Language, Culture, and Teaching: Critical Perspectives (Language, Culture, and Teaching Series)
By Sonia Nieto
* Publisher: Routledge
* Number Of Pages: 296
* Publication Date: 2009-08-28
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0415999685
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780415999687
Product Description:
Distinguished multiculturalist Sonia Nieto speaks directly to current and future teachers in this thoughtful integration of a selection of her key writings with creative pedagogical features. Offering information, insights, and motivation to teach students of diverse cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds, this text is intended for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level students and professional development courses.
Examples are included throughout to illustrate real-life dilemmas about diversity that teachers face in their own classrooms; ideas about how language, culture, and teaching are linked; and ways to engage with these ideas through reflection and collaborative inquiry. Each chapter includes critical questions; classroom activities; and community activities suggesting projects beyond the classroom context.
About the Second Edition: Over half of the chapters are new to this edition, bringing it up-to-date in terms of recent educational policy issues and demographic changes in our society.
Sonia Nieto is Professor Emerita of Language, Literacy, and Culture, School of
Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xi
Introduction: Language, Literacy, and Culture:
Intersections and Implications 1
PART I
Setting the Groundwork 25
1 What is the Purpose of Schools? Reflections
on Education in an Age of Functionalism 27
2 The Limitations of Labels 36
3 Understanding Multicultural Education in a
Sociopolitical Context (with Patty Bode) 38
4 Multicultural Education and School
Reform (with Patty Bode) 66
5 Public Education in the Twentieth Century
and Beyond: High Hopes, Broken Promises, and an
Uncertain Future 88
6 We Speak in Many Tongues: Language
Diversity and Multicultural Education 112
PART II
Identity and Belonging 133
7 Culture and Learning 135
8 Lessons From Students on Creating a
Chance to Dream 160
9 Beyond Categories: The Complex Identities
of Adolescents (with John Raible) 199
PART III
Becoming Critical Teachers 215
10 Profoundly Multicultural Questions 217
11 Solidarity, Courage, and Heart: Learning
From a New Generation of Teachers 225
PART IV
Praxis in the Classroom 245
12 Affirmation, Solidarity, and Critique:
Moving Beyond Tolerance in Multicultural Education 247
13 Nice is Not Enough: Defining Caring for
Students of Color 264
14 What Does it Mean to Affirm Diversity in
Our Nation’s Schools? 269
Index 275
Preface
Ten years have passed since the first edition of Language, Culture, and Teaching
was published, and they have been momentous years both nationally and globally.
Because of events such as 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, as well as global immigration
and the dramatic demographic changes in our own society during the
past decade, the issues addressed in this book remain significant for today’s
classrooms. Whether you teach in a large urban public school system, a small
rural schoolhouse, or an affluent private academy in the suburbs, you will face
students who are more diverse than ever in terms of race, language background,
ethnicity, culture, and other differences. The United States today is enormously
different from what it was just a generation ago. For example, in 1970, at the
height of the public school enrollment of the “baby boom” generation, White
students accounted for 79 percent of total enrollment, followed by 14 percent
African American, 6 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent Asian and Pacific Islander
and other races. The situation is vastly different now: Currently, about 60 percent
of students in U.S. public schools are White, 18 percent Hispanic, 16 percent
African American, and 4 percent Asian and other races. The Census Bureau’s
population projections indicate that the student population will continue to
diversify in the coming years. In addition, the number of students who are foreign
born or have foreign-born parents is growing rapidly. More than 49 million
students, or 31 percent of those enrolled in U.S. elementary and secondary
schools, are foreign-born or have at least one parent who was foreign-born (Shin,
2005). This situation has major implications for teaching and learning, and for
whether or not teachers feel sufficiently prepared to meet the challenges of
diversity.
Because of these changing demographics and dramatic global realities, including
massive relocations of populations due to war, famine, and other natural
and human catastrophes, language and culture are increasingly vital concerns in
contemporary classrooms across the United States. Yet few educators besides
specialists in bilingual education, ESL, or urban education feel adequately prepared
through their course work and other pre-practicum experiences to teach
students who embody social and cultural differences. As a result, many educators
are at a loss as to what to do when faced with students whose race, ethnicity, social
class, and language differ from their own. They are equally unprepared to
understand—or to deal effectively with—the significant achievement gaps that
arise from unequal and inequitable learning conditions. For many teachers, their
first practicum or teaching experience represents their introduction to a broader
diversity than they have ever experienced before. This is true for all teachers—not
just White teachers—because our society is still characterized by communities
that are largely segregated by race, ethnicity, and social class.
