Chapter 17: Examining Teachers' Knowledge on a Landscape of Theory, Practice, and Policy

INTRODUCTION North America is becoming increasingly diverse through immigration and the birth of children into immigrant families. This diversity is reflected in school communities as teachers and administrators work to develop appropriate curricular materials, policies, and practices for their students. Existing literature highlights the importance of recognizing and including the ethnic cultures and languages students bring to school (Cummins, 2001; Igoa, 1995; Soto, 1997) through culturally-responsive and culturally-relevant curriculum (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 2001; Villegas, 1991). Challenges of moving from the theory of recognizing and celebrating student diversity to the practice of implementing policies and practices to meet the needs of the students and their families, however, are manifold. In this study, we examined challenges that teachers in schools may encounter as they work to support their students of diverse ethnic background while also supporting sometimes very different values and beliefs instilled within their homes. We explored curriculum as the interaction of students' and teachers' experiences that are shaped by cultural influences in their homes and ethnic communities, and through interaction with teachers, administrators, and peers in their school and neighborhood communities. Connelly and Clandinin (1988) argued for a notion of curriculum as experience, and teaching as shaped by personal and professional experiences teachers bring to their work with students. Cohen (1989; see Loewenberg Ball, 1990) expressed teaching practices and beliefs as "deep-seated dispositions, simmered over the years of a teacher's experience and seasoned by cultural assumptions about and images of teaching and learning" (p. 274). Given the role of experience in contributing to the work of teachers, it is reasonable to expect teachers' practices and beliefs about including culture in curriculum would be shaped by their prior experiences of working with students and colleagues. Teachers, while expected to work with increasingly diverse student populations, may have had only limited prior personal experience with diverse school communities or interaction with others of ethnic and racial backgrounds different from their own. They are, in essence, learning to design and implement culturally-sensitive curricula without the benefit and knowledge of their own experiences upon which to draw. Objectives We focused on teacher experience as particular knowledge, gained through interaction and work with specific students, and specific incidents in their teaching and learning communities, that interact to form a body of knowledge. This knowledge, referred to as "teacher knowledge" is different from the "knowledge of teachers" (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996) that is gained from "expert sources" such as books, professional resources, or intersect with experienced colleagues. We examined "teacher knowledge" as related to the work of teachers working with students of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds to underscore challenges and complexities of meeting student needs when the diversity of their student populations is such that the needs of some students may conflict with those of other students. Theoretical Framework We used Dewey's (1938) philosophy of the interconnectedness between education and experience as a theoretical framework for this study. We employed a narrative inquiry approach (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Clandinin & Connelly, 1994, 2000) to learn about the teachers' "stories of experience" (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988) as they worked to provide appropriate curriculum activities and support for their students. Drawing upon Schwab's (1969, 1978) curricular lens of "the particular," we explored challenges and complexities the teachers encountered as they developed and implemented academically and culturally-relevant curriculum for their students, while at the same time abiding by existing educational equity policies governing school and school-board practices. …