Multicultural Teacher Education: Research, Practice, and Policy.

Overview & Synopsis

The failure of major educational reform efforts to acknowledge the multicultural needs of tomorrow's teachers illustrates the marginal status that issues of multicultural education and multicultural teacher education typically receive. This paper examines the literature on multicultural teacher education. The review suggests that teacher education is problematic and that it is impossible to decontextualize multicultural teacher education from the overall problems of the field. Examining the work of previous multicultural teacher educators raises questions about the growth of the field and the quality of that growth. Current multicultural teacher education scholarship is beginning to balance the experimental and quasi-experimental research that has been prominent with a more qualitative case literature that uncovers the wisdom of practice. The increased use of autobiography, restructuring of field experiences, examination of situated and culturally specific pedagogies, and the return of the researcher to the classrooms of experts are resulting in the development of a critical multicultural teacher education. (Contains 152 references.) (SLD)