In spite of these realities, many textbooks designed for current and future
teachers devote little attention to issues of difference, and even less to critical
perspectives in teaching. In looking over the variety of textbooks available for
current and future teachers, I found many to be little more than dry and boring
treatments of so-called “best practices” or thoughtless techniques that leave
teachers’ creativity and analysis on the sidelines. Thus the motivation behind
this textbook is to provide a different model, one that engages you as an active
learner and that builds on your creativity. It is addressed primarily to you, current
and future teachers in our nation’s schools, and in it I hope you will find the
information, insights, and motivation to teach students of diverse backgrounds.
Throughout this book I have attempted to present examples of: real-life
dilemmas about diversity that you will face in your own classrooms; ideas about
how language, culture, and teaching are linked; and ways to engage with these
ideas through reflection and collaborative inquiry. There are no easy answers, no
pre-packaged programs that can fix the uncertainties that teachers encounter
every day. However, there are more thoughtful ways to address these problems
than those which are currently presented in many textbooks; there are ways
that honor both teachers’ professionalism and students’ abilities and social and
cultural realities. Specifically, the goals of this book are to:
• explore how language and culture are connected to teaching and learning
in educational settings;
• examine the sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts of language and
culture to understand how these contexts may affect student learning and
achievement;
• analyze the implications of linguistic and cultural diversity for classroom
practices, school reform, and educational equity;
• encourage practicing and preservice teachers to reflect critically on their
classroom practices, as well as on larger institutional policies related to
linguistic and cultural diversity based on the above understandings;
• motivate teachers to understand their ethical and political responsibilities
to work, together with their students, colleagues, and families, for a more
socially just classroom, school, and society.
About the Second Edition
Language, Culture, and Teaching is a compilation of previously published journal
articles and book chapters, most of which I have written over the past decade.
Although the goals and basic framework of this second edition remain the same
as those of the first edition, more than half of the chapters are new to this edition.
Given the vast changes in our schools and society in the past decade, I thought it
xii Preface
was important to attend to some of these changes in this edition. For example,
newer and more nuanced understandings of identity led me to include a number
of chapters that address this topic in more contemporary ways (for example, see
Chapters 2 and 9). I have also added two chapters (3 and 4) that discuss the
current focus on rigid accountability processes, and specifically No Child Left
Behind (NCLB), topics that are now at the top of most educators’ agendas but
were just looming on the horizon a decade ago.
Overview
The book is organized in four parts, and each begins with a brief description of
the themes considered in that section of the text. Following the chapters are
critical questions, ideas for classroom and community activities, and suggested
resources for further reflection and study. Critical Questions are based on the
ideas presented in the chapter and they ask you to build on the knowledge you
have learned by analyzing the concepts further. Activities for Your Classroom are
suggestions for applying what you have learned by engaging in a deeper analysis
of the concepts. Often, it is suggested that you work with colleagues in developing
curriculum or other classroom-based projects. Community-Based Activities and
Advocacy are projects outside of your particular classroom setting, and they may
take place in the school or the school district, in the city or town in which you
teach, or even at the state or national level. Supplementary Resources for Further
Reflection and Study end each chapter with a list and brief description of
resources that will be helpful as you continue to reflect on and study the issues
addressed in the chapter.
The Introduction consists of a preliminary chapter, “Language, Literacy,
and Culture: Intersections and Implications.” This chapter provides an overall
background for the text by describing how language and culture are manifested in
twenty-first century schools and society. It also suggests some implications for
teaching and learning.
Part I: Setting the Groundwork consists of six chapters that set the conceptual
framework for links among language, culture, and teaching. Chapter 1 concerns
the age-old question of the purpose of schools, a consequential question all
teachers should be asking themselves as they enter the profession. Chapter 2, “The
Limitations of Labels,” is a brief piece that repudiates the all-too-common
practice, based on deficit views of students, to use labels to describe children.
Chapter 3, co-authored with Patty Bode, proposes a sociopolitical definition of
multicultural education and introduces you to major concepts and significant
literature in the field, including an analysis of NCLB. Chapter 4, also co-authored
with Patty Bode, provides a comprehensive definition of multicultural education
that takes it far beyond superficial approaches that focus only on holidays and
heroes. Chapter 5 presents an overview of public education in the twentieth
century through three focal movements for social justice—desegregation, multicultural
education, and bilingual education—and it discusses the future of these
and other movements for equity in education. The final chapter in this section
(Chapter 6), “We Speak in Many Tongues,” expands the conventional framework
Preface xiii
of multicultural education by incorporating language and language differences as
central to diversity.
Young people of all backgrounds struggle with issues of identity and belonging,
and for those who are culturally marginalized, the stress is even greater. Questions
of identity are related to learning because it is through their identities as competent
learners that students can succeed academically. Hence, matters of identity
are central to an appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity. Part II: Identity
and Belonging focuses on identity—social, cultural, racial, and linguistic—and
how it influences students, teaching, and learning. Chapter 7 introduces you to a
wide-ranging definition that rejects simplistic understandings of culture that
focus primarily on superficial trappings. Chapter 8, first published some 15 years
ago yet still relevant today, centers on the views of a diverse group of young
people about schooling, identity, and success. Part II ends with Chapter 9, which
I wrote with John Raible on the complex identities of adolescents, including
understanding identity as complex, heterogeneous, and hybrid.
