Education Commons^™

The Mena Youth Bulge: Let’S Help Them Save The World, Sandra Ratcliff Daffron

Woodring College of Education Faculty Publications

They are called the “Youth Bulge,” the millions of young adults under 24 years old that make up an average of 50% of the population of the 25 countries and territories of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). They live in massive poverty and inequality that Mandela calls “terrible scourges of our times.” [1] These MENA youth are literate, watch other youth of the world on their cell phones and want what other young people have, a job, a family of their own, a safe place to live and status. The chances of achieving the life they want seem …

Democracy In Teacher Education: Learning From Preservice Teachers’ Understandings And Perspectives, Allen Trent, Jaesik Cho, Francisco Rios, Kerrita Mayfield

Woodring College of Education Faculty Publications

This article provides an overview of a teacher education inquiry project focused on teaching in a democracy. The research was conducted by the faculty in a university educational studies/foundations department (EDST) as they engaged in a curriculum development and implementation project designed to better prepare teachers for democratic participation and teaching. In this context, ongoing curriculum examination and revision and embedded data collection and analysis are utilized as important activities in evolving a curriculum delivered to teacher education candidates.

This article includes an overview of theoretical perspectives that guide and inform teacher education efforts in this department and presents a …

Seeing You, Seeing Me: Social Perspective-Taking As Learning, Terry J. Burant, Francisco Rios

Woodring College of Education Faculty Publications

This paper examines the use of social perspective-taking as learning in an education course in an undergraduate teacher education program. Using curriculum documents, student writing, field notes, faculty journals, and focus group interviews, the study identified the foundational/multicultural content understandings and the emotional responses that social perspective-taking activities promoted. Implications of social perspective-taking in teacher education courses and broader programmatic questions about social perspective-taking pedagogy for teaching and learning are addressed.

Negotiation And Resistance Amid The Overwhelming Presence Of Whiteness: A Native American Faculty And Student Perspective, Angela Jaime, Francisco Rios

Woodring College of Education Faculty Publications

This opening stanza of the poem Indian Boarding School: The Runaways by Louise Erdrich (1984) describes the importance of and comfort with returning to one’s home, “the place we head for in our sleep.” In this poem, Erdrich describes the dreams of Native students who runaway from their boarding school experiences (for a detailed account of the culturally horrific, indeed even fatal, boarding school experiences, see Spring, 2006). But the runaways are also moving toward something: their homes where they can be culturally, socially, and spiritually nourished. Home is where the center of the soul belongs. Children of the boarding …

Taking Stands For Social Justice, Francisco Rios, Lorinda Lindley

Woodring College of Education Faculty Publications

In this paper the authors describe efforts to help students take a stand for social justice in the College of Education at one predominantly White institution in the western Rocky Mountain region. The authors outline the theoretical frameworks that inform this work and the context of our work. The focus is on specific pedagogical strategies used with teacher education students who primarily were from monocultural (Euro-American) communities in their preparation for diversity and equity in multicultural America. The authors describe these strategies and themes that emerged from student responses. These themes included the value of seeing things from different perspectives, …

Assessing Preservice Teachers’ Concerns And Comforts With Multicultural Education, Carmen Montecinos, Francisco Rios

Woodring College of Education Faculty Publications

Currently, racial/ethnic minority students represent a third of the K­12 student enrollment across the United States; by the year 2035, they will represent over 50 percent (American Educational Research Association, Division K Newsletter, 1998). This significant increase in the ethnic diversity of the K­12 population, coupled with persistent disparities in educational attainment among various ethnic/racial groups in the United States, has supported an educational reform movement known as multicultural education (Banks, 1997). This movement’s goal is to redesign schooling in ways that "increase educational equity for a range of cultural, ethnic, and economic groups" (Banks, 1997, p. 7). Teacher …