Rationale: Understanding diversity
A teacher's knowledge of children's cultures and backgrounds helps the teacher design lessons that meet those children's needs. For example, the understanding that a student's home language may omit certain sounds that are used in English can suggest a helpful change in a phonetics lesson. In addition, cultural understanding helps a teacher to draw on students' strengths and experiences to enhance their learning.
We assert that the types of cultural understanding that would be useful in teaching requires real content knowledge. For example, a teacher with African-American students should be prepared to understand differences in pronunciation in the "vernacular English" some might use, a topic on which respected linguists have written extensively.1 Teachers should be assessed, for example, on the sound a speaker of African-American vernacular is apt to use to replace the "th" sound.
Instruction to develop pragmatic cultural understanding should be distinguished from instruction to reduce prejudice and increase sensitivity. While we know little about how and with what success teacher candidates might use the cultural understanding they have learned to meet the needs of their diverse students, the research on the impact of prejudice reduction also provides little assurance of efficacy. There are studies reporting positive short-term impacts on candidates' attitudes and beliefs, but it is difficult to determine the sustainability of these outcomes over time.2
2Cochan-Smith, M., & Zeicherner, K. M. (eds.) (2005, p. 489). Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education. Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