The chapters in Part III: Becoming Critical Teachers concern the kind of
information teachers need about diversity in order to be effective with a wide
range of students. The two chapters in this section focus on what it takes to
become critical teachers of such students. Chapter 10 is a short piece that encourages
teachers to look beyond the superficial treatments of diversity and to instead
ask “profoundly multicultural questions,” that is, questions that are at the heart
of social justice, access, and equity. Chapter 11 gives concrete examples of teachers
who work with students of diverse backgrounds with “solidarity, courage, and
heart,” suggesting the lessons that all teachers can learn from them.
The final part of the text, Part IV: Praxis in the Classroom, is a critical analysis
of multicultural education in practice. Chapter 12, “Affirmation, Solidarity, and
Critique: Moving Beyond Tolerance in Multicultural Education,” describes five
concrete scenarios that illustrate different levels of support for multicultural
education and suggests specific practices for classroom instruction. Because many
teachers have had little personal or professional experience with diversity, they are
often unaware of how to critically address questions of race, identity, and
achievement. Chapter 13 provides specific suggestions for “going beyond niceness”
in teaching students of color. The final chapter (Chapter 14), “What Does it
Mean to Affirm Diversity in Our Nation’s Schools?,” is a short piece that proposes
a number of guidelines for affirming diversity. It also serves to recapitulate many
of the points addressed throughout the book.
Final Thoughts
Educational inequality is repugnant in a society that has pledged to provide an
equal education for all students regardless of rank or circumstance. Yet educational
inequality is commonplace in schools all over our country. It continues
to be the case that far too many students are shortchanged because educational
policies and practices favor students from backgrounds that are more privileged
in social class, race, language, or other differences. At the same time, schools
remain grossly unequal in terms of the resources they are given, and it is undenixiv
Preface
ably true that students’ zip codes have more to do with the quality of the education
they receive than most of us would care to admit. In addition, students’
linguistic and cultural differences are often dismissed or ignored by teachers who
have been trained to be “color-blind” and refuse to see differences. The chapters
in this book ask you not only to see differences but also to critically affirm and use
them in your teaching.
These realities make it apparent that educational change needs to take place in
a number of domains, including at the ideological, societal, and national levels.
In the meantime, students who differ culturally and linguistically from the mainstream
are particularly vulnerable in a society that has deemed differences to be
deficiencies and poverty to be a moral transgression. But change can begin at any
level, and the chapters in this book are based on the assumption that teachers can
and, in fact, must make a difference in the lives of the children they teach.
Teachers alone cannot do it all, of course, because institutional barriers to student
learning—including macro-level impediments such as lack of access to higher
education for parents and guardians, substandard housing, lack of appropriate
health care, inadequate employment opportunities, and lack of access to quality
child-care—are enormous. Nevertheless, when teachers work together with other
educators and concerned citizens, they can do a great deal to change not only
their own practices but also help schools and districts change their policies to
become more equitable for all students. When district-wide policies as well as
classroom practices change to promote the learning of all students and when our
society, teachers, and schools view students’ differences in a more hopeful and
critical way, the result can be that more students will soar to the heights that they
are capable of reaching and deserve.
We are living in a new century. This century different from any other in many
ways, not the least of which is the tremendous cultural and linguistic diversity
evident in our schools. Yet the ways in which new teachers are prepared to face
these differences, and the books used to help them, have not changed enough.
New times deserve new textbooks that respect the professionalism of teachers and
other educators, honor the identities of students and their families, and validate
the nation’s claim to educate all students of all backgrounds. That is the premise
of this book.
Acknowledgments
Finally, a word of thanks to friends and colleagues who had a hand in this book.
When I originally wrote the journal articles and book chapters reprinted in this
text, many of them helped me think more clearly and carefully about my ideas.
These friends and colleagues are too numerous to mention here, but I acknowledged
them in the original works. For this edition, I want to specifically thank
Patty Bode, my co-author for Chapters 3 and 4, and John Raible, my co-author
for Chapter 9, for allowing me to include them in the book. Their insights have
contributed greatly to my thinking. I also want to reiterate that my work has been
enormously enriched by the wise counsel of the numerous colleagues, students,
and young people I have worked with over the years. Finally, I want to express my
Preface xv
gratitude and profound respect for Naomi Silverman, Senior Acquisitions Editor
at Routledge and friend of many years. Many years ago when we first met, Naomi
helped me think differently and creatively about textbooks for teachers, and I
feel blessed to still be working with her on this and other projects.
Reference
Shin, H. B. (2005). School enrollment: Social and economic characteristics of students—
October 2003. Current Population Reports. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. |
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