NCTQ

 
 

Methodology: Understanding diversity

While we reviewed syllabi on this standard for all programs in the review, our final analysis of how institutions expose teacher candidates to the history, culture and language of principal minority and ethnic groups residing in the state is confined to undergraduate elementary preparation programs at five public and five private institutions. These institutions were randomly chosen for analysis. Prior to their selection for this analysis, all available syllabi from these programs was reviewed to assess how coursework incorporates specific information about the traditions, cultures and languages of the principal minority and ethnic groups residing in the state. An inventory of the courses in which we noted such information was provided to the institution, and an opportunity was provided to supply information on additional courses that might address diversity. The syllabus for any course nominated by the institution was added to the review for diversity content.

We hoped to locate instruction on actual content knowledge.1 We tried to discriminate between such content knowledge and two other aspects of multicultural education with which it is often conflated: knowledge of personal prejudices and biases, and knowledge of the cultural aspects of schools and classrooms, the latter often portrayed as non-neutral spaces. Additionally, we distinguished instruction on diversity that involved simply mentioning it as a course objective and instruction that involved readings, lectures and, ideally, assignments requiring demonstration of content knowledge. We inventoried instruction on diversity along two dimensions: the degree to which it focused on content rather than sensitivity and the depth of its presentation. While we did not evaluate textbooks or other required reading, we think it a reasonable assumption that the transmission of diversity content knowledge as we are defining it requires readings. While this may be too conservative an assumption, it is balanced by the very liberal allowance that any required reading appearing to address diversity had the potential to provide diversity content.

1Our review was made more difficult because of terminology issues. The fact that Illinois regulations have a more expansive definition of diversity than is expressed in this standard may be a factor in the difficulty we had sorting out the information provided by institutions: Illinois regulations on teacher preparation relative to diversity encompass knowledge of the culture and language of the principal minority and ethnic groups residing in the state as well as knowledge of the characteristics of 1) students with all forms of exceptionalities, 2) English language learners (ELL), and 3) students who have different learning styles, multiple intelligences and performance modes. (Note that "learning styles" are addressed in Standard 19 and described as "pseudo-science." They do not belong in a teacher preparation program, much less in state regulations.) Additionally, NCATE's accreditation standards in this area encompass consideration of the diversity of the institution itself and field experiences, also making for a broader scope.