ABSTRACT
One of the most significant advances of cross-cultural education research is that it has served to debunk the tedious, tired, and tried models of cultural assimilation (Banks & McGee, 2004). The predominant assimilationist ‘melting pot’ model has been clearly shown to be a cracked pot from the onset, and more researchers, educators, and policy makers seem to be more willing to recognize that it is indeed in the celebration of our cultural diversity that our greatest strength lays as a nation now and in the future. However, the impacts of research findings in this field on teacher practice, student learning, and policy have been minimal primarily due to the disconnection between cross-cultural education research and research on learning. In other words, the bulk of research on cross-cultural education has focused on the affective domain and not on how culturally/socially relevant teaching, curriculum, and/or policies may impact students’ learning. While this work is indeed important, it is astonishing to see the number of studies that focused on deficit models (i.e., what the teachers, parents, students, and/or administrators are not doing or lacking), as well as the number of studies that focused on increasing engagement (participation) and positive attitudes (Banks & McGee, 2004). What we need then is a more systemic approach by which the what (curriculum), how (pedagogy), and for whom (students) are studied in harmony with who teachers are and the specific contexts of their work. We have learned so much in the last five decades about the factors that obstruct and/or facilitate teachers’ work and their students’ learning, yet we continue to see significant gaps in academic achievement and engagement of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Now that we have new standards in science education calling for more cognitively challenging engagement and integration across science, engineering, technology, and mathematics education, we must take steps to better enact what we already know, and bring these ‘pieces 190of the puzzle’ together which have been generated from the research on cross-cultural education and learning separately.
