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Teaching Social Studies for Newcomer English Language Learners:
Toward Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Yoonjung Choi
University of Maine at Farmington
Through this case study the author explores how
an exemplary teacher utilized social studies curriculum
and pedagogy to engage English language
learners (ELLs) in learning in a culturally relevant
and meaningful way and discusses practical
implications for teaching and learning.
Introduction
Immigrant youth comprise a burgeoning student
population. Twenty five percent of all children in the
United States are either foreign-born or first-generation
immigrants (National Center for Education Statistics,
2010). Forty one percent of teachers nationwide reported
having had English language learners (ELLs) in their
classrooms (Cruz & Thornton, 2009). Given the diverse
cultural and linguistic texture of students in the United
States, how schools should respond to the recurrent
changes of the student population and address their
complex needs has been one of the most significant issues
in today’s educational research and practice.
While immigrant students bring diverse cultural
and linguistic backgrounds enriching our multicultural
society, they reportedly experience multiple challenges
in American schools (Lee, 2010). They often face
numerous hurdles in learning a new language and
making cultural adjustments between their home and
school cultures, which become even more complicated
by socioeconomic difficulties and cultural struggles
often associated with immigrants. These include high
levels of poverty, unwelcoming social, political, and
educational contexts of reception, and experiences of
racism and discrimination (Suarez-Orozco, Pimentel,
& Martin, 2009). A majority of school teachers, who
are predominantly White, middle-class females, have
been poorly prepared to serve their newcomer students’
Correspondence should be sent to Yoonjung Choi, University
of Maine at Farmington, Division of Inclusive Early Childhood and
Elementary Education, 186 High Street, Farmington, ME 04938.
E-mail: yoonjung.choi@maine.edu
academic needs and have revealed limited understanding
about the multicultural and linguistic backgrounds
of immigrant ELL youth (Rong & Preissle, 2009).
Systematic teacher education programs and professional
development resources that can train quality teachers who
will contribute to immigrant ELL students’ academic
achievement and engagement seems scant (Cruz &
Thornton, 2009). Inadequately trained teachers, and a
hostile environment for the ELLs, have contributed to new
immigrant students’ academic failure, disengagement
from learning, and even resentment toward their teachers
and schools (Choi, Lim, & An, 2011).
The newcomer ELL students in social studies classrooms
have encountered numerous critical barriers which
may hinder their meaningful academic growth (Urietta,
2004). Social studies education, whose ultimate goal is
to nurture knowledgeable and engaged citizens, has been
criticized for its marginalization of stories of immigrants
(Cho & Reich, 2008), inadequate images and prejudices
against immigrant groups (Banks, 2007), and a tokenistic
approach to diversity and social justice (Ladson-Billings,
2003). Consequently, immigrant students often have
viewed social studies, which often silences the histories
of non-European regions and reinforces narrowly-defined
national citizenship, as meaningless and irrelevant to their
lives expressing “History class is stupid.” (Rierson, 2006,
p. 288). Studies have shown that the lack of connection
between the ELL’s home culture and the social studies
curriculum has contributed to academic failure and
psychological problems which include low self-esteem
and/or identity confusion while their academic issues
and concerns have not received much attention in social
studies scholarship (Salazar & Franquiz, 2008).
In order to address the call for culturally relevant social
studies teaching and learning for newcomer ELL students
(Cruz & Thornton, 2009), through this study I explore the
research question: How did an exemplary social studies
teacher utilize social studies curriculum and pedagogy
to encourage immigrant ELLs’ academic engagement
in a culturally relevant way? Using culturally relevant
pedagogy (CRP) as a framework, I will provide detailed
The Official Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education
12
descriptions of the ways in which the successful teacher
implemented CRP in his social studies classroom for ELL
students bymeans of his narratives and teaching practices.
I will provide insight into how to best conceptualize social
studies curriculum and pedagogy for a growing number
of newcomers in today’s classrooms.
Literature Review
In this study I employ CRP as a theoretical framework
focusing on its application to newcomer ELLs in social
studies classrooms. Mindful of the struggles of American
schools and curriculum that addresses the issues of
newcomers, some scholars and practitioners advocate
employing CRP using the cultural characteristics,
experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse
students as conduits for more effective teaching (Gay,
2000; Lee, 2010). CRP suggests that when academic
knowledge and skills are situated within the sociocultural
experiences of students, they become more personally
meaningful and have a higher interest appeal (Ladson-
Billings, 1994).With the influx of culturally diverse ELLs
in today’s classrooms, CRP has been acknowledged as
a key aspect of educational reform for not only racial
minorities, but also immigrant ELLs, because it ultimately
uses students’ varied cultural, linguistic, and experiential
backgrounds as curricular and pedagogical resources to
promote academic success grounded in students’ cultural
competency (Irizarry, 2007). Lee (2010) argued that
culturally relevant curriculum, characterized by critical
thinking, cooperative learning strategies, learner-centered
approaches, and interdisciplinary knowledge, should be
employed throughout all educational interactions across
grade levels and subject matters so that all ELLs have
meaningful learning opportunities and academic growth.
As more and more students from diverse backgrounds
populate today’s classrooms, the efforts mount to identify
effective methods to teach these students, the need for
CRP for newcomer, ELL students intensifies (Richards,
Brown, & Forde, 2006).
A growing body of research describes what curricular
and pedagogical practices are effective for newcomers’
culturally relevant social studies learning and how teachers
can encourage their ELL students’ active engagement
in social studies classrooms. One of the most significant
aspects of its findings is teachers’ in-depth understanding
and respect of immigrant students’ funds of knowledge
(Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992); that is, the
knowledge students gain from their family and cultural
backgrounds, and teachers are obliged to incorporate them
into cross-cultural learning (Cho & Reich, 2008). Studies
stressed that teachers should create cooperative, respectful,
and anti-oppressive learning communities which
facilitate understandings of who they are and where they
see themselves in the world by bridging the gap between
the students’ home culture and social studies curriculum
(Almarza, 2001; Salinas, 2006). Cruz and Thornton
(2009) demonstrated the inclusion of TESOL (Teaching
English to speakers of other languages) strategies, including
vocabulary instruction and usage of graphic visuals
to organize the social studies contents being taught.
These strategies created significant improvements in the
immigrant students’ language learning and, subsequently,
aided their understanding of the subject content (Salazar
& Franquiz, 2008). Although existing literature provides
meaningful insights into significant roles for teachers and
their efforts to adopt a greater sense of social, cultural, and
linguistic consciousness for newcomers in classrooms,
there is a lack of empirical research on effective social
studies teaching to ELLs and CRP practices. By examining
a successful social studies teacher’s specific practices
and real examples of CRP for his newcomer ELLs, I
am able to provide suggestions for not only theoretically
sound but also personally meaningful and culturally
responsive social studies curriculum and pedagogy, thus
adding a new dimension to the research on teaching social
studies for ELLs.
