Search

We set out to create a middle grades program and to inform the field about the perceptions of our teacher candidates on teaching middle school. To accomplish these twin goals, we sought to better understand our teacher candidates' perceptions of teaching middle school and how these perceptions might be changed if necessary. Our review of research included three themes to frame this work: (a) middle school philosophy, (b) motivations to teach, and (c) middle school teacher preparation. We chose an emergent, qualitative research design to cull rich data from diverse stakeholders including open-ended survey data. We found an overarching deficit narrative about middle school students even though teacher candidates expressed admiration for middle school teachers. Our teacher candidates professed a need for coursework on classroom management and adolescent psychology as well as more field experiences to better prepare them for careers in the middle grades. Implications for middle grades programs are discussed, including the structure of field experiences and teacher preparation curriculum. We explain specific revisions to our own program in the attempt to generate analytic generalizability.

Teacher leadership recently has gained prominence as an important method for school improvement and reform, yet the ranks of teacher leaders do not match the racial and ethnic diversity of the students they serve. Jori S. Beck, KaaVonia Hinton, and Brandon M. Butler conducted a study of teacher leadership that garnered almost 800 survey responses and included 31 interviews with administrators and teachers. They discovered how the lack of diversity in the teacher workforce, the myth of meritocracy, and the isolation of teachers of color present barriers to diversifying the teacher leader workforce. Potential solutions include equity audits, revisions to hiring practices, and the distribution of teachers of color within school buildings.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of providing scaffolded disciplinary writing assignments to develop teacher candidates' multicultural lenses. This study was set in a secondary education program at one mid-Atlantic university. Faculty in this program focused on five dimensions of multicultural education (ME) to better serve teacher candidates within their program through the development of ME-focused disciplinary writing assignments. In required courses within the program, teacher candidates (TCs) completed assignments such as a student shadow experience, infographic, journal, community mapping activity, and practitioner journal article. Qualitative data were collected to explore TCs' understanding of the ME dimensions through reflections and focus group transcripts and provide insight on TCs' understanding of multicultural education and pedagogical strategies, as well as their perceptions of the generated disciplinary writing assignments. The researchers found TCs focused on some dimensions of ME more than others, such as content integration and prejudice reduction. We make recommendations for practice based on these findings.

The Common Core State Standards' focus on nonfiction texts has prompted middle schools to include more historical nonfiction, including books that focus on the United States' racialized past (and present) such as "We Are Not Yet Equal" by Carol Anderson (2018) and "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You" (2020) by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. But books for youth about racism have been shrouded in controversy, anti-critical race theory legislation, and calls for censorship, suggesting that we need a better understanding of the books' content. Thus, the purpose of this study was to use content analysis to examine messages about racism and antiracism in "We Are Not Yet Equal and Stamped." Findings indicated the texts suggest racism takes numerous forms, and it is foundational and persistent throughout the United States' past and present, manifesting as scientific racism, institutional racism, racist violence, representational racism, and racist language.

This narrative inquiry shares the stories of two teachers' collaborative experiences with their counterparts in social studies and English. The primary objective was to learn about how these teachers, within separate teaching dyads, understand and attempt to accomplish the goals of both colleagues' disciplines while planning instruction. Field texts were collected over two years and consist of stories derived from five recorded conversations, observations, e-mail exchanges, student work samples, teaching materials, PowerPoint slides, and reflective notes. Data were analyzed through the three-dimensional space approach. Findings suggest that: (1) collaborative tensions arise due to "grammar of schooling," including the structure and the culture of teaching the subject matters in middle and high schools; (2) cross-disciplinary collaboration serves as a space for teacher learning; and (3) despite their intentions and willingness, the two teachers tend to implement a hybrid of disciplinary literacy practices coupled with their old notion of literacy when collaborating.

Perceptions of middle level learners vary, and unfortunately, some are deficit-oriented, labeling young adolescents as "hormonal" and "erratic" without a deep understanding of their emotional and physical development or the knowledge and skills that they bring to a classroom. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence for this deficit narrative--including the marginalization of middle level learners--from interviews conducted with teacher candidates in elementary, middle, secondary, and K-12 programs in two different states. Three themes around perceptions of teaching middle grades students are shared: adult needs and interests, resistance to student agency, and challenging the deficit narrative. We posit that developing a broader understanding of young adolescents might inform and inspire teacher candidates to choose to become middle school teachers. Thus, we encourage an asset approach to recruitment of middle level teacher candidates entering teacher preparation programs, and we offer recommendations for middle level recruitment into teacher education programs with an explicitly asset lens.

During the last few decades, U.S. classrooms have experienced dramatic demographic changes. This article is based on the results of a larger self-study in which four teacher educators of color participated in a book club designed to discuss the pedagogical possibilities of Yoko Kawashima Watkins' "So Far from the Bamboo Grove" (1986) and its sequel, "My Brother, My Sister, and I" (1994), in their teacher education courses. Filling the gap in research, the authors focused on responding to the following questions: (1) What happens when teacher educators of color talk about a multicultural text? How do they read the multicultural text? How do they want to teach the text?; and (2) How does their membership in the culture depicted in the book impact the ways they read and teach the multicultural text? In doing so, the authors add additional voices from teacher educators of color to the growing body of literature on the professional development of teacher educators in multicultural teacher education. For the purpose of this study, the authors also define multicultural literature as "literature by and about people who are members of groups considered to be outside the socio-political mainstream of the United States," more specifically books by and about people of color.

Teacher leadership has received attention for empirical and practical reasons. However, despite the evolution of the concept over the last several decades, there is still dissonance regarding the concept of teacher leadership. This study was grounded in the theory of professional identity to understand how administrators and teachers conceptualize teacher leadership. We studied the perceptions of administrators and teachers about teacher leadership using a survey and interviews. While there was some overlap in how administrators and teachers perceived teacher leadership, administrators viewed teacher leadership as occurring outside of the classroom while teachers located it inside of the classroom. Teachers also valued formal and informal mentoring. We provide implications for research and practice based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher educators are pivotal in the effort to prepare teachers to teach in culturally responsive ways (Vescio, et al., 2006). In subject areas such as social studies and English, multicultural literature is viewed as a prime resource for creating a culturally inclusive curriculum. Yet, effective inclusion of these texts--many of which are filled with complex themes and issues and are often labeled controversial--involves knowledge of methods and cultural understanding that are not traditionally taught in education programs (Dong, 2005). This study explores what teacher educators of color learned from each other about the possibility of teaching a controversial Asian-American children's book such as Yoko Kawashima Watkin's "So Far from the Bamboo Grove" (1986) and its sequel, "My Brother, My Sister, and I" (1996). The sequel, however, did not spark controversy. Specifically, this study discusses how the teacher educators' cultural identities influence how they might help pre-service teachers make sense of and use texts like "So Far from the Bamboo Grove" to teach about Japanese and Korean experiences during World War II.

The complexity of contemporary schools necessitates principals supporting teachers to become teacher leaders while also supporting their instructional practices. Drawing on data from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey, principal and teacher surveys examined how principal instructional support and a climate of shared leadership are associated with teacher satisfaction. Findings suggest that more frequent principal instructional support led to lower teacher satisfaction. Meanwhile, shared leadership was associated with increased levels of teacher satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent images of President Obama's mother-in-law, Mrs. Marian Robinson, caring for her granddaughters in the White House are a powerful reminder of the prominence that grandmothers have had in African American communities. The significance of the grandmother figure can also be seen in award-winning literature for young adolescents such as in Rita Williams-Garcia's "One Crazy Summer" (2010) and "P.S. Be Eleven" (2013). An inductive qualitative content analysis of the functions of the grandmother in these novels provides insight into the significance of grandmothers in African American families. Framed by Black feminist thought and research and scholarship in family studies, analysis of the novels finds that the grandmother serves three major roles: caregiver, teacher, and disciplinarian.

So much hinges on putting the right book in a student's hands. Motivation to read is the foundation from which knowledge, reading competency, and comprehension grow. But how do we do it? Here, Hinton and Dickinson offer practical advice for how to reach kids through a partnership with library media specialists and a commitment to promoting books across subjects, locations, and seasons. (Contains 3 tables.)

An interview with scholars Shanetia Clark, Desiree W. Cueto, KaaVonia Hinton, LeKeisha Hughes and Stephanie Toliver is presented. Topics discussed include the concepts of young adult literature (YAL), Black futurity and Afrofuturism, and educational justice. Also mentioned are racial/gender equality, multiculturalism, and challenges facing Black authors and scholars.

Multicultural education is widely accepted in schools in the United States (Banks, 1993; Sleeter & Grant, 1999). Though there are various philosophical debates within the field of multicultural education (Banks, [...]