) women enrolled in a social justice-oriented urban teacher education program in California. Data revealed that participants in this study: (1) had experienced racism and internalized racism in their K-12 education; (2) had done self-work prior to enrolling in their teacher education program to begin the process of unpacking internalized racism; and (3) felt that critical dialogues about internalized racism within teacher preparation was essential to develop pedagogy that challenges racial inequality. This study adds to the field by taking a cross-racial approach to understanding the struggles of teachers of color with internalized racism in their own lives. It additionally outlines an important process many teachers of color go through to develop racially just classrooms.     

Understanding racial literacy through acts of (un)masking: Latinx teachers in a new Latinx diaspora community

As Latinx teachers are recruited to work in U.S. schools, a continued agenda to understand their experiences is warranted. This multiple case study considers the storytelling of six Latinx teachers in a new Latinx diaspora community. It documents both their racial literacy (the ability to resolve racially stressful issues) and their experiences with (un)masking (literal and figurative ways to cover or embrace racial markers). This study reveals the tensions that arise when Latinx teachers attempt to define their identity in social spaces where their languages, bodies, and names, among other markers, are racialized when read by others. Implications for teacher education include a call to include storytelling as a pedagogical tool to develop Latinx teachers’ racial literacy skills. By experiencing storytelling in their own schooling, Latinx teachers are more likely to model such racial literacy skills in their schooling communities; thereby, empowering a generation of students to enact more humanizing behaviors.     

Under the cloak of professionalism: covert racism in teacher education

This study focuses on manifestations of racism and colonialism in teacher education. I build on the theoretical framing of Critical Race Theory and decolonization in order to expose racist and colonial assumptions at the core of teacher education. I highlight in particular the work of covert racism under the cloak of teachers’ professionalism. I focus on what I call ‘professional microaggressions’: subtle forms of racism and colonialism hidden beneath professional definitions. By interviewing graduates of a well-established Indigenous teacher education program in British Columbia, Canada, I examine the mechanisms that still hinder the success of Indigenous teacher candidates in teacher education and in the school system. The study highlights the resilience, resistance, and strategic planning that Indigenous teachers use to challenge the system while advancing their position within it. Lastly, I suggest ways to support Indigenous teacher candidates in teacher education.     

Making it relevant: how a black male teacher sustained professional relationships through culturally responsive discourse

What we know about the experiences of black teachers is limited, especially considering the vast amount of research conducted on and about black boys and young men. This article describes and analyzes how a black teacher at a suburban high school in the Midwestern United States negotiated professional relationships through culturally relevant discourse. Anthony Bell was the only black male teacher participating in a classroom discourse analysis study group at a diverse suburban high school. Throughout the course of the semester, Anthony’s stated objective for learning discourse analysis was to understand, structure, and facilitate more productive conversations with a struggling student teacher he was mentoring. Yet Anthony also used his discursive inquiry to “trouble the water” in his classroom and in the study group workshops. Participation in the study group provided Anthony with metalinguistic tools to critique his interactions with his students, student teacher, and professional peers. Anthony’s analyses of his own teaching, his student teacher’s work, the study group, and the school index themes in critical and critical race theory in education. As he became a teacher researcher, Anthony reported a greater sense of professional self-efficacy, eventually facilitating a successful workshop at a national teacher conference. Anthony’s case is an exemplar of the unique and critical role of black men who teach, as well as the imperative of practitioner research within the current climate in teacher education.     

Language and cultural capital in school experience of Polish children in Scotland

This article addresses the complex relationship between migration and education in the context of recent intra-European labour mobility. It considers how this mobility impacts the education and life chances of migrant students attending schools in Scotland, UK. By examining the experiences of Polish migrant children and youth at schools in Scotland, the article engages with the issues of language, cultural capital transferability and social positioning. Drawing on qualitative data from 65 in-depth interviews with school children aged 5–17?years, their parents and teachers, as well as observations in the contexts of school and home, the article points to a range of factors affecting the transition of migrant pupils to new schools and social environments.     

Border stories: using critical race and Latino critical theories to understand the experiences of Latino/a children

The number of school-age children of color in US schools is increasing, while the teaching force continues to be dominated by white teachers. According to the 2013 Digest of Education Statistics in the 2011–2012 school year, 81.9% of public school teachers were white, while the projected number of Hispanic students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools is expected to increase 33% between 2011 and 2022. In my experience, the issue of immigration is often ignored by the majority white teacher population, but, as I will share in this article, it is part of the lived experience of Latino children. I present my students’ border stories as discussed in relation to Latino children’s literature. I am using the words ‘border stories’ to represent the narratives my students shared about their families’ experiences crossing the US–Mexico border as well as what they felt about the societal discourse around ‘illegal immigrants.’ Critical race theory (CRT) and Latino critical theory (LatCrit) are used to frame these border stories to speak against the majoritarian story.     

‘Having to say everyday … I’m not black enough … I’m not white enough’. Discourses of Aboriginality in the Australian education context

This paper interrogates discourses of Aboriginality about, and by, early career Aboriginal teachers as they negotiate their emergent professional identity in specific Australian school contexts. These discourses position the respondents via their ethnic and cultural background and intersect with self-positioning. This relates to the desire to be positioned as teacher rather than (only) as an ‘Aboriginal’ teacher. Consequently, the over-determination of Aboriginality includes such suppositions as the ‘think-look-do’ Aboriginality with a ‘natural’ connection to community, the ‘good’ Aboriginal teacher who fixes Aboriginal ‘problems’, the Aboriginal teacher as ‘Other’, and [the notion that] ‘Aboriginal work’ as easy, not real work and peripheral to core business. Through qualitative methodology, eleven Aboriginal teachers from the University of Sydney were interviewed. They were able to construct stories of early career teaching and the data was analysed to explore how the participants interpreted, accepted and/or resisted various discourses in their efforts to be agentic and resilient and to make a difference for the Aboriginal students they teach.