EDEC 248 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Teacher Education, Multicultural Education, Cultural Capital
23 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Chapter 5:
-Teaching education and classroom interactions
-The problem with teacher education programs:
-They are established in university settings where change does not always occur quickly due to
bureaucratic procedures
-The curriculum of teacher education programs is often defined by government departments of
education. This factor makes teacher education programs a product of the prevalent educational
ideology, which is determined by the political ideology of the state
-Education and nation building (Green 1990) (background)
-“Teacher education has generally been seen as apolitical because teacher education
institutions separate the teaching experience from the existence and reproduction of inequalities
in society in general, and within the school in particular”
-Teaching is about power sharing, about having power over. Anything that has power is apolitical
-“‘In many teacher education programs, culture gets treated as a taxonomy and is used as a
checklist to mark the characteristics of a people’… It is unsurprising, then, that superficial
approaches to multicultural education have led to alienation for both majority and minority-group
students”
-The roles of teachers:
-“Multicultural pedagogy does not require teachers to have an expertise of all cultures; this is
because its purpose is not to teach about cultures per se, but rather to promote students’
awareness and appreciation of difference and other perspectives. Teachers must strive to
expose their students to the full spectrum of difference, in its varied and multifaceted forms”
-“The exploration for a different kind of teacher education… needs to contest the idea that there
are methods, strategies, or approaches to teaching that work anytime, anywhere”
-Why is the reform so slow in teacher education programs?
-Government departments of education define curriculum
-Equity/multicultural policies have not been incorporated into teacher education programs
—> Quebec mandates that equity/multiculturalism is taught
-Universities settings stipulate bureaucratic procedures
-It is assumed that teachers will simply pick up the necessary skills and attitudes to make them
successful teachers in diverse classrooms without direct instruction or planned experience
-Perceptions of the teacher’s role must be redefined
-“The attitude still exists that intercultural education is for culturally different students only, not for
all students. This argument is flawed because it equates cultural difference with deficiency”
-Cultural capital
-Viewing culture in the same sense as economic capital (assets)
—> Assets related to culture - the more general knowledge you have the more power you have
—> Doesn't come from your culture itself but from your interactions at home, the community, by
seeing things, listening to the news (your experiences)
-Culture is both a lived experience, a set of relations, as well as a commodity that is
accumulated
-Students who are different do not have the cultural capital that schools use as a currency - and
thus are at a disadvantage
-Explains why it is more difficult to those students to achieve by the standards set out by the
educational system
-“Not only do teacher education programs neglect to address the moral implications of social
inequalities, they portray the classroom as simple rathe than extremely complex site of
multidimensional forces of conflict and negotiation”
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
They are established in university settings where change does not always occur quickly due to bureaucratic procedures. The curriculum of teacher education programs is often de ned by government departments of education. This factor makes teacher education programs a product of the prevalent educational ideology, which is determined by the political ideology of the state. Teacher education has generally been seen as apolitical because teacher education institutions separate the teaching experience from the existence and reproduction of inequalities in society in general, and within the school in particular . Teaching is about power sharing, about having power over. Multicultural pedagogy does not require teachers to have an expertise of all cultures; this is because its purpose is not to teach about cultures per se, but rather to promote students" awareness and appreciation of difference and other perspectives. Teachers must strive to expose their students to the full spectrum of difference, in its varied and multifaceted forms .
