Multicultural and Global Perspectives in Teacher Education.

Overview & Synopsis

Northern Michigan University (NMU) has examined its teacher education program to determine how it has addressed or might address the multicultural and global criteria established by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) for accreditation of professional education units of teacher education programs. These criteria exist in four categories: teacher education curriculum, field experiences, recruitment and retention of diverse students, and recruitment and retention of diverse faculty. Because teaching multicultural and global persepctives outside of content or pedagogy can isolate and limit their influence, NMU makes efforts to integrate multicultural and global perspectives into existing courses. Field placements among ethnically diverse school populations require choosing sites at some distance from the campus. These placements must be reinforced with appropriate teaching strategies modeled by master teachers and university faculty as well as more direct methods, such as seminars, of fostering cultural sensitivity among teacher education students. Because the Upper Penninsula of Michigan has limited racial diversity, with Native Americans being the most numerically significant non-Caucasian ethnic group, a wide variety of strategies is needed to recruit and retain diverse students and faculty. (IAH)