Multicultural Teacher Education as a Community of Practice: M.Ed./PDS Graduates' Perceptions of Their Preparation to Work with Diverse Students

This study used qualitative case study methods to investigate how a particular community of practice located in a Midwest university influenced the M.Ed./PDS graduates’ perceptions of working with diverse students. We use the term multicultural education to refer to the orientations and practices of the M.Ed. program and how the graduates thought about equity, diversity, and social justice. The data for the current study included exit interviews and focus group interviews after graduation, and a case study of three of the graduates. Through an analysis of the graduates’ perceptions of their preparation to work with diverse students, we aimed to explore the influence of the purposes and practices of the program as a particular kind of community of practice on its graduates. To teach all learners well, especially learners with diverse backgrounds, the demographic differences and similarities between teachers and students need to be examined and incorporated into teaching and learning. Many teacher educators have applied and studied ways to develop teacher candidates’ knowledge, dispositions, and skills for effectively teaching students from diverse backgrounds; for example, curricular or course development (Clark & Medina, 2000; Laframboise & Griffith, 1997; McFalls & Cobb-Roberts, 2001), field experiences in diverse settings (Cook & Van Cleaf, 2000; Groulx, 2001; Rushton, 2001), and community service learning (Bondy & Davis, 2000; Burant & Kirby, 2002; Seidl & Friend, 2002). Despite these varied efforts, there have been slow changes in preparing culturally responsive teachers and improving minority students’ academic achievement (Lee, 2004). Some researchers point out that diversity issues should be more comprehensively infused into teacher education programs and curricula (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Zeichner & Hoeft, 1996). However, there have been only a few studies conducted on multicultural education at a program level (Ladson-Billings, 2001). There is a need for more in-depth studies that demonstrate effective ways to holistically promote teacher candidates’ ability to work with diverse students. In the study, we focused on the influence of this particular kind of community of practice (M.Ed/PDS program) on its graduates’ perceptions of their preparedness related to issues of equity and diversity. We use Wenger’s (1998) concept of Young Ah Lee, Shwu-Meei Chen, Chen-Ni Chang & Fusako Yoneda The Professional Educator communities of practice to describe how this program attempted to reach this goal as seen from the perspectives of its graduates. Multicultural Teacher Education The purposes and practices of this program mirrored many of the goals in the multicultural teacher education literature. First, the program addressed the multiple dimensions of multicultural education: content integration, knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and creation of empowering schools and society (Banks, 2015). Second, to holistically infuse these multiple dimensions, the teacher education program strove to construct clear goals and procedures reflecting values of multicultural education, as Zeichner and colleagues (1998) argue is necessary. They also suggest that goals and procedures need to be explicitly communicated to teacher candidates, because they shape their experiences regarding diversity and equity. Many collaborative contexts within the program were sites for communicating and negotiating the goals and procedures. Third, Vavrus highlights that teacher educators need to enhance “reflection that is multicultural” (2002, p.38) by making reflectivity a dominant norm of the program. That is, reflection needs to promote teacher candidates’ abilities to critically think and act on complex issues in multicultural education moving beyond technical deliberations of instruction. This was a major initiative within the program. Finally, teacher educators need to promote collaborative and harmonious relationships among all participants in the program (Hidalgo et al., 1996). All aspects of the M.Ed. program were designed to be collaborative. The strong implementation of these multicultural goals made us, the authors, curious to investigate the program’s influence on the students’ understandings of equity and diversity issues in education. We use the term multicultural education to refer to the orientations and practices of the M.Ed. program and how the graduates thought about equity, diversity, and social justice. Banks (2007) defined multicultural education as the idea that all students, regardless their diverse racial, cultural, ethnical, language, gender, or social class, have an equal opportunity to learn in school (p.3). From his point of view, multicultural education is a reform and an ongoing process to achieve equity, democracy, and social justice. We recognize the complexity in the literature related to defining these terms and how definitions have migrated over time. In our data, both faculty and graduates used terms interchangeably and so, for the purposes of this research, we do likewise. Communities of Practice The multicultural purposes and practices of this program can be described as a particular kind of community of practice. According to Wenger (1998), communities of practice can be thought of as “shared histories of learning” (p. 86). They are communities where participants come together and participate in shared practices, and in the process, learn from each other. The shared practice of this program was the preparation of future teachers. Wenger writes: Communities of practice . are a force to be reckoned with, for better or for worse. As a locus of engagement in action, interpersonal relations, shared knowledge and negotiation of enterprises, such communities hold the key to real transformation—the kind that has real effects on people’s lives. From this perspective, the influence of other forces (e.g., the control of an institution or the authority of an individual) is no less important, but they must be understood as mediated by the communities in which their meanings are to be negotiated in practice. (p. 85) Multicultural Teacher Education as a Community of Practice Volume 42, No. 1 • Fall, 2017 Wenger’s concept of community is defined by three dimensions of practice: (a) mutual engagement—people in a community of practice are jointly engaged in the process of negotiating meanings that involve various activities, symbols, and artifacts, (b) joint enterprise—people in a community of practice explicitly articulate indigenous enterprise and recreate and negotiate enterprise that keeps a community coherent, and (c) shared repertoire—people gain coherence and a sense of belongingness by participating in activities, symbols, artifacts, or discourse created and adopted by the community. Wenger’s three dimensions were helpful to interpret the practices of this community and the consequences of participation as seen from the perspectives of the graduates related to multicultural education. Mutual engagement helped us examine whether the M.Ed./PDS program promoted transformative learning through collaborative relationships rather than one-way transmissions of information. Joint enterprise helped us understand whether the program communicated and negotiated multicultural education goals with the graduates. Shared repertoire helped us identify the kinds of learning activities and resources the program provided to prepare the graduates to teach multicultural education. Context and Participants This study is situated in a five-quarter M.Ed./PDS teacher education program located in a Midwest university in the United States. The M.Ed./PDS program was an experimental K-8 certification program that was designed to promote collaboration between schools and the university in an effort to reform teacher education. The program was in operation from 1992 to 2002. PDS teachers and university faculty participants met with each other weekly to collaboratively develop the program and to support long-term, self-defined professional development. The program was explicit about preparing teachers for urban contexts. The program goal was to thread issues of race, culture, and social justice throughout the program. Faculty participants in the program worked hard to build a democratic environment where the teacher candidates and cooperating teachers felt that their voices and needs were taken into account in the decision-making process (Johnston & PDS Colleagues, 1997). All teacher candidates were required to take a one-quarter course on diversity and equity, and they voluntarily participated in a community service learning project at a school that was held in a primarily African American church. All teacher candidates did their field experience in a year-long placement primarily urban settings and had a week of “buddy placement” in a school different from their primary placement (nonurban schools with different grade levels) To know how multicultural education was communicated and practiced in the program, we interviewed four of the tenure-line instructors who taught the general and methods courses. We focused on their goals and practices related to multicultural education. We found that they had many shared goals of preparing teacher candidates to effectively work with diverse students. Mary, the M.Ed. program co-coordinator and instructor for social studies methods, discussed what she considered to be a shared M.Ed. program goal: “teacher educators need to help students think critically about a world that is becoming increasingly diverse. ” In her teaching, she integrated discussions of issues of equity and diversity and tried to encourage students to see ways in which diversity provides opportunities to learn, both for themselves and their students. This involved learning to see multiple points of view within issues and contexts and to deal with controversial issues. The students did assignments in class designed t