Teacher Thinking in Cultural Contexts

Edited by Francisco A. Rios

Subjects: Education
Series: SUNY series, The Social Context of Education
Paperback : 9780791428825, 400 pages, March 1996
Hardcover : 9780791428818, 400 pages, March 1996
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Preface

Introduction

Francisco A. Ríos

1. Teacher Thinking in Urban Schools: The Need for a Contextualized Research Agenda

Alfredo J. Artiles

Part I Thinking about Students from Diverse Backgrounds

2. Teachers', Administrators', and Staff's Implicit Thinking about "At-Risk" Urban High School Latino Students

Martha Montero-Sieburth

3. Teacher Thinking and Perceptions of African-American Male Achievement in the Classroom

Clara A. New

4. Resistance and Rethinking: White Student Teachers in Predominately African-American Schools

Maureen D. Gillette

5. Teachers' Principles of Practice for Teaching in Multicultural Classrooms

Francisco A. Ríos

Part II Thinking about a Multicultural Curriculum and Instruction

6. Teaching Writing in a Multicultural Classroom: Students and Teacher as Storytellers

Dawn Abt-Perkins

7. Tacit Messages: Teachers' Cultural Models of the Classroom

Mary Lynn Hamilton

8. Teachers' Choices for Infusing Multicultural Content: Assimilating Multicultural Practices into Schemata for Instruction in the Content Area

Carmen Montecinos Deborah L. Tidwell

Part III Thinking about How to Change Thinking

9. Teaching Concerns Revisited: The Multicultural Dimension

Patricia L. Marshall

10. Using a Constructivist Approach to Challenge Preservice Teachers' Thinking about Diversity in Education

Teresita E. Aguilar Cathy A. Pohan

11. Learning to Teach in Cross-Cultural Settings: The Significance of Trusting Relations

Linda Valli

12. Coalition Building as a Means for Changing Teachers' Cultural Knowledge about Multicultural Education

Marilynne Boyle-Baise Judith Washburn

Conclusion
New Directions in Teacher Thinking: Linking Theory to Practice

David Whitehorse

Notes

References

Index

Explores how teachers think about students of color and/or a multicultural curriculum and presents opportunities for reconstructing teacher knowledge of the cultural context.

Description

Francisco Rios' book sheds light on current scholarship around teacher thinking in cultural contexts and identifies promising practices that take into account context specific influences. He provides a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding why teacher cognition as a context specific phenomenon is important, how it is studied, what can be learned, and how these learnings inform the preparation of culturally responsive educators. The contributors look at how teachers think about students of color and/or a multicultural curriculum and explore opportunities for reconstructing teacher knowledge of the cultural context.

Rather than focusing on ways in which the students are "deficient," or on the behavioral elements of effective teaching, this book starts with the how and what of teacher thinking as a central element in the teaching-learning relationship. It places the teacher at the center of instructional activity. While teacher thought influences what happens in instructional settings, teacher thought is also influenced by the people and activity critical to those settings.

Francisco A. Rios is Assistant Professor in the College of Education at California State University-San Marcos.

Reviews

"This is an important aspect to an important field of study: teacher thinking, multiculturalism, and classroom practice. The book points to the need of synchronization between the school culture and the students' culture. The acknowledgment of social context within teacher thinking research and the resulting discussions of how teachers' perspectives impact behavior is an important step in understanding race, gender, class, and ability in classroom teaching and learning. " -- Mari E. Koerner, Roosevelt University