CULTURALLY RESPONSIBLE MENTORING: EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH FOR PREPARING STUDENT TEACHERS FOR DIVERSITY

Abstract

Teacher education is challenged with preparing teachers to work effectively with culturally diverse students. Gaps in the research literature demonstrate that more bridging is needed between teacher education coursework and student teaching experiences, particularly in terms of supervision approaches that consider multicultural issues. This study argues that culturally responsible mentoring is one way to help student teachers put multicultural education into practice. Culturally responsible mentoring helps preservice teachers become critical thinkers about the cultural contexts in which they work. It also assists them in developing equitable and inclusive practices for their particular students. This study defines and describes the practices of culturally responsible mentoring and examines the impact it has on two student teachers in the field.

Notes

¹Multicultural here refers to multicultural education practices that include one or more of the five elements as described by Banks and Banks (2007): 1. Building empowering classroom/school environments; 2. Content Integration—multicultural perspectives; 3. Equity pedagogy—using a variety of instructional strategies to meet diverse learning needs; 4. Prejudice reduction; and 5. Knowledge construction—the how and who.

²Equitable refers to being fair, just, and demonstrating evidence of equity.

³Given space constraints, evidence for Theme 2 is not shared here.