Methodology
Participant and Contexts
Mr. Joseph Moon (pseudonym) is an eighth year social
studies teacher who has been teaching global history at
Millennium High School (pseudonym, hereafter MHS)
in an urban, multicultural school district in the Northeast.
Having been born and raised in the United States, Mr.
Moon considered himself a Korean “immigrant” because
he understands, “what it is like to be growing up in an
immigrant family who are struggling with the life of
immigration.” Mr. Moon confessed that he was “pretty
much like a ‘C’ student” by saying, “I hated school
my entire life because the curriculum never connected
to me. . . . School was not a major priority in my life
and college was something I did because all my friends
were going.” What changed his life was Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (1970), a book by Paulo Freire which critiques
educational injustice and inequality and promotes critical
pedagogy.Mr. Moon had read this book while a freshman
in college in a course titled Foundations of Education.
This book gave him the momentum to discover why
school was not meaningful to him and to push him to
work hard to become a teacher who would create socially
just education for the oppressed. He eventually earned
a social studies teaching certificate in college and, after
four years of teaching, achieved a master’s degree in
TESOL.
Multicultural Perspectives Vol. 15, No. 1
13
MHS is an alternative, public school founded in 1993,
designed for newcomer ELLs. Its students hail from over
50 different countries and speak 30 languages. Forty
three percent of the total student body is Hispanic, and
25% is Asian. MHS students are divided into one year
interdisciplinary clusters which are organized around
particular themes rather than being grouped according
to language, achievement, age, or grade level. MHS
adopted project-based assessment approaches based upon
problem-solving activities and group projects instead
of a state-mandate test which served as a graduation
requirement for a majority of students in its school
district.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data on Mr. Moon was collected as a part of a
larger study on three Korean-American teachers’ social
studies curricular and pedagogical decision making.
During participant recruiting based on snowball sampling
and community nomination (Ladson-Billings, 1994),
Mr. Moon was nominated as an exemplary social
studies and ESL teacher, who has multilingual abilities,
understands newcomers’ cultural diversity, and shows
confidence with teaching ELLs as expressed by his
previous student teachers and school administrators.
Using Mr. Moon’s class as a case study, I investigate
in this study his exemplary social studies teaching
practices with an eye toward understanding his CRP for
ELLs.
Sources of data include observation, interviews, and
artifacts. Observation of his 9th grade global history
class took place 25 times during his 70-minute class
period over six months to examine Mr. Moon’s teaching
practices. Field notes were taken by the researcher and
used for data analysis. Three formal 1-hour interviews
in addition to frequent informal conversation with Mr.
Moon were conducted to explore his perceptions about
social studies teaching and learning. Artifacts such as
handouts, quizzes, and homework were collected. Using
qualitative data analysis phases suggested by Marshall
and Rossman (2006), I developed a list of 47 codes
and categorized them in five main themes: (a) teacher’s
personal, social, and cultural background; (b) school
context; (c) overall teaching experiences and beliefs;
(d) social studies curriculum: perceptions and practices;
and, (e) social studies pedagogy: perceptions and
practices, based upon recurrent ideas and notable
concepts after multiple readings and reflection of data.
Line-by-line inductive coding (Miles & Huberman,
1987) was used to ascribe the codes to data. Constant
comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1994) was
used to identify and develop patterns and themes in
data.
Findings
Promoting Global/Multicultural Citizenship
Aims of Social Studies Education
Having worked with newcomer students for eight
years, Mr. Moon stated that current official social
studies curriculum is “definitely too Eurocentric” and
marginalizes “so called Third World” countries from
which most of his students emigrated. Referring to
a large influx of newcomers from Asia and Latin
America enrolling in MHS, Mr. Moon expressed his
frustration with the official curriculum which “never
mentions Korea, simply touches upon China, and does
not teach much about Latin America.” Like many
critical pedagogues engaged in social studies scholarship,
Mr. Moon criticized traditional social studies which
highlights narrowly defined national citizenship without
consideration of globalization and cultural diversity
in the United States and added “It is not going to
work” in his classroom (Ladson-Billings, 2003; Subedi,
2010).
After rigorous discussions and long-term collaborations
with his colleagues, Mr. Moon streamlined the
official curriculum and shifted its approach to global,
multicultural citizenship in order to better address the
needs of his newcomer students and build strong connections
between their home culture and school curriculum.
Throughout the first semester of his global history
course, Mr. Moon placed a great deal of emphasis on
Ancient Sumer, Mesoamerica, Egypt, and China instead
of Greece and Rome when teaching ancient civilizations.
For example, he taught a month-long unit on China
addressing the dynamic geographical characteristics of
China and surrounding regions, and he led group projects
in topographical map making. The class also studied
myths of the Great Wall and Shi Huangdi, teachings
of Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and controversial
issues of contemporary China including the independence
of Tibet. Eight years of teaching ELLs had taught
Mr. Moon that many of his ELL students distrust and
attach little significance to school curriculum when their
culture is misrepresented and Eurocentric worldviews
are reinforced (Choi et al., 2011; Salinas, 2006). For
these reasons, he designed his curriculum to present the
stories and cultures of his students extensively. He explained
his rationale for the curriculum reconstruction as
follows:
We are burdened that we have to teach certain things that
don’t really need to be there. So we’ve been talking about
skill sets that we are building. Let’s pick specific topics
that are important with specific skills, and if they come
across, whatever history comes upon later on, they know
what to do to find answers themselves.
The Official Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education
14
As the quote shows, Mr. Moon’s curriculum reform was
assisted by his collaborative colleagues with whom he
was able to discuss his vision of CRP. His curricular
vision was also supported by school administrators
who spoke highly of his capabilities of teaching global,
multicultural citizenship premises. Mr. Moon understood
that MHS’ waiver from the state-mandate test also gave
him leeway to reorganize the global history curriculum
and emphasize global, multicultural perspectives within
his class.
Mr. Moon’s new curricular approach seemed to have
great emotional appeal to his students, while enhancing
their academic achievement. When Mr. Moon introduced
a newly enriched ancient history, describing religious
beliefs, and showing cultural artifacts of the Middle
East, his Muslim students vocally expressed their deep
appreciation by saying, “Thank you for the respect,
Mr. Moon.” Enthusiastically, they took leading roles
in discussions and activities by providing extensive
descriptions about what different groups of Muslims
believe, how they practice Islam, and what Islam means
to them.
