ABSTRACT
Ralph Elder is White, a gay man, and a teacher. Ralph taught third grade in a public school in Moraga, California, for 5 years and then transferred to a smaller private school in Oakland, California, where he taught kindergartners for 2 years and then fifth and sixth graders for 2 more years. He also worked as a supervisor for the Developmental Teacher Education program at UC-Berkeley for 3 years before returning to teach third grade in a
large, urban public school in Oakland, California, located in a poor, changing neighborhood with many recent immigrant families.
