Four Diverse Educators Chronicle Challenges in a Christian- Centered Society

Culturally responsive teaching requires that students be perceived holistically and part of student culture is religious beliefs. The purpose of this research is to offer insight into experiences and understandings of four preservice and inservice teachers', from diverse religious backgrounds, Muslim, Judaism, Sikhism, and Mormonism, experiences and understandings as they studied and worked in colleges of education and elementary classrooms that are rooted in Anglo Christian traditions. We relied on aspects of critical multiculturalism and social identity theory to guide the qualitative case study. In this case study, we analyzed reflexive journals and interviews of four participants using within-case and cross-case analysis. Within-case and cross-case analyses included four themes: separation of church and state, teaching for equity and awareness, respect for religious diversity, and personal beliefs. These findings suggest teacher educators incorporate religious and spiritual issues into diversity discussions and continue to support preservice teachers' development of conscious self-awareness and culturally responsive pedagogy. Keywords: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Religious Diversity, Multicultural, Case Study, Constant Comparison, Within-Case Analysis, Cross-Case Analysis, Preservice and Inservice Teachers, Teacher EducationTopics of religion and spirituality are often considered to be conversation topics to be avoided in social settings, and particularly educational contexts, which can serve to negate the essence of some people's lives. Meanwhile, many teacher education programs provide inadequate multicultural educational opportunities in order to prepare teachers to teach diverse student populations. Public schools and universities in the United States typically represent the general political and social milieu, which is mainly Christian. As a result, teacher education programs are mainly oriented implicitly around Christian beliefs. As noted by some scholars, the teacher and students' culture impacts teaching and learning dynamics (Grant & Ladson-Billings, 1997). Howard (2006) and Ladson-Billings (1995, 2009) propose that teachers must have an understanding of their own cultural identity and beliefs in order to understand and teach others. These beliefs can be addressed by involving students in critical multicultural pedagogy in their preservice and inservice teacher education programs. By helping these teachers better understand their own cultural identity and the cultures of those different from themselves, they can better understand and value the cultures of their students. In this study, we investigated religious identity, as an important aspect of a person's culture that we believe should be included in considerations of culturally responsive teaching.Globally, other countries are addressing issues of minority concerns often related to religion. Sanders, Foyil, and Graff (2007) declared "there will be global shifts in the majority religion(s) in the next few years" (p. 169; Bishop & Nash, 2007). Daily global news events, such as Islamic factions of Sunnis and Shiite people in Iraq, cannot be understood without knowledge of differing religions. Sanders, Foyil, and Graff (2010) suggested that in order to counter religious violence worldwide, knowledge of other religions is needed to move thinking from personal, individual understandings of religion to "pluralistic" notions of religion. This is the goal of our research and promotion of culturally responsive teaching that includes study of various world religions.To search for greater understanding of the influence of religion on learning in the classroom, we wondered whether teachers leave religious identities outside of the classroom and how religious identities may influence the students they teach. Therefore, we interviewed two inservice and two preservice teachers (n=4) from diverse religious backgrounds to gain insight into their understandings about how religion and spirituality impacted their lived experiences as learners and teachers in colleges of education and elementary classrooms that are rooted in Anglo Christian traditions. …