The Social Studies (2012) 103, 97–106Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0037-7996 print / 2152-405X onlineDOI: 10.1080/00377996.2011.575419

“I Want a Multicultural Classroom”: Preparing SocialStudies Teachers for Culturally Diverse Classrooms

ANTONIO J. CASTRO1, SHERRY L. FIELD2, MICHELLE BAUML3 and DEBORAH MOROWSKI4

1Department of Learning, Teaching and Curriculum, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA2Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Teacher Education, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA3Department of Teacher Education, College of Education, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA4Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA

This qualitative study investigates the perspectives of two cohorts of elementary preservice teachers on citizenship education intoday’s culturally and globally diverse classrooms. Both cohorts were enrolled in the same university; however, one group participatedin an urban-based teacher education program designed around the needs of urban school children. While participants reportedvarying views of citizenship and offered diverse strategies for incorporating citizenship in the classroom, findings suggested that thoseparticipating in the urban-based cohort viewed citizenship more in terms of culture and valued promoting cultural learning andsharing in the classroom. Implications for teachers wanting to teach for cultural citizenship are discussed.

Keywords: citizenship, multicultural education, teacher education, urban education

The landscape of the public school classroom continues toshift, especially as students become more culturally, linguis-tically, and economically diverse (Villegas 2008). The in-creasing demographic differences between school teachersand their more diverse student populations impel teachereducators and researchers to seek ways to prepare teach-ers to be culturally responsive (Gay 2002; Ladson-Billings2001; Villegas and Lucas 2002). Although some of this workhas addressed the need for preparing social studies teach-ers for multicultural classrooms (Boyle-Baise 1995, 1996;Danker 2005; Gay 2004; Ladson-Billings 1997), much hasyet to be explored concerning preservice teachers’ viewsabout the relationship between the aims of social studies ed-ucation and teaching in today’s culturally diverse contextsand how best to foster culturally responsive instruction insocial studies teacher education.

Despite the fact that today’s generation of teachers areviewed as being more open to diversity, social justice, andpublic service (Howe and Strauss 2000; Kiesa et al. 2007;Ousley 2006), social studies research indicates a lack ofcomplexity in how preservice teachers view social studiesissues, such as democracy, citizenship, and diversity (Kick-busch 1987; Ross and Yeager 1999; Rubin 2006; Rubinand Justice 2005; Wade and Raba 2003). The purpose of

Address correspondence to Antonio J. Castro, University of Mis-souri, 303 Townsend Hall, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. E-mail:castroaj@missouri.edu

this article is to present findings from a qualitative studythat traces how preservice teachers enrolled in two differentcohorts of one elementary program—a traditional elemen-tary cohort and an urban-based cohort—and envisionedthe relationship between teaching social studies and pro-moting multicultural education and awareness in the publicschools.

The Intersection of Social Studies, Citizenship, andMulticultural Education

The scholarship of Robert Barr, James Barth, and SamuelShermis (1978, 1977) established that despite various ap-proaches for social studies instruction, most teachers in-variably institute some form of citizenship education asthe primary goal for social studies instruction. Indeed, theNational Council for the Social Studies advocates for thedevelopment of civic competence among school childrenas a strong component of its mission (National Councilfor the Social Studies 1994). However, Joel Westheimerand Joseph Kahne (2004) observed that fundamental dif-ferences exist in the ways in which individuals define cit-izenship. They described three kinds of citizenship: thepersonally responsible citizen, the participatory citizen,and the social justice–oriented citizen. Notions of the per-sonally responsible citizen mirror traditional views of cit-izenship (Knight Abowitz and Harnish 2006), wherebythe citizen is expected to be a productive member of

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society, obey the laws, and exhibit sound moral qualities.The participatory citizen acts to improve the communitythrough civic engagement, volunteer work, and participat-ing in the political process (Parker 2001, 2003). Finally, thesocial justice–oriented citizen asks critical questions aboutthe cause of inequity and injustice in the community andseeks to rectify such injustices through activism (Boyle-Baise 2003).

