Peggy Placier

Coming to terms with “diversity” and “multiculturalism” in teacher education: Learning about our students, changing our practice

Abstract A teacher educator team addressed negative student responses to a multicultural foundations course by designing an action research study to learn more about their student’s identities, experiences and beliefs. Through qualitative analysis of written assignments, they identified three categories of student beliefs about the purposes of schools in relation to cultural diversity in American society. These categories were reinforced through triangulation with data from focus group dialogues. The findings suggest relationships between previous cross-cultural experiences, gender, and beliefs. Focus group data also revealed unrecognized sources of student resistance to multicultural teacher education, even among students who took a transformative position.

Exploring the Concept of Dialogue in the Self-Study of Teaching Practices

This papaer examines professional dialogue as a crucial element in r self-study practice and research. Over time our group has consistently employed professional dialogue to critically explore our work. Using electronic communiques, institutional documents, informal interviews, and more we have recorded and analyzed our experiences in academia and beyond. In this work we begin to question Dialogue as either method or methodology. We consider the interweaving: how we talk about practice and how we practice teaching and teacher education individually, collectively, and individually again. We consider the themes of community, cycles, and knowledge building for knowing and using dialogue. Finally we assert that through dialogue, we come to more clearly walk our talk.

The Epistemological Dimensions and Dynamics of Professional Dialogue In Self-Study

In this chapter, we articulate dialogue as a research stance or methodology. We begin by outlining our process in exploring dialogue. We propose that professional dialogue allows researchers to explore ideas, theories, concepts, and practice so that the understandings or assertions for action uncoffered provide a basis for confident action: physical, mental, or explanatory. Once an idea is put forward in this method of inquiry, it is met with reflection, critique, supportive anecdote, or explanation and analysis which interrogates and thus establishes the power of the learning as a basis for meaning making, understanding, or practical action. In a similar way, a situation, context, or experience is met with critique and analysis whereby competing, modified, or deeper supportive response can follow. Even if the dialogue gets passionate at times, it is not argument or disputation. In dialogue, practice, theory, and experience are intertwined. Since the investigation is focused on human interaction, the “findings” or “results” that emerge and the inquiry itself exist in an inconclusive state within a zone of maximal contact in the time frames of past, present, and future. To anchor this definition, we provide an analysis of segments of on-line chats. Next we position our ideas concerning dialogue against other historical and theoretical perspectives. We consider what dialogue is rather than what it should be; explore the use of dialogue for a purpose rather than just to converse, and, finally, articulate the dilemma of reaching consensus or truth in contrast with embracing multiple interpretations. We further support readers’ understanding of what we mean by dialogue as methodology or research stance through the presentation of our past work in terms of our current understanding of dialogue. Finally we re-present our definition of dialogue through an analysis of an audiotaped conversation recorded while writing this chapter. A method for examining professional practice must embrace the inconclusive nature of human interaction and yet allow for findings about which one can have su3cient confidence that action can be taken and that understanding from one situation can be used in analysis of another.

Teaching Race at Historically White Colleges and Universities: Identifying and Dismantling the Walls of Whiteness

In this article we outline the ‘walls of whiteness’ that make it difficult to teach the sociology of race and racism and make it difficult for students at historically white colleges and universities (HCWUs) to wrestle with these important issues. Most white students enter HWCUs surrounded by these walls – protecting them from attacks on white supremacy – that have multiple layers and therefore are even more difficult to penetrate; yet they must be penetrated. With a few exceptions, the institution of American higher education does not threaten those walls. Instead, college education often bolsters them through curricular and extracurricular experiences, residential and disciplinary isolation, institutional symbols, cultural reproduction, and everyday practices such as grading and classroom interactions. We identify these walls in this article and make suggestions regarding strategies to begin their dismantling.

Theater of the Oppressed as an Instructional Practice

Preparing pre-service teachers to negotiate the complexities of professional practice and to provide meaningful educational experiences for PK-12 students requires teacher educators to assist education students in developing a multicultural knowledge base. Such knowledge is essential to understanding the diverse nature of school environments and the educational/social implications of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity for all students (Cockrell, Placier, Cockrell & Middleton, 1999). Most pre-service teachers, however, resist multicultural theory as a vital element of teachers’ professional knowledge (Goodwin, 1997; Greenman, 1995; Jordan & Rice, 1995). This chapter explores an instructional and curricular collaboration designed to engage teacher preparation students in critical examination of the social reconstructionist approach to multicultural education through Theatre of the Oppressed (ToO). The overarching purpose of this study was to explore a form of theatre as a pedagogical method for engaging teacher education students in dialogue about the relationship of education to the nature of a society and of teaching to the ideals of democracy and social justice. While most teacher preparation students expressed a preference for traditional instructional methods, some recognized the power of experiential learning.

Learning to Teach with Theatre of the Oppressed

In this account of a study of a Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) intervention in a preservice teacher classroom, the authors explore an alternative way of learning to teach, as well as the dynamics of interdisciplinary collaboration between Theater and Education. Measures of racial and political attitudes did not demonstrate any change in the preservice teachers; however, several limitations made these findings inconclusive. Observations and journal entries suggested that interactive theater may be a promising way to make beliefs about teaching and learning visible, and therefore accessible for critical reflection.

Investigating Interactive Theatre as Faculty Development for Diversity

The scene: A seminar on audience response at an American Society for Theatre Research conference. One of the authors of this article, having discovered that every paper in the seminar relied solely on theory, innocently raised the question, “Why not ask the audience how they actually responded to the performance?”—thus triggering the hostile response, “Social science research is worthless! You can make numbers say anything you want them to say!”

Deaf Culture and Competing Discourses in a Residential School for the Deaf: "Can Do" versus "Can't Do".

From an ethnographic case study of a state-funded residential school for the Deaf, the authors employed Critical Discourse Analysis to identify competing discourses in the talk of educators. These discourses are embedded in the historical oppression and labeling of deaf people as disabled and the development of Deaf culture as a counter-discourse. Implications include changing teacher/administrator hiring practices, improving professional development options, and distributing power between Deaf and hearing educators.

The History of Initial Teacher Preparation in International Contexts

This chapter examines the history of teacher education in five nations – South Africa, Singapore, Chile, Finland, and United States – representing different continents, histories, political structures, cultures, levels of wealth, and economies. The nations were selected, in fact, because of this variability; Table 2.1 shows how widely they differ on a number of indicators. We hope the chapter will generate discussions about the role teacher education has played in national development and what teacher educators in different nations might learn from each other.