In addition, Mr. Moon’s curriculum provided a safe,
open forum for his students to discuss their world views
and critique the official knowledge. During a unit on
ancient Mesoamerican civilization, Mr. Moon’s Hispanic
immigrant students revealed their frustrations about
European colonization by asking the following question:
“You know what, when I see the Aztecs and the Incas,
Spanish always take gold. My question is why always
Spain came and they took something good? Why? Why
Spain? How they always come? How did Spain start?”
Mr. Moon, using the question as a catalyst for an indepth
discussion about European imperialism and modern
Latin American history, transformed his students’ frustrations
into meaningful educational opportunities. The
students were able to deepen their critical understanding
of global history by actively exchanging their thoughts on
European colonialism and expanding their discussion into
diverse global agendas, such as global conflicts, peace, and
interconnectedness.
Creating a Collaborative Learning
Community Based on High Expectations
and Care for Students
Reflecting upon his earlier academic struggles and
finding a path to his passion for education, Mr. Moon
firmly believed that all newcomer students can achieve
academic success if their opportunities to find a relevance
of their lives to school curriculum are supported by
caring teachers (Freire, 1970). Pang (2009) demonstrated
that teachers’ high expectations and caring-centered
pedagogy for culturally and linguistically diverse youth
led to the students’ academic success. Similarly, Mr.
Moon strove to understand his students’ sociocultural
contexts, while he provided a role model who cared
for and motivated them. The following quote demonstrates
his in-depth understanding of and care for his
students:
Thirty percent of our ninth graders do repeat. A lot of
them have not gone to school, or their formal schooling
had been interrupted by many reasons. . . . But, real issues
are more than language. I have one Chinese student, second
time repeater. Although he is much more proficient
in language than others, he did nothing in my class. I
understand why because he hates to live in America. He
doesn’t like all the situations like family issues here, really
upset. But once he participated, I was trying my best
to encourage him and give positive reinforcement. Then
he did give me his homework, the first homework he gave
me . . . I think he has potential to grow and mature.
In order to improve students’ motivation and create
a culture of academics in the classroom, Mr. Moon has
created a learning community where his students feel
comfortable in constructing a collaborative knowledge
with others. Building a learning community which
offers a climate of mutual respect helps students build
positive relationships and develop group problemsolving
skills; this was a significant aspect of Mr. Moon’s
curriculum and pedagogy which he infused with culturally
relevant pedagogy and global/multicultural perspectives
(Banks, 2007; Marri, 2009). Mr. Moon often included
collaborative group works, such as reading groups of
Hindu myths and discussing the Caste System. During
the group projects, no student was left out although each
exhibited a different level of participation. When students
had a small group discussion about theirWebQuest-based
research project on Buddhism, each group member took
turns and did his/her presentation with support from
other group members. Many students waited patiently
when their peers murmured and held their comments
until their classmates had finished their presentations.
After each presentation, most students gave positive
comments, (i.e., “Good job, Man” or “You did so well!”)
and cheered each other. Mr. Moon stated that, “Students
having a wide variance regarding language proficiency
and cultural background can provide positive influences
on each other,” and that “Having heterogeneous, authentic
conversations and motivation to work each other hard,
the whole class can be high functioning.” Influenced by
Freire and social justice education, Mr. Moon anticipated
elevation of the whole group, by keeping everyone
engaged and creating an energized classroom throughout
cooperative learning community (Freire, 1970).
Multicultural Perspectives Vol. 15, No. 1
15
Developing Cultural Critical Consciousness
and Competence
Instead of teaching world civilization by taking the
chronological or regional approach, Mr. Moon placed
religion at the center of his curriculum and designed a
semester-longWorld Religion curriculum in order to help
students critically understand the diverse social, cultural,
political, and historical development of human beings.
He believed that, “Perspectives coming from different
religions are closely connected to various historical
perspectives that people have now,” and that students
should fully understand others’ beliefs and respect each
other’s perspectives. Throughout the semester, students
studied Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam and compared their own religious beliefs, worldviews,
rituals, and culture to others’. In order to prepare
for his teaching the new curriculum, Mr. Moon studied
the diverse teachings and cultures of different religions by
visiting a local Hindu temple, reading the Koran, and by
listening to stories from his orthodox Jewish colleague.
As Subedi (2006) proposed, Mr. Moon educated himself
in order to teach religion in an open way and to have
meaningful conversations with his students. He displayed
religious symbols in the classroom and kept various
religious books including the Torah, a Christian Bible
(English and Spanish), teachings of the Dalai Lama, and
a Koran in his classroom.
For his first lesson on world religion, Mr. Moon
conducted a “Student Religion Survey” and asked
students to read other students’ answers about their
religious beliefs and worldviews. While discussing the
diverse religious practices and perspectives of students
in MHS, Mr. Moon asked students to be very respectful
when they talked about religion by saying, “When we
talk about someone’s religion, it is like talking about their
mama. It is a very sensitive and important topic for our
lives. Although you have different opinions, that does
not mean that you can say they are stupid.” Despite their
limited English skills, his students candidly expressed
their opinions, questions and, sometimes, frustrations
with different religious beliefs. These comments led to
a discussion of why they needed to study religion even
though it can be a very controversial topic. As a result of
the discussion, the students concluded that understanding
one’s own religion and respecting others’ beliefs are the
most significant components of what they need to adhere
to while studying religion.
Some of the religious discussions created conflict.
When he taught a lesson on the Dalai Lama, one Chinese
student argued that Mr.Moon should not discuss a person
who is against China and has been known to perpetrate
the deaths of many people. Mr. Moon admitted that it
was natural for young students to experience a hard time
understanding different values and world-views which
are significantly different from theirs. He was skilled in
discussing the issue with his students and transforming
their conflicts into educational moments by saying:
The purpose of this [study] is not to change your belief or
to convert you. . . . What we are going to focus on is how
the world is affected by religion. Religions have done a
lot of good things and important things in the world, the
most beautiful architecture, the most beautiful statues . . .
and it does cause a lot of pain as well.
Mr. Moon’s vision to help ELL students develop a
cross-cultural competency and create cultural tolerance
through the World Religion curriculum resonated with
the ideas of cultural critical consciousness, social justice,
and equity which serve as critical dimensions of CRP
(Dallavis, 2011; Gay & Kirkland, 2003).
Embedding Literacy Strategies in Social
Studies and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy
Perin et al. (2009) suggested that social studies
teachers should imbed literacy strategies in a way that
enables their students to read, write, and become critical
thinkers about the specific topics they are learning and to
make literacy instruction inseparable from content-area
instruction. After his first two years of teaching, Mr.
Moon felt he needed to hone his knowledge and skills
for teaching ELLs due to the ever-increasing cultural
as well as linguistic diversity among students in MHS.
