Campus and Classroom Making Schooling Multicultural

Preface This second edition ofCampus and Classroom: Making Schooling Multiculturalwas written, in part, because our efforts in the first edition were so well received. However, we learned from readers' responses to the first edition. Prospective and practicing teachers requested more examples of linkages between theory and practice in each field. So, we asked the contributors to the initial volume to revise their work with these requests in mind. Furthermore, we asked the authors to enhance their original work by confronting current dilemmas in their fields, providing readers with multiple perspectives on these problems and considering various ways teachers might respond. An excellent example of the ways in which the authors met the challenges we raised is evident in the work of Ann DeVaney in her chapter on reading film and television in the classroom (Chapter 18). Professor DeVaney offers new ways for teachers and students to think about and interrupt the often stereotypic images all of us receive daily in various media. Professor DeVaney concentrates on reading the representations of one group, African Americans; however, the tools she offers for understanding the presentation of images of African Americans can be applied to conceptions constructed of other peoples as well. We also prepared this second edition because readers asked us to address a particular dilemma--how to think about teaching reading in ways that engage all children's interests and needs. We believe that Patricia Enciso, of The Ohio State University, has provided all of us with new ways to think about the theories we bring to teaching reading and the materials and methods with which we translate those ideas into action. About the Text As we work with elementary, middle school, and university students and our university and school colleagues, there is one important theoretical and practical question we are asked time and again. Which approach or definition of multicultural education should we (i.e., universities and K-12 schools) use to prepare our students for life in the 21st century? Education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist, with its focus on all aspects of education--curriculum, instructional pedagogy, staff, personal awareness, advocacy--has become the choice for educators who are developing a vision and constructing or reforming their programs for today's schools.Campus and Classroom: Making Schooling Multicultural was written from this perspective. The book contains four parts. Part 1 comprises two chapters--the first offers readers a theoretical orientation to the volume and a summary of the individual chapters, and the second contains a historical overview of multiculturalism in the United States. Chapters in Part 2 focus on general issues of pedagogy--how to create teaching and learning environments that are multicultural and social reconstructionist. Part 3 engages readers in considering how individual academic disciplines such as mathematics, science, and art can be taught in ways that invite all students to learn. The chapter authors explain how to infuse into each academic discipline the theory and practices of education that are both multicultural and social reconstructionist. The authors provide examples of teachers' struggles to transform their teaching for equity and social justice. Part 4 helps prospective teachers and teacher educators on campuses and in elementary and middle school classrooms make the teacher education experience one that embraces multicultural and social reconstructionist goals and practices. Throughout the volume, the authors describe and discuss the personal tensions that proponents of multicultural teaching often experience. There is no simple answer or recipe for infusing education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist into elementary and middle school education,Grant Staff is the author of 'Campus and Classroom Making Schooling Multicultural', published 2000 under ISBN 9780139488788 and ISBN 0139488782.