In this issue of Multicultural Perspectives, contributing authors ask us to think of different ways of engaging with our work as educators that challenge our own thinking, reflect upon our own pedagogical practices, and move us to engage with our students in new and engaging ways. By continuing to act in ways that only perpetuate current conditions in schools, we become complicit agents in the ways in which schools and our practices as educators marginalize students from underrepresented communities.
Advancing the Conversation
In “Remembering Harlem Prep and Multicultural Education in the Long Struggle for Justice,” Barry Goldenberg argues for the important role that multicultural education has always had in the struggle for educational equity among marginalized communities, and particularly Black communities, through the historical example of Harlem Prep. Harlem Prep, an independent, community school based on a multicultural philosophy, sent to college many hundreds of marginalized students who had been “pushed out” of education from 1967 to 1974. The article reviews educational theories and strategies used in the school at the time and draws parallels between that work and current work in the field. The article concludes with a discussion of what educational stakeholders can learn from Harlem Prep’s example and with the knowledge that multicultural remains a powerful avenue for pursuing educational justice in the present.
In “Before We Let Go!: Operationalizing Culturally Informed Education,” Jamaal Young and Jemimah Young posit that combining CRT and CRP to create an inclusive hybrid conceptual framework creates a stronger empirical case for utilizing culturally relevant educational practices. The proposed framework offers new possibilities for increased quantitative research, which remains underutilized to examine culturally relevant education.
Creating Multicultural Classrooms
In “Graphic Novels as Curricular Counter-Narratives for English Language Learners and Emergent Bilinguals,” Marium Abugasea Heidt. Martha French, and Henry Miller advocate for integrating select graphic novels into curricula for English language learners and emergent bilinguals to push against the dominant and harmful narratives that tend to be found in traditional history texts and curricula. The authors provide multiple and innovative strategies for disrupting the grand narratives and provide students with tools for writing and telling their own stories.
The contributing authors in this issue push our work forward in important ways. They ask us to look back at our work in the past and to interrogate our work and practices in the present. Only then can we begin to envision new ways forward in schools that authentically engage students and that build upon the stories they want to tell about their lives and home communities.