Consequently, he pursued a master’s degree in TESOL
and this academic (as well as practical) background of
TESOL helped him integrate English literacy strategies
into his global history curriculum and to practice
interdisciplinary pedagogy.
Mr. Moon’s interpretation of effective literacy-driven
social studies included student-centered learning, interdisciplinary
pedagogies, and differentiated instructions
supported bymultiple types of visual texts and technology
(Cruz & Thornton, 2009). He was skillful in employing
TESOL strategies while teaching global history contents
and developing ELL students’ literacy skills through
group activities and discussions. Teaching Hindu myths,
Mr. Moon taught new vocabularies using a word wall
and he created reading groups based on the students’
English proficiency level. These strategies helped students
support each other in reading and understanding the
myths that were being taught in class. Mr. Moon asked
his students to draw a comic strip summarizing stories
they had read for homework, and he organized a group
storytelling activity so that all students had a chance to
talk and build comprehensive understanding about the
stories. Valuing bilingualism, Mr. Moon allowed students
to communicate in their native language when they
The Official Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education
16
worked in small groups. This strategy was effective in encouraging
his students to verbally express their thoughts
and share their understanding about the content. This
also supported their collaborative learning and content
knowledge development (Salazar & Franquiz, 2008).
Unlike typical text-dependent social studies, Mr.
Moon’s class included visual resources and graphic
organizers, which included maps, video clips, cultural
artifacts, and graphs, making the social studies content, as
well as English language learning, more comprehensible,
drawing student attention and participation to a higher
level (Salinas, 2006). He provided opportunities for
students to develop critical thinking skills by charging
them with observing and analyzing multiple types of
texts. He frequently utilized technology-based teaching
resources, such as PowerPoint presentations or web-based
materials equipped with SmartBoard. Mr. Moon used
YouTube video clips of the Dalai Lama’s speech and the
Tibet–China conflict in his lessons on Tibet and these became
powerful sources for increasing student motivation
and generating heated discussions about the issues.
Implications and Conclusion
The results of the investigation into Mr. Moon’s transformative
curriculum interpretations and pedagogical
practices, which capitalizes on newcomers’ linguistic
and cultural diversity to enrich social studies curriculum,
instead of ignoring them as distractions, provides
opportunities for educators to rethink how CRP can
foster meaningful learning opportunities for newcomer
ELLs. Mr. Moon successfully implemented CRP for
his ELLs by emphasizing global/multicultural perspectives,
creating collaborative learning communities based
upon high expectations for his students; he encouraged
critical thinking skills and a multicultural perspective
with cultural competency, and he incorporated literacy
strategies within his global history curriculum. A
snapshot of his innovative curriculum reconstruction
provides a new insight into how social studies curriculum
can be woven together with CRP in real classroom
settings and reconceptualized to promote ELL students’
engagement in learning in today’s ever-shrinking global
society.
Mr. Moon’s teaching practices provide solid tools for
practicing teachers who are struggling to teach social
studies to ELLs and who want to enrich their strategy
for teaching these students. Mr. Moon’s practices which
enabled his ELLs’ active engagement in learning can
be replicated in other classrooms. Student academic
engagement and achievements were evidenced and
observed by their active participation in learning, critical
thinking/analysis skills development, and cooperative
knowledge construction, instead of test scores, and
these show Mr. Moon’s CRP practices as meaningful
and justifiable. Moreover, his CRP-based social studies
teaching promoted critical perspectives in order to
educate newcomer students to tolerate diverse cultural
perspectives and utilize them as steppingstones to
broaden their worldviews (Gay & Kirkland, 2003).
Teacher educators may want to share the strategies
from this study with preservice teachers to help them
understand why social studies infused with CRP is
important for newcomers and rethink how personally
meaningful, culturally conscious, and academically solid
social studies can be educated for ELLs.
It is important to note that while Mr.Moon himself was
born and brought up in the United States, his family were
Korean immigrants and his background in academic,
cultural, and linguistic struggles in childhood provided a
significant impetus for his advocacy for immigrant ELLs
and for an in-depth understanding of their sociocultural
standings and academic needs (Quiocho & Rios, 2000).
Meanwhile, his family’s immigrant background is not
the only factor that made him a successful teacher in
CRP for newcomers (Ladson-Billings, 1994). As the
findings suggest, Mr. Moon made consistent endeavors
to learn about his ELLs’ diverse culture, language, and
religion, and actively incorporated their knowledge and
experiences into his lessons, thereby establishing cultural
connections with his students (Salazar &Franquiz, 2008).
In addition, his educational visions and practices were
largely influenced by his teacher education, particularly
Freirean principles of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970),
which he used as a platform for his curricular and
pedagogical decisions, and his TESOL training which
enabled him to develop validating pedagogies for ELLs
(Cruz & Thornton, 2009). Discussions with supportive
colleagues and administrators about his vision of
CRP was another critical component that enabled Mr.
Moon to implement a global/multicultural citizenshiporiented
curriculum. That is, what is important for CRPbased
social studies education for ELLs are teachers’
cultural understanding and positive expectations for their
ELLs, employing culturally resonating and personally
meaningful curricula and pedagogies, and supportive
colleagues and administrators, not the ethnic match
between teachers and students (Lee, 2010; Quiocho
& Rios, 2000). These findings strongly suggest that
teacher educators and administrators need to consider
how to provide meaningful support for teachers of ELLs,
so that they can confidently and creatively approach
CRP for the ever-increasing newcomer students in
American schools. A concerted effort should also be
made by teachers, practitioners, and scholars to provide
meaningful, equitable, and culturally relevant learning
opportunities for newcomer ELLs so that they can
function as knowledgeable and engaged citizens in this
diverse global society.
Multicultural Perspectives Vol. 15, No. 1
17
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project. Case narratives of each of the participants are included below. In order to examine
participants’ constructed meanings of their experiences, we asked about their ideas and experiences
regarding multiculturalism and ME and their life experiences related to Latinos and
diverse settings. Hence, we present these constructed meanings using quotes from participants’
responses. Based upon participants written curricular projects, we analyze their success
in integrating multicultural education into science curricular materials.
First-Year Participant: Megan. Megan is a 27-year-old White, middle-class female native
of the southeastern US. She has a Bachelor of Science in Education and nearly completed her
masters in Middle School Education with a concentration in Math and Science. Megan has
taught public school for 4 years. She has taught earth science, reading, and pre-algebra at the
sixth grade level. She took two semesters of French and has traveled to Mexico for the past
4 years on religious mission trips. In her first years as a teacher, Megan had experiences with
a wide variety of students from diverse backgrounds. At the time of the interview, however,
Megan found herself in a school environment with mostly affluent students of the dominant culture.
Megan definition of multicultural education is closely aligned with textbooks’ definitions
of ME. When asked, ‘‘What do you think multicultural education is?’’ Megan replies:
I think a lot of times teachers perceive it differently than what it should be. I think
multicultural education is a framework for how you teach. And an attitude about where
people come from and everyone has a different. . . All students have a different framework
that they come to class with based on how they were raised and the culture that
they came from. Our jobs as teachers is to best help the students find information that
fits their framework and in different ways because you have all these students coming
into this class with different frameworks.
Megan’s understanding of multiculturalism, however, is limited. For Megan, multiculturalism
is something that exists ‘‘out there,’’ in the classroom and apart from her own environment.
Megan defines multiculturalism as ‘‘Providing opportunities for everyone in the
classroom. I automatically. . . when I hear multicultural I think of the classroom.’’
Furthermore, multiculturalism is more attuned with recognizing social class differences. For
example, when asked about her efforts to incorporate ME ideologies into her curricula, Megan
presents a classroom experience that contrasts the economic conditions of Tijuana’s residents
with the experiences of her affluent students. Megan elaborates on this point in her response:
I have for the past four years I’ve been going down to Mexico for a mission trip with
my church and we go into Tijuana and we build a house in the outskirts of Tijuana.
Very rough area and that has definitely opened my eyes to view a different culture in a
different way of life. When I come back from that trip I always talk to my class about
my experiences. I try to relate it, if possible, to some of the things that we are doing.
And some times it’s just what you do over spring break and I share my story. A lot of
the kids that I did teach were very wealthy children. In the last school that I taught at. . .
my main purpose of doing that was allowing them to see that there are very different
ways of life. . . allowing them to see that not everybody has four-hundred thousand
dollars homes like the average home price in my school district. . . sharing a glimpse of
what I have experienced and helping them to broaden their vision of the world.
Megan’s initial and honest attempt to address social injustice with her students remains
superficial. As illustrated in her response, Megan’s approach to ME has the potential to create
adverse effects, particularly in her students’ ideas of others, and reinforce class differences
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rather than provide opportunities for her affluent students to examine social conditions. For
instance, Megan could have transformed curricula to include discussions about economic and
educational disparities between her students and Tijuana’s students, and extent these discussions
by encouraging her students to propose and enact ways to help their Tijuana peers.
Similarly, Megan’s experiences with the Latino culture did not effect enough change in
her to enable her to transform her curricula design. Megan’s limited understanding of MSE
prevented her from developing science curricula inclusive of MSE approaches. Megan’s curriculum
consisted of three lessons in an Earth Science Unit consisting of the water cycle,
measuring air humidity and cloud formation and identification. Each of the component lessons
incorporated textbook lessons and standard laboratory activities. For instance, students
were asked to label the processes involved in Earth’s hydrologic cycle, measure air humidity
using a psychrometer, and identify clouds. There were no attempts to change ‘‘standardized’’
curricula to incorporate perspectives from other cultures, that is, exploration of the Aztec
mythical god of rain, Tlaloc or rain dances performed by Native Americans. Thus, Megan’s
curriculum project provided no evidence of integration of MSE approaches.
First-Year Participant: Christa. Christa is a 26-year-old White middle-class female native
of the southeast. She has a Bachelor of Science in Plant Biology and a BSA in Horticulture.
She is near completion of her M.Ed. in Science Education with a concentration in Biology.
Christa has taught biology and human anatomy in a public secondary school for 1 year. She
has taken three semesters of Spanish.
Christa’s teaching experience immersed her in a multicultural environment. She taught at
a small city high school whose student body was composed of, as she relates, 60% Black,
27% White, 8% Hispanic, and 5% identified as ‘‘Other.’’ During her first year teaching,
Christa related that she had had little contact with Latino students. Furthermore, her
first-hand experiences of Latino culture are very limited and consisted mostly of the lived
experiences of a Latina roommate.
When defining both multiculturalism and multicultural education, Christa initially provides
a standard operationalization but goes on to utilize terms that suggest a socioeconomic
basis for cultural identity. When asked: What comes to mind when you hear and read the
word ‘‘multicultural?’’ Christa responds,
Multicultural implies probably three major concepts to me. The first one being the
cultural theme. The idea of different ethnicities, different values, and different philosophical
approaches to physically the way you look at life. The next thing that comes to
me is that multicultural is the idea of economics. You know, what level you are coming
from. Are you working class? Are you wealthy? Are you poor? You know, what’s your
status? How do you define yourself as far as your income goes. And then lastly, I would
honestly say it’s kind of the perception that you have of yourself. I mean, you can be
say. . . in a certain culture, in a certain economic class, but you perceive yourself as
being maybe something else. . .And so I think as far as multiculturalism goes in its
attempts to address the needs that are experienced by all three of those groups.
In a follow-up question concerning the lack of multicultural integration into her science
curriculum, Christa makes meaning of her current time and place by placing the ultimate
blame on forces out of her control: ‘‘the performance standards and standardized tests, as
well as the school’s demands to meet these standards.’’ Christa empathizes with Latinos and
hold positive beliefs about their innate ability to perform as well as any other ethnic group.
Christa suggests, however, that, because they are subject to the same accountability-related
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pressures the integration of multicultural education into science curricula is, for her, simply
not a feasible option.
I will be honest with you. It’s all about testing, you know, because my students are
tested on simply knowledge. . . in order to get out of high school, they not only have to
be able to probably pass the biology course test, they got to pass the graduation test.
And it doesn’t matter how well they think, it doesn’t matter how well they process, if
they don’t pass those two hurdles. . . tons of avenues are shut down to them.
Christa’s curriculum consisted of three biology lessons in a unit entitled ‘‘Green and
Growing Plants.’’ Lessons included introductory lectures of main ideas and concepts concerning
plants and hands-on laboratory activities. Multicultural activities during the third lesson
were evident when student groups were asked to work with and identify different fruits and
vegetables. One activity from this lesson asked students to identify where each fruit and
vegetable were originally domesticated. In this activity, fruits and vegetables associated with
other cultures included mango, corn, sweet potatoes, and avocado. The students were then
asked to consider different cultural perspectives concerning the use of these plants. The activity
also asked the students to think globally and consider the impact of modernized societies
on the search for indigenous ethnobotanical knowledge. There was a clear intention to
include diverse perspectives on important social and cultural questions surrounding scientific
concepts. However, there was no further depth of integration of multicultural education in the
curriculum project that Christa submitted.
While Christa makes an attempt to go beyond the identification, domestication, and exploitation
of plant species local to indigenous peoples, she failed to transform the curriculum in
such a way that the students may see how marginalized people use their scientific knowledge
and how they have contributed to the worldwide body of knowledge. This one-sided approach
makes it difficult for students to critically examine social, economic and political processes and
events, much less think globally and become advocates for an equitable society. Christa’s
attempt to integrate multicultural education for the benefit of all students was not adequately
leveraged with appropriate education on implementation of concepts and strategies. In addition,
when asked if she had attempted to incorporate Latino and other cultural context into science
lessons and activities in the field, Christa replies that she cannot think of any examples: ‘‘In
the science classes. . . let me think. . . my first answer coming to mind is actually, probably,
no. Because I can’t think of anything right off that was a direct contribution. The only thing
that might come close is actually when we study the approach of other cultures to science.
Not a very long. . . It’s about a one-day lesson.’’ Her experiences with students with diverse
backgrounds, however limited, did not enable or otherwise lead Christa to develop multicultural
curricula above the level of Banks’ (1995) ‘‘Additive Approach.’’
Second-Year Participant: Kasey. Kasey is a 34-year-old female native of the southeast.
She identifies herself as a middle-class White but refers to being brought up in a rural
environment of low socioeconomic status. She has a Bachelor of Science in Biology. Kasey’s
academic background, especially as it pertains to this study, includes one multicultural
education course (incidentally, taught by a leading scholar of multicultural education) and
four courses in the Spanish language. Kasey spent one semester in New Zealand and
Australia studying ecology and sustainability. She also spent 3½ weeks in Belize studying
ecology. While there, she roomed with a native Kechi Maya family. During her first teaching
year, Kasey taught physical science and biology at a southeastern secondary school. In her
first year of teaching, Kasey taught in an environment containing ‘‘about 75% African
American, about 24% White students and a very, very small number of Latino students.’’
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Kasey defines multicultural education as the integration of multiple perspectives without
consideration of her ideas about her students (i.e., socioeconomic conditions, family structure,
attitudes toward education).
. . .as an educator I think multicultural education is ah. . . it’s a lot of different things.
It’s taking what you are going to teach and teaching it from a lot of different perspectives
instead of just one mainstream type of perspective. . . exposing your students the
whole range of different cultures, different people that are out there, the different ways
that they learn, the different ways that they know, the different things that they have
contributed to society and just integrating it throughout their educational experience.
Kasey’s upbringing provided her the opportunity to develop a different identity and a
socially mediated reality than that of the main culture in her environment. Though otherwise
living in her native culture, Kasey has felt marginalized within it, or has identified with
identities (including those related to her sexual orientation) that are considered to be inherently
in opposition to it, thus conferring a kind of surrogate ‘‘Otherness’’ to her lived experience.
You know because a lot of times you are not a part of something that’s not the main
stream you have a hard time saying what your culture is so I just sort of felt like I am
southern even though I don’t identify with some of the ideals that are associated with
that. . . I am southern, but a lot of times I did not identify with a lot of the things that
come along with being southern. . . [I come from] a small sort of country town. . .
Mostly White. . . The head of the Ku Klux Klan lives here. . . Several times they had a
march. . .They also had people who protested it. . . I actually went to protest that march. I
felt a little bit of disconnect . . . I hate to say red-neckish, but. . . Their ideals are not very
accepting of people, from different ethnicities or cultures or whatever. . . there are some
words that some people in my family will use that I don’t like. . . You know, the ‘‘N’’
word. . . I didn’t like it whatsoever. I hated being identified with that. I didn’t like it at all.
How she made sense of her otherness and the otherness of others impacted how she
views being an outsider.
There is a noticeable intentionality on Kasey’s part about incorporating teaching
strategies that are typically thought of falling under the rubric of multicultural education. Her
focus here is on cultural inclusion, social learning, and addressing diverse learning styles. The
integration occurs via a utilitarian approach at the level of the classroom; in other words, at
the level of the actual students Kasey is teaching, and not of an idealized population of
‘‘culturally diverse learners’’ of whom Kasey’s students are but a subset. The quotes from
Kasey’s interview below indicate her intentionality, approach and implementation style.
 ‘‘Sometimes I will go and maybe find a scientist from certain background that is
doing current research, you know, and incorporate them in the lesson.’’
 African American students are very good at social learning in groups. If you teach
them how to work in groups the right way a lot of times they will flourish in that
environment where as if it’s just lecture they are just turning off. . .So not only do you
have to consider making sure their culture is included but also making sure you
include learning activities that require people to use a vast number of learning styles
so that every student has the opportunity to see.
For her curriculum design project, Kasey developed a 5-day unit called Exploring Cells.
Of the range of teaching strategies, three general strategies were evident: the targeting of
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(native Spanish-speaking) ELLs, the integration different cultural perspectives, and the
addressing of different learning styles. For instance, as part of vocabulary building, ELLs
were asked to provide a description of a word, provide the Spanish equivalent and
present their definition to the class. Throughout the curriculum, ELLs received their reading
assignments 1 week prior to the rest of the class allowing ESOL (English Speakers of Other
Languages) teachers to work with them separately. Students with learning disabilities were to
be grouped and have exams read out loud to them. Here, strategies aimed at reaching ELLs
are very utilitarian in nature, actively accommodating ELLs without resorting to idealized or
superficial approaches designed to simply pique their interest.
In Kasey’s lessons, students were, as a general rule, to be grouped in pairs. Each group
was asked to read an article about historical contributors to cell theory. Scientists that were
chosen for this activity were to represent different ethnic, gender, or racial backgrounds. At
the end of the activity, contributing scientists were placed on a timeline and were contrasted
based on their cultural differences. The goal here was to demonstrate that individuals from a
range of cultural spheres have all contributed, and continue to contribute, to today’s corpus of
scientific knowledge. Students were also asked to compose a paper synopsis and to bring in an
artifact that represents their assigned scientist. The synopses and artifacts were to be placed
in a visible classroom collection. In another exercise, Kasey asked her students to choose a
plant to emphasize a use by an indigenous group of their choice. Students were then asked to
produce an artifact describing the plant as well as the indigenous group they have chosen.
Again, these artifacts were to be displayed in the classroom collection. A short clip on Native
American plant usage was presented to the students in one of the sessions.
In her curriculum unit, Kasey also addressed possible differences in learning styles.
Allowing for visual learners, Kasey does not confine the use of diagrams and other visuals to
printed material she develops for the class. She goes further to allow her students to themselves
use pictorial representations (drawings and collages) for word definitions. The different
approaches to curricula, that is, accommodating ELLs, addressing different styles, and including
additional units provide evidence and locate Kasey’s curriculum in Bank’s Level 3, the
Transformative Approach.
Second-Year Participant: John. John is a 26-year-old male native of the northeast and
identifies himself as the ‘‘classic middle-class WASP.’’ He grew up in a Navy family and, as
a child, lived in Guam for some time. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology. John’s
multicultural coursework includes gifted and special education and two Spanish courses. He
considers himself somewhat fluent in Spanish. During his first year teaching, he taught biology
for 9th, 10th, and 11th grades in a rural southeastern secondary school. John taught in a school
primarily attended by ‘‘Caucasian’’ students, mainly of low SES [socio-economic status].
John’s definition of multiculturalism is indistinct from a ‘‘textbook’’ definition. John elaborates
on his definition of multiculturalism:
I think of kind of a philosophy or an approach where we are looking at the diversity of
different cultures and different individuals. I am looking to appreciate the multiple perspectives
and all the different diversities that are out there, rather than looking at things
from just a dominant culture standpoint. Looking at multiple perspectives and trying to
embrace and appreciate all the diversity out there, rather than kind of acting as though
it doesn’t exist.
When asked to provide an example of the application of multiculturalism in his classroom,
John provides the following curriculum example:
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We are focusing on the recent immigration policy debate and issues that are going on
surrounding that. . . Although the debate kind of turns towards the Latino immigrant, we
were really focusing to what I thought was normal—bicultural, in effect, [in] that we
were looking at this issue from multiple perspectives. We were looking at it from different
immigration groups, from business owners, from other individuals, and we were
looking at that through multiple lenses and looking at the larger issues and looking at
all the different cultural aspects, the economic, the politics and those different things
and so I think multiculturalism is trying to look at any subject or content from multiple
perspectives. Not just I’m a science teacher and we are just taking about the science.
John concludes his definition by placing the utility of multicultural education within the
broader, and more central, aim of an equitable education that results in individuals able to
think critically about life. Multicultural education provides a means to leverage learners’
diverse cultural backgrounds in the service of this aim.
. . .Ultimately, we want our students to be critical thinkers and to be able to look at
complex issues. . . It is not about them memorizing the equations of photosynthesis. It’s
about them leaving the classroom with an appreciation for science and enough content
knowledge to be able to go out into the world and make decisions. And so I think with
experience and I think some of the ideas that I’ve learned about multicultural education
and some of the different techniques and those types of things I think it will enable me,
that along with my experience, to be in implementing those things a lot more regularly
into my classroom. I think making a more conscious effort to bridge that gap and
address their needs as adolescents and their different cultural backgrounds.
John recalls a period in his upbringing wherein he found himself in a non-native cultural
setting. He associates the faces he recalls in memory with diversity. In addition, John mentions
that during this time, he did not blend in with the crowd but instead stood out. He does not
associate this with negative feelings, but his choice to relate this in the interview (when asked
to give an overview of his upbringing) may be indicative of how he made meaning of his
international experiences and the influence that this period had on his worldview formation.
I grew up in a Navy family and so I have lived. . . was born up in Northeastern
Connecticut and lived there until about five, I believe, and then moved out to Guam.
My dad was stationed in Guam overseas so that was quite a cultural shock for blond
haired, blue-eyed kid. Lived there for two years. . . So I would say the community was
always, I would say, middle class largely ah. . . military families so very diverse. . .
pretty diverse backgrounds with different groups of people getting represented in that
community where I lived. . .. and people from Guam, a couple of other Navy brats. A
lot more diversity there and it was. . . It was just different because you see I had that
exposure to all those different faces and those different cultures and very different languages.
My teachers were very different than what I had experienced in the past. . . I
was now the minority. The blond-haired, blue-eyed kid. . . It was just a different feeling,
to feel like everybody else. I am looking at mostly people that were different than me.
I didn’t feel shunned or anything, it was just a different. . . Like oh, now I am not . . . I
am the blond haired kid.
John developed a mini-unit on ecosystems consisting of four lesson plans that heavily
emphasized the collective human impact on the planet. The first lesson ‘‘Human Populations
and Immigration’’ was co-constructed by two other classmates in the curriculum design
course (with John being the primary author). This lesson presented the students with the issue
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of global human population growth and the basic debate on the immigration issues facing
the United States today. The goal of the lesson was to have students view the multiple
perspectives that contribute to the immigration debate. Prior to the first lesson, students are
assigned readings on the United States immigration issue. Students were presented with video
clips from different cultural interest groups. The classroom was transformed into a ‘‘town
hall,’’ and its representatives were to develop a bill that could pass both the town house and
the senate. In this ‘‘town hall’’ debate, students were randomly assigned to different cultural
interest groups, including anti-immigrant nationalists, business owners, illegal immigrants,
humanitarians, and individuals seeking legal citizenship. Each group stated and defended
their views on human immigration to the United States. Clear evaluative instructions were
provided for the students and a final written summary of the discussions was to be completed
by students. The second lesson presented a research-based discussion on the collective
human ecological footprint and the variety of its impacts on the environment. In addition,
this activity asked students to consider and define alternatives that diminish the ecological
footprint. To work in this project, students were grouped. Groups consisted of members from
a variety of different racial, ethnic, and cultural make up so that students from other cultures
contribute their understanding of their cultures’ ecological footprint. The following lessons
expanded on this concept and a central strategy in each of the following lessons was to
continue to further discussions of the planet’s biomes. Lessons incorporated PowerPoint
presentations and included pictures of different cultures, hands-on activities, and research
assignments concerning customs and beliefs of the inhabitants of the different biomes
and how these ideas impact biome stability. In addition, students were assigned to take
turns leading classroom presentations. Both of John’s curricular activities, the Immigration
Debate and the Ecological Footprint, are indicative of Bank’s level 4 or the ‘‘Action
Approach.’’
Second-Year Participant: Jessica. Jessica is a 24-year-old upper middle class White
female who has lived in a suburban metropolitan area of the southeast. She holds a
Bachelor of Science in Science Education. Jessica’s multicultural coursework consists of one
multicultural course and two semesters of Spanish. She considers herself somewhat fluent in
Spanish. She taught 10th grade biology for 1 year in two rural southeastern secondary
schools.
Jessica reports some level of cultural and ethnic mixture at the high school where she has
taught. She relates that this mixture is akin to the traditional southeastern mixture in that
Whites and Blacks predominate in terms of population numbers. ‘‘The high school that I
teach at has almost like 50/50 White and other different cultures. Like African American and
Asian and mostly it’s a White and Black issue that you see predominantly. You don’t see a
lot of Asian cultures.’’
When asked, ‘‘What do you think multicultural education is?’’, Jessica begins by recalling
concepts she has learned in her studies. Jessica explains that ME is:
I think it’s education. . . first of all it’s still being researched and it’s an equitable education,
because you are treating everyone fairly. I guess you can say fairly. . . .We have to look
at their different learning styles and their different intelligences and what they know and
change your curriculum and change your way of teaching to help out your students in the
classroom and that’s what I feel multicultural education is. . .. And when you read all these
different articles and you read that multicultural education is for free, justice, equality, and
I’m like, okay, all right I understand that but that is also in the U.S. Constitution and how is
that different. All men are created equal, well, multicultural education; does that work?
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Whenever I look at my students on the first day of school. I don’t count. I have seven White
kids, five Black kids, and six Hispanics. I don’t look at them that way. I always try to focus
on them as a person and I know that they are all students. I try not to focus so much on their
culture. . . What learning style they are based on a student’s disability and different things like
that. So culture is not what you see on the outside necessarily, it could be a disability and
different things, you know, what the students consider their culture. . . Because I told them I
said, look, I am going to treat you like I treat any other student. You have the same opportunities,
I will work with you the best I can and that’s what I do.
Jessica recounts the occasion of a trip with her friend to a local center serving a
low-SES, mostly Latino, community. The narrative is tinged with fear, regardless of the community’s
religious ties and orientation (which might otherwise mark a social phenomenon as
‘‘safe’’) due to how she made meaning of difference:
Well when I first. . . we almost got lost, because she [friend] couldn’t remember exactly
where the trailer was and so we were in there and we got back into the one part that
looked like a bunch of wooded area and I said I don’t think we are going in the right
direction. So we had to back out and as we are coming in I’m in a relatively nice car
but I am driving and people are coming out and they are looking at us. I know that no
one is going to come out and like get us because this it is related to a church community,
but at the same time it’s like, I feel that we are the bad part of town because everybody
was coming out and then when we got to the kids. . .’’
Jessica’s narratives of experiences with a cultural or ethnic ‘‘Other’’ unmask the perspective
she uses to understand and frame these experiences. The following account describes her
experience as a tourist in Puerto Rico. Jessica cannot understand why she is the object of
attention at the airport. Jessica assumes that this is due to their assumption that she is not the
‘‘Other.’’ Her final question reveals a misunderstanding of the host culture, in which she may
have realized that she is indeed the ‘‘Other.’’ Her experience as a family guest was apparently
not sufficient to effect any change in the self-Other inner dialectic.
I was down in Puerto Rico. . . I just went down there two times. The first time I was at
the airport I saw all the people on the outside and they were looking at me and tapping
on the window. I’m like, ‘‘who are you?’’ ‘‘I don’t know you.’’ And why are you
tapping and pointing at me? Then when I got out and I have all these people. . . like
these men, they are all around me saying I’ll take your bag. I’m like, no, no, no, no, I
am waiting on somebody. Where are you going with my bag? Hey, where are you going
with my bag? So it was just like they assumed I was part of their culture and I’m like I
don’t know where you are going. And then when I got. . .. Because I stayed with a
family friend and she told me that it’s just going to be like this. My family is very. . .
they are going to accept you whether you like it or not. I don’t mind being accepted or
having a second family, but what do you mean by accept me? Am I going to be sacrificed?
What does that mean?’’
Jessica has taken a number of courses that deal at least in part with multicultural education.
As a second-year participant in this study, she has also taken the science curriculum
course with the added unit on multicultural education integration. Her responses, recorded
after the conclusion of the course, indicate a lack of certainty about implementation strategies.
Jessica perceives a lack of interest in her students about historically relevant White
individuals (or at least those mandated for the students to recognize) and suggests a sympathetic
stance.
FROM THE CONTRIBUTION APPROACH TO THE ACTION APPROACH 1285
Journal of Research in Science Teaching
I have a hard time because I honestly don’t know that many so I can incorporate
African American, Hispanic descent, Filipino descent, Asian descent. . . I really don’t
know because in school, the people that were highlighted, and they said these are the
people you need to know, were White. And it hasn’t changed either. The standards, who
do they need to know? Hooks, Dorian, etc., a bunch of White people. When I ask my
students they want to know is this going to be on the test. I’m like no; this is for you to
know so if you go on a game show one day you can say who is Franklin Roosevelt. Or
one of those crossword clues kind of things. I’m like, jeez, folks.
Jessica vacillates between an earnest inability to define multiculturalism and a definition
that is vague and impersonal. While she is willing to take the students through an exercise in
seeing culture through an ‘‘objective’’ lens, Jessica stops short of making a connection to an
existing culture. What is common to the excerpts below is a willingness to frame cultural
perspectives in general and hypothetical terms rather than upon actual, specific cultures as
points of reference when discussing a particular science topic.
One thing that I do is I have my students design an ecosystem and they do this on
paper. And I tell them it can be anywhere in the world and a lot of them take it upon
themselves to create something totally different. . . they start looking at me and I’m like
you are almost creating a whole different kind of culture. . .. And when they look at it
that way when they are trying to create and they think, well. And I say it’s not a bad
thing. I say, don’t get me wrong; it’s not a bad thing. I just want you to understand that
here is planet ‘‘Plasma’’, there are humans somehow and plants. Do they look like us?
Is there a certain culture represented there? And so they start thinking about those types
of things, but I guess I don’t focus on like, African American’s DNA.. . . I listen to their
descriptions of the ecosystem and I had one student that remembered when I talked to
them about skin type. I told them a lot of people it’s the melanin their skin that will
change and create it to be darker and so she remembered that. So she said this country
is near the tropics, their skin will be darker. I was like, um, she figured that out!
It appears that Jessica has not purposely reflected on how culture impacts teaching and
learning due to how she has made meaning about her own experiences; hence, she is unwilling
to challenge her own students on these topics.
Jessica’s 3-day lessons focused on understanding ecosystem structure, function, and population
dynamics. Each of her lessons about ecosystems consisted of a brief PowerPoint presentation
on ecosystem concepts and a hands-on experience. At the end of the first lesson,
students were to complete a laboratory report to be collected and graded using a grading
rubric provided to the students prior to the assignment. Jessica’s multicultural strategy for this
lesson included a number of effective components, including allowing students to choose to
work in their own groups, assigning roles to the students in each group (the roles each member
took varied throughout the lessons), and using a variety of pictures of the different ecosystem
trophic levels. Lesson two on Population Dynamics consisted of a brief PowerPoint
presentation explaining major ideas and concepts and group work. Group work involved roleplaying
scenarios of different species interactions. Jessica extended the lesson to include
issues related to global human population. She provided readings on the topic and regularly
asked students to discuss the readings in groups. For one homework assignment, she assigned
students to read two articles on contrasting opinions on human immigration to the United
States. Jessica’s multicultural strategies for this lesson include providing ‘‘lots of pictures and
examples for the students to learn from and identify with.’’ In addition, she added that the
immigration debate ‘‘is a sensitive subject for some students, we will listen to each other and
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