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Developing Cognitive Strategies and Content Knowledge to Improve Academic Achievement: The Responsibility of Teachers and School Leaders. Judith Toure, Ed.D. Carlow university Pittsburgh, pa jtoure@carlow.edu First Annual Higher Education Compact Best Practices Symposium Cleveland, OH
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Developing Cognitive Strategies and Content Knowledge to Improve Academic Achievement:The Responsibility of Teachers and School Leaders Judith Toure, Ed.D. Carlow university Pittsburgh, pa jtoure@carlow.edu First Annual Higher Education Compact Best Practices Symposium Cleveland, OH June 11, 2012
Overview • Demographic imperative • Themes from the literature: • Racialized ideologies in PK-12 contexts • Culturally relevant leadership in PK-12 • Culturally relevant pedagogy in undergraduate education • Implications
Percentage of K-12 students in public education by race/ethnicity: 1990, 2000, 2008 (nces.gov)
Percentage of public school teachers by race/ethnicity: 1999-2000 and 2007-2008
Themes from the literature: Racialized ideologies in schools • Issues of race, culture, and learning surface in schools but are rarely addressed • Largely empirically unexamined in schools (Pollock, 2001; Sleeter, 1993) • “Colorblind” and “colormute” • Privilege, racism, and reproduction invisible in schools (Lewis, 2005; Schofield, 1989) • “Kids are all the same, I don’t see color.” • “Colormute”: race as taboo subject of discussion (Pollock, 2004) • Often expressed as deficit thinking (Valencia, 1997, 2010)
Relationship of deficit thinking to instructional improvement • Deficit thinking places cause of children’s poor academic performance outside of the classroom (Valencia, 2010). • Less impetus to change instructional practice (Diamond, Randolph, & Spillane, 2001). • Teachers holding an asset perspective tend to be more innovative in instructional practice.
Culturally relevant pedagogy, PK-12 Three goals of CRP • To develop students academically; • To nurture and support students’ cultural competence in home culture; and • To develop sociopolitical or critical consciousness in students (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 483)
Framework: Culturally relevant school leadership Adapted with permission from Stein & Nelson, 2003
What about demographics and culturally relevant pedagogy in the post-secondary context?
Who are our students? Total % of undergraduate enrollment in degree-granting institutions by race/ethnicity
Themes from the literature: Racialized reality of university context • For students of color, “everyday life as racialized” (Lesage, 2002) • PWIs as sites for the enactment of whiteness ; when a “White, male, heterosexual societal norm is privileged in such a way that its privilege is rendered invisible” (Grillo & Wildman, 2000, p. 650) • Curriculum as code of power (Delpit, 1998); key role in communicating institution’s commitment to diversity
Themes (cont’d) • Research on persistence of students of color tends to focus on students’ coping strategies • Limited research on role of curricular and faculty support for students of color (Gasman, Gerstel-Pepin, Anderson-Thompkins, Rasheed, & Hathaway, 2004; White & Lowenthal, 2010) • Recent work on identity development positions students of color as holders and creators of knowledge (Delgado-Bernal, 2002; Reyes & Rios, 2005; White & Lowenthal, 2010)
Implications, PK-12 • Role for leadership in disrupting deficit thinking that may influence new teachers in particular and be more pervasive in less integrated contexts • School leaders play a role in developing asset thinking in educators • Leadership as distributed in knowledge of racial ideologies/CRP • Importance of addressing racial ideologies in school leadership preparation programs for 21st century • Need for professional learning for school leaders
Implications, IHE • Improve recruitment, support, retention of students of color • Continue becoming more learner-centered • Broaden conceptions of knowledge and scholarship in disciplines • How is knowledge constructed? • Which topics are legitimate for inquiry? • Who is recognized as constructor of knowledge? • Representation in curriculum and course structures • Recruitment, support, and development of faculty of color