New Book: Educating Teachers for Diversity

Posted by on April 18, 2003

Educating Teachers for Diversity: Seeing with a Cultural Eye
by Jacqueline Jordan Irvine

To order a copy, go to the website of Teachers College Press at http://store.tcpress.com/0807743577.shtml or call (800) 575-6566

“In this insightful and wise book, Jacqueline Jordan Irvine reflects on topics ranging from the preparation of future teachers for urban schools to the role of colleges of education in current reform efforts. Debunking both taken-for-granted assumptions and facile answers to complex problems, she insists instead on focusing on what really matters: caring for and about the most vulnerable and forgotten children in our schools. Anyone interested in the future of public education today would do well to read this book.”
— Sonia Nieto, author of The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities

“This is a book to be read by education school faculty and administrators. It offers a design for the revitalization of teacher education that needs to be carefully considered?it is an agenda that must be pursued.”
— David G. Imig, President and CEO, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Educators

Educating Teachers for Diversity addresses the complex issues of how culture, race and ethnicity, and social class influence the teaching and learning processes. The author provides not only an analysis of current conditions and reforms in education, but also offers suggestions and practices for improving educational outcomes for all children.

Tackling hard truths and controversial issues head on, the author:
– Offers advice for closing the achievement gap of low-income African American students in urban schools.
– Focuses on issues of assessment and measurement for K-12 students and teachers of color.
– Explores the declining number of teachers of color in the United States and its relation to school failure in African American and Latino students.
– Outlines a curriculum for teacher education programs to help them produce culturally aware and effective teachers.
– Examines how colleges of education can reverse the cycle of failure for students of color by producing teachers who are culturally responsive.
– Concludes with a summary of the work and recommendations of such scholars as James A. Banks and Sonia Nieto.