ABSTRACT
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by the year 2050, 49% of the population will be non-White, with Hispanics becoming the largest ethnic minority population by 2010 (“Hispanics to Outnumber,” 1993). Historically, ethnic minority students, with the exceptions of Asians, have been underserved by U.S. education. In particular, African Americans and Hispanics have performed at the lowest levels of school mathematics academic achievement (Secada, 1992; Tate, 1997). If equity and excellence are to result from educational reforms, then effective teacher preparation must include learning to teach for diversity (Rodriguez, 1998). As the K-12 student population becomes more diverse, educational reform that benefits all students demands that teachers learn to implement more culturally inclusive and socially relevant pedagogical strategies. Schooling in the United States includes social, political, historical, and cultural contexts. Yet, teacher education programs are often lacking in addressing the multicultural issues of gender, ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and political diversity. Sleeter (2001) reviewed 80 research studies of teacher preparation for multicultural schools, particularly those that serve historically underserved communities. The majority of the research concentrates on addressing the attitudes and lack of knowledge of White prospective teachers. Yet, little research examines those strategies that prepare strong culturally responsive and socially relevant teachers by enabling teachers to develop a cross-cultural competence and heightened awareness of sociopolitical issues within the classroom (McAllister & Irvine, 2000). Though teachers may believe that teaching for diversity promotes academic achievement for all students, teacher preparation and professional-development programs may not provide the mathematics learning and training experiences to enable teachers to practice transformative pedagogy. The purpose of this chapter is to present strategies that have been successful in supporting practicing mathematics teachers to teach for diversity. In particular, I describe the impact of transformative mathematics pedagogy in a 2-year professional-development program.
