ABSTRACT
The call to prepare teachers for the increasingly diverse K-12 population in the U.S. has been echoed since the late 1980s (Davis & Cabello, 1989). Many well-respected researchers have approached the “cultural gap” from a variety of viewpoints – from examining the curriculum taught in schools and teacher preparation programs (Gay, 2002; Villegas & Lucas, 2002), encouraging more diversity within the field of education (Sleeter, 2001), and broadening the skills of teachers to focus on issues of equity and social justice in their classrooms (Grant & Gilette, 2006). Shifts in the demographics of K-12 students continue to highlight the increasing ethnic diversity in U.S. schools. As of the 2012-2013 school year, nearly 49 percent of K-12 students in the U.S. identified as Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, or multi-racial (Kena et al., 2015). This is a dramatic increase from statistics reported in 1999, when 36 percent of the U.S. K-12 student population identified as non-European American (U.S. Department of Education, 1999).
