This book for teachers presents stories and real-life examples that illustrate key concepts of culture, discrimination, and social justice and how they can affect diverse classrooms. It is written in a conversational style within a caring-centered framework, and it discusses culture's role in the learning process and in students' identity…

This book on mother tongue (native language) teaching in Europe contains three parts. The first explores definitions and teaching implications of mother tongues, including issues of language identity, language standards, mother tongue roles, and language policies in the European Union. The second part consists of nine case studies: "Teaching…

The purpose of this document is to assist teachers in aligning their present foreign language curriculum with the national standards for student learning. This guide will enable teachers to identify which aspects of their current curriculum fit with the standards and how these can be extended and adapted to address the new dimensions of the…

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). In the summer of 1996, the Center offered the Culture and Children's…

This 1951 Annual Report of the Federal Security Agency for the Office of Education is divided into five parts. Part 1, Education and Mobilization for Defense, includes: (1) Defense Information Bulletins; (2) Claimant Agency Function Under the NPA; (3) College Students Under Selective Service; (4) Defense Training Programs; (5) Assistance in…

Discusses the educational crisis of United States Latino/as and argues for recognition of the extent to which schools exercise institutional racism and violence against this cultural sector. Describes a University of Michigan course that trains future Spanish teachers in Latino cultural competence and a community service-learning course offering…

This article presents suggestions for culturally sensitive modifications to help students from all backgrounds learn better. The modifications include building trust, building a repertoire of instructional strategies, using effective questioning techniques, providing effective feedback, analyzing instructional materials, and establishing positive…

Describes a high school world history class field trip structured like a scavenger hunt. Following weeks of preparation the class journeyed to San Francisco (California) looking to answer the question, "What is Culture?" At various locations, the class conducted interviews, collected artifacts, and answered questions. (MJP)

Explores the barriers that physical appearance and cultural differences pose for children of Asian descent. Explores ways to facilitate second-language learning and provides information on classroom behaviors characteristic of Asian cultures and common surnames from various Asian countries. (HTH)

Presents a year long plan for teaching about Columbus's voyages and their impact on the Americas. Discusses themes of bias in history, how language can be used to create a certain image, and concepts of heroism, respect, and power. Includes instructions for schoolwide, social studies and history projects with interdepartmental coordination. (DK)

Presents several lesson plans using newspapers to develop critical thinking skills that the author has used in critical thinking, English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL), and English composition classes. Examines news writing, the inverted pyramid, organization and language usage, letters to the editor, and how to critically analyze survey results. (CH)

Presents an ethnomethodological study of how Australian high school geography teachers and students rely on common sense knowledge and reasoning to facilitate learning. Analyzes portions of transcripts from a class activity in which students built a scale model of a city. Explains location categorization devices, illustrating how learning involves…

To examine the hypothesis that alternative routes to teacher certification are more likely than traditional routes to recruit successful urban school teachers, beliefs and practices of 45 secondary English and mathematics novice teachers from both routes were studied. Findings confirm the importance of teacher sensitivity to urban multicultural…

Explores the role of bilingual liaisons in resolving conflicts and building bridges of understanding between schools and diverse communities, discussing the representation of individuals' voices and narrative forms that engage readers aesthetically and critically; addressing multiple conflicts affecting the lives of minority language students,…

Michigan State University (MSU) is strongly committed to the idea that study abroad is deeply beneficial and important for undergraduate students. However there is a relative scarcity of systematically gathered qualitative and quantitative information that assesses the impact of study abroad. In the summer of 2000, MSU implemented a broad plan to…