Narrative and Experience in Multicultural Education explores the untapped potential that narrative and experiential approaches have for understanding multicultural issues in education. The research featured in the book reflects an exciting new way of thinking about human experience. The studies focus on the lives of students, teachers, parents, and communities, highlighting experiences seldom discussed in the literature. Most importantly, the work emphasizes the understanding of experience and transforming this understanding into social and educational significance.
"Narrative and Experience in Multicultural Education provides compelling stories that raise questions, advance understandings, and promote insight into the challenges and hopes of teaching for diversity and democracy. The works contained are compelling for the stories they tell and, as such, there is value in their presence. That the thoughtful reader can glean important lessons with respect to multicultural education and the value of narrative inquiry as academic disciplines is intellectual ′icing-on-the-cake.′" —Francisco Rios, University of Wyoming "This work is a very exciting, important, and badly needed piece of scholarship offered by some of the most leading-edge professors in the field. The diversity and diverse viewpoints it presents are unparalleled in the field of education." —Cheryl J. Craig, University of Houston "The narratives in this book allow readers to put a human face to an issue related to multicultural education. A reflective reader will begin to see himself/herself in the narratives of the text." —Edmundo F. Litton, Loyola Marymount University "The inclusion of chapters that deal with classroom realities elevate the text for education teacher candidates above those existing volumes that tend to deal with multi/inter-cultural issues in the abstract. One of the strengths of this volume is that it will resonate with new and experienced classroom practitioners." —Jon G. Bradley, McGill University Narrative and Experience in Multicultural Education explores the untapped potential that narrative and experiential approaches have for understanding multicultural issues in education. The research featured in the book reflects an exciting new way of thinking about human experience. The studies focus on the lives of students, teachers, parents, and communities, highlighting experiences seldom discussed in the literature. The authors are diverse and their inquiries are far ranging in terms of content, ethnic groups studied, and geographic locations. They also bring their personal experience to the inquiries, actively participate in the lives of the people with whom they work, care deeply about the concerns of their participants, and search for ways to act upon these concerns. Most importantly, the work emphasizes the understanding of experience and transforming this understanding into social and educational significance. Key Features • Addresses new ways to explore multicultural issues in education; rather than relying on theoretical generalizations, the book focuses explicitly on individual and group experiences • Emphasizes the transformation of experience into education, especially through the study of complex multicultural issues • Challenges readers′ assumptions of multicultural issues by offering numerous narrative accounts and research studies for work with various ethnic groups Narrative and Experience in Multicultural Education is designed for use in courses in multicultural education and qualitative research, especially in departments of education, anthropology, and sociology. Professional educators, researchers, and consultants will also find this a valuable introduction to narrative research and a welcome addition to the literature.
The heart of this study is a detailed narrative account of a teacher in an inner-city school. For two years, the author collaborated with an immigrant teacher from the Caribbean, studying her practice from three perspectives: place—the community and school landscape; temporality—the history of the school and current programs; and interaction—the teacher's relationship with the school, parents, and students. Current ways of examining multicultural issues focus on the analysis of broad factors affecting large groups of people. In the process, the individual is subsumed within catagories and the subtle nuances of experiences are lost. The narrative approach outlined in the book offers a new perspective on multiculturalism and research into multicultural education, one the author terms narrative multiculturalism. Narrative multiculturalism begins with experience as it is shaped by the contexts in which people live and work. It is also shaped by broader societal and global forces. In this approach, multiculturalism is viewed as a fluid process, continually evolving, changing, and transforming. Narrative multiculturalism develops an in-depth understanding of individual experiences and thereby creates an alternate perspective on multiculturalism.
Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities, and Resoures for the Multicultural Classroom offers 20 engaging, first-person narratives about school experiences by students, teachers, and parents. They focus on race and ethnicity, learning styles, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, linguistic diversity, gender and gender roles, learning abilities and special needs, and physical abilities. Questions, projects, and activities help teachers synthesize these issues in ways meaningful to their own classroom practice
Exploring Diversity through Multimodality, Narrative, and Dialogue awakens educators to the ways in which values, beliefs, language use, culture, identity, social class, race, and other factors filter approaches to teaching and expectations for students. Designed as a guide to help educators engage in dialogic interactions, the text articulates a theoretically grounded and research-based framework related to the use of personal narratives as learning tools. Educators are encouraged to consider their own positions, explore topics of diversity and social justice, and identify ways to better address student needs. Drawing on theories from multiliteracies, multimodality, embodiment, and narrative, chapters are framed around book discussions and the use of personal narrative to define and provide examples of dialogic interactions. Unique to this book is its focus on embodied learning and multimodality as well as myriad artifacts produced by educators; listening, not just dialogic talk; writing (both traditional print texts and multimodal composition) that supports dialogic interaction; and not merely responding to literature but developing empathic responses to texts, students, and others whose opinions may differ from one’s own viewpoints. The specific techniques and approaches presented can be used within educational and professional development settings to help readers enhance their journey toward greater awareness of others and of their own beliefs and experiences that lead toward social justice for all.
Korn and Bursztyn and their contributors examine the cultural transitions that children make as they move between the cultures of home and school. To better understand these transitions, they explore how educators understand their students' shifting experiences and examine how educators also negotiate transitions as they too move from home to school each day. The narratives or case studies reflect this shifting gaze: from child, to teacher, to parents, and take up the various relational configurations that these can form, amongst and between each other. They turn a critical eye toward instances of classroom practice and school life, connecting personal knowledge with school change. In some cases, the authors draw directly on autobiographical material, linking these to a reflective approach to teaching. Avoiding the celebratory tone that often attends discussions of multiculturalism, the authors address how diverstiy engages us in continual renegotiation of the personal and social. The perspectives of educators and of teacher candidates are presented, and the construction of cultural identity and its impact on schools, explored. In illuminating the complicated nature of cultural transitions and the obligation of schools to create places in which children and families of diverse backgrounds can thrive, they highlight how multiculturalism can play a transformative role in the lives of children and schools. A must reading for educators and graduate students in education, school psychology, guidance and counseling.
Examines use of ethnically diverse published autobiographies in a teacher educ. book club & course. Focuses on autobiography as site of teacher learning about culture & role of conversation in that learning. Blends personal narrative w/ analysis & descri.