In addition to these three views of citizenship, some re-searchers have attempted to link calls for increased demo-cratic education with the aims of multicultural educa-tion (Banks and Nguyen 2008; Boyle-Baise 2003; Dil-worth 2008; Gay 1995, 1997). For example, according toPaulette Dilworth (2004, 156), multicultural citizenship “inits broadest definition is concerned with helping students toacquire the knowledge, skills, and values appropriate in anincreasingly ethnically pluralistic nation-state.” Similar toteaching for multicultural education, teaching for multicul-tural citizenship involves teaching about and for multipleperspectives and viewpoints, establishing respect for cul-tural diversity, and working toward identifying and trans-forming areas of injustice that inhibit the goals of democ-racy (Apple and Beane 2007; Castro 2010; Dilworth 2008;Mathews and Dilworth 2008; Marri 2003, 2005). Multicul-tural citizenship education draws on the relationship be-tween increased cultural awareness and exploration (Banks2004b), multicultural and social justice advocacy (Sleeterand Grant 2007), and critical awareness of issues (Gay 1995;McLaren 1997).

Finally, different views of multicultural education alsoexist. Christine Sleeter and Carl Grant (2007) offer a typol-ogy for understanding multicultural education that distin-guishes between multicultural education for the acceptanceof culturally diverse others (human relations multiculturaleducation) and multicultural education for social change toend oppression (social justice multicultural education). Theformer approach might be considered as a “foods and festi-vals” approach to multicultural education, whereby cultureis only celebrated at a surface level (Nieto 1995); while thelater approach aligns more with multicultural citizenshipeducation. When implementing multicultural curriculumin the classroom, James Banks (2004) described differentstages of curriculum integration. The first two stages of in-tegration (the contributions and additive approaches) onlyincorporate cultural knowledge and ideas into the curricu-lum. The last two stages (the transformation and socialaction approach) not only incorporate cultural knowledgeand ideas, but also transform the curriculum to focus onthe perspectives of diverse groups and to foster decision-making and authentic problem-solving using real issuesfaced by students in their communities.

These varied approaches to citizenship and multiculturaleducation informed our understanding and analysis of thedata collected from the participants in this study. We firstsought to determine how preservice teachers envisioned thepurpose for teaching social studies. Significantly, although

we did not specifically ask students about citizenship dur-ing our interviews, the notion of citizenship appeared asthe dominant purpose for education. However, as West-heimer and Kahne (2004) observed, participants shareddiffering visions for citizenship education. In addition, weinvestigated how participants viewed the relationship be-tween the purpose of teaching social studies and teachingfor cultural diversity. As we will discuss later, the waysparticipants envisioned social studies education influencedtheir understanding of teaching for cultural diversity in thesocial studies. Finally, because participants were enrolledin two different elementary cohorts in the same university,we considered how differences in teacher preparation con-texts may have influenced how participants viewed teachingsocial studies for diverse contexts.

Methodology

Participants in this qualitative study included a diversegroup of twenty elementary preservice teachers who camefrom different cohorts of the same elementary teacher ed-ucation program: either an urban focused cohort or a gen-eral elementary cohort (see Table 1). For the purpose ofthis article, students who were not part of the urban co-hort are referred to as the elementary cohort, althoughindividuals in the second group came from two subgroupsin the general elementary program with identical degreeplans and similar instructors. The ten students in both theurban-elementary cohort and the elementary cohort wereenrolled or had recently completed a social studies meth-ods course as part of the teacher preparation program ata large, urban, research university in the Southwest. Mostof the participants were female (nineteen) and fifteen oftwenty participants described their high school as diverse,indicating a variety of cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomicgroups. Of this number, nine participants specifically re-ported attending a school located in an urban area prior totheir undergraduate studies. Nine students in the elemen-tary cohort were Anglo-American and one was a Latina.In the urban cohort, five students self-reported being white

Table 1. Cohort members by name and ethnicity.

