ABSTRACT
Recent demographic changes in the United States have led to an increasing gap between the backgrounds of teachers in public schools and their pupils. The student population in public schools (around 43.5 million) has become increasingly diverse, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.1 It is predicted that about 40 per cent of the nation’s school-age youth will be ‘students of colour’ by the year 2020 (Pallas, Natriello and McDill, 1989).2 Already, students of colour comprise about 30 per cent of public school students in the US, are the majority in twenty-five of the nation’s fifty largest school districts (Banks, 1991), and are the majority in schools in a few states like New Mexico, Texas, and California (Quality Education for Minorities Project, 1990). In the twenty largest school districts, students of colour comprise over 70 per cent of the total school enrolment, (Center for Education Statistics, 1987).
