ABSTRACT
After teaching mathematics and science education courses at Temple University, helping prospective teachers to realize the importance of diversity remains a daunting task. Although these teachers in our classes are diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and economic status, a conversation about diversity is usually met with apathy. Thus, a discussion of pedagogical and ideological change is often met with resistance. One White female prospective teacher stated: “Our professors are idealistic and disconnected from the real world of teaching. We cannot teach [inquiry-based instruction] in the way that you are telling us because we cannot change the way things are. It isn’t fair that there are inequities in education, but that’s the way it is, and we cannot do anything about it.”