Urban cohort Elementary cohort

Avery (white) Allison (white)Chloe (white) Amanda (white)Eun-Jung (Asian American) Brittany (white)Gloria (African American) Erica (white)Gwen (African American) Faith (white)Jin (Asian American) Heather (white)Madison (white) Megan (white)Samantha (white) Sam (white)Sophie (African American) Stacy (white)Tara (white) Veronica (Hispanic/Latina)

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while three were African American, and two were AsianAmerican. Although the urban cohort tended to attractmore minority teacher candidates, we did not notice quali-tative differences in the responses of participants based onrace.

Although participants in each cohort had completednearly identical coursework, the emphasis and focus ofeach cohort was substantially different in that the urbancohort’s instruction centered on urban school teaching.Participants in the elementary cohort were recruited andinterviewed near the end of their initial semester of edu-cation coursework in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009.At the time of the interviews, elementary cohort partici-pants had completed coursework in the following: guidingyoung children, applied human learning, and social studiesmethods. Furthermore, participants had completed eigh-teen hours of field observations in a prekindergarten orkindergarten classroom.

Participants who came from the urban-elementary co-hort were recruited and interviewed near the end of theirfirst semester of education coursework in the fall of 2009and spring of 2010. While these participants completed thesame coursework and field service requirements as studentsin the traditional elementary cohort, these students encoun-tered a fundamentally different curriculum. The urban-elementary cohort grew out of a partnership between theCollege of Education and leaders from the surrounding ur-ban school district. Through this partnership, nine facultymembers, three principals, and three elementary teachersfrom local area schools agreed to participate in a series ofprofessional development workshops focused on teachingfor diversity, curriculum differentiation, response to inter-vention strategies, and social and emotional learning. Asa result of this collaboration, faculty and school partnersdecided to infuse concepts of social and emotional learn-ing (SEL) and response to intervention (RtI) across thecoursework for students in the urban cohort. Because thestudy initially began before the urban cohort was insti-tuted and continued a year later to include participants en-rolled in the urban cohort, the researchers could draw nat-ural comparison between the two groups, especially sincemost of the participants were taught by the same facultymembers.

Relying on new and extensive research and various strate-gies for reform and improvement, especially for urbanschools, the concepts of social and emotional learning andresponse to intervention were chosen as the cornerstonesfor the urban cohort. SEL embodies a holistic approach toschool improvement that recognizes the need to build so-cial and emotional skills necessary to balance relationships,conflict, and responsible decision-making in children (Eliasand Arnold 2006; Merrell and Gueldner 2010). Researchsuggests that instruction for SEL can promote academicsuccess in urban and low-income schools by creating safelearning environments and fostering increased engagementwith learning (Zins et al. 2004). The second strategy ex-

plored in the urban-elementary cohort, response to inter-vention, promotes teacher responsiveness to varying stu-dent academic needs in the classroom. RtI, according toGeorge Batsche and colleagues (2006, 3), entails teachers“monitoring progress [of students] frequently to make de-cisions about changes in instruction or goals and applyingchild response data to important educational decisions.”In an RtI system, all students are screened on basic skillsindicators for each of the content areas. In a tiered system,students receive evidence-based core instruction in the gen-eral education classroom. Students performing at or abovegrade level receive core (or tier 1) instruction. Studentsneeding additional support receive tier 2 intervention, suchas through smaller group instruction, or tier 3 interven-tions, which are usually offered through special educationservices, for those students with greatest learning needs.The heart of RtI lies in its use of various levels of supportand scaffolding, as well as differentiated curriculum in theclassroom (Mellard and Johnson 2008).

The urban-elementary cohort represented the ideals ofpartnership between a research university and local areaschools. First, students enrolled in the urban cohort con-ducted field observations at one of three participating ele-mentary schools, all serving a predominantly low-incomeand minority population. These preservice teachers ob-served teachers who attended the same professional de-velopment workshop series as their professors. Second,school partners, such as the principal at one elementaryschool, taught or cotaught required courses in the pro-gram. Finally, faculty and school partners worked to im-prove student understanding of key concepts of SEL andRtI instruction. For example, the faculty member teach-ing social studies methods took her students to observehow one partner teacher implemented differentiated cur-riculum in her social studies lessons in her elementaryclassroom. The faculty and school partners sought to in-fuse teaching for cultural, linguistic, and economic differ-ences across the entire curriculum for students in the urbancohort.

The researchers conducted single forty-five- to ninety-minute interviews with each participant, soliciting infor-mation related to the participants’ schooling experiences,beliefs about the purpose of schooling and social studiesteaching, understandings of cultural diversity or multicul-turalism, and the relationship between diversity and socialstudies instruction. (See interview protocol in appendix A.)All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed.

The researchers employed constant-comparative analy-sis to the data (Boeije 2002; Pidgeon and Henwood 2004).First, the researchers coded for data that illuminated par-ticipants’ understanding of the relationship between socialstudies education and cultural diversity. Codes were thentransferred into within-case displays (Miles and Huber-man 1994), including organized lists of codes (e.g., viewson social studies, definition of diversity, relevance of so-cial studies) and supporting evidence identified from each

100 Castro et al.

transcript. These displays, in a matrix form, were ana-lyzed within and across cases as we searched for patternsand themes among participants’ responses to the inter-view questions found in appendix A (Miles and Huber-man 1994). In addition, we made comparisons within andacross themes we found, gleaning deeper insights from thedata (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Finally, we explored dif-ferences across each cohort group. Although the single in-terview design limited triangulation of the data, we readthe full transcripts thoroughly to find supporting and dis-confirming statements to strengthen the credibility of ourfindings.

Findings

Our findings confirmed the belief that teachers generallyassociate social studies instruction with the larger aims ofcitizenship education (Barr, Barth, and Shermis 1977). Infact, eleven participants referred specifically to the term cit-izen when explaining their view of the purpose for teachingsocial studies and made statements such as “social studiesis really about citizenship” and social studies helps pro-duce “competent citizens.” The remaining participants de-scribed the kind of people or citizens they wanted theirstudents to become as a result of their social studies teach-ing. Although participants defined citizenship as the pur-pose for social studies teaching, their view of what citi-zenship entailed differed significantly. In addition, whenasked to describe the role of social studies in a culturallydiverse classroom, participants identified various curricularstrategies ranging from fostering tolerance and acceptanceto making culture the basis for social studies instruction.Differences in the kinds of strategies participants wouldemploy emerged based on which view of citizenship theyadopted (see Table 2).

Citizenship: Multiple Purposes for the Social Studies

Participants held different notions of citizenship education,which included responsible citizenship, competent citizen-ship, activist citizenship, and cultural citizenship.

Responsible citizenship

Like personally responsible citizenship described by West-heimer and Kahne (2004), participants who advocated forresponsible citizenship as the purpose for social studieswished to prepare students with skills and tools necessaryfor functional living. First, participants stressed the impor-tance of assisting students in finding a job or vocation. Forexample, Avery1 stated that the purpose of social studieswas “to turn out citizens, contributing citizens, and by con-tributing I mean generally contributing in the capitalisticsense—people that can work in the workforce.” Partici-pants subscribing to this view of citizenship believe thatkeeping a job is one aspect of the responsibility citizensmust uphold to be productive in the national community.In addition, participants related the importance of follow-ing laws and getting along with others. Sam, for example,spoke of the importance of helping children to be “bet-ter citizens,” emphasizing a need for teaching socializationskills. The focus of these participants was on the ability oftheir students to conform to the habits, laws, and customsthat commonly regulate peaceful coexistence in a democ-