AnnMarie Alberton Gunn

Culturally Responsive Teaching: Exploring Children's Names and Cultural Identities

This is the final version of the article as published in Early Years Bulletin, 1(2), 9-11.

Using empathic identification as a literacy tool for building culturally responsive pedagogy with preservice teachers

This study explores how teaching cases that featured diversity and literacy issues and self-reflexive writing exercises called postcard narratives can be used as tools by teacher educators for developing a culturally responsive pedagogy with preservice teachers. This study used interviews with the professor, a journal kept by the professor, a researcher reflective journal, a pre- and post-teaching case, non-participant observation notes, preservice teachers’ written narratives and the statistically significant results of the Cultural Diversity Awareness Inventory to understand the lived experiences of 20 preservice teachers and one professor during the course of one semester. The discourse drawn from the teaching cases and the written postcard narratives were shown to be effective tools to cultivate experiences that allow preservice teachers and teacher educators to learn about other cultures, embrace difference and develop a culturally responsive pedagogy.

Focus on Middle School: Honoring My Students' Names! Using Web 2.0 Tools to Create Culturally Responsive Literacy Classrooms

When I go off to Sacred Heart School, they are going to call me Luke because my Iñquipa name is too hard. Nobody has to tell me this, I already know. I already know because when teachers try to say our real names, the sounds always get caught in their throats, sometimes, like crackers. That’s how it was in kindergarten and in first, second, and third grade, and that’s how it’s going to be at boarding school too. Teachers only know how to say easy names... My name is not easy. (Edwardson, 2011, p. 1)

Teachers Moving Forward on a Cultural Self-Awareness Spectrum: Diverse Children, Museums, and Young Adult Literature

Abstract This case study research investigated preservice and in-service teachers’ (N = 23) experiences and understandings as they participated in a multicultural children and young adults’ literature course that incorporates visits to a Holocaust museum. A graduate level course was redesigned within a framework of social justice pedagogy by focusing on critical analysis of multicultural literature, teacher inquiry, as well as a civic engagement project. Findings from this study illuminated how this course design encouraged teachers to move beyond a focus on tolerance and acceptance, and toward a social justice orientation through critical exploration of issues such as racism, oppression, and the ways bias and privilege operate within their own lives, schools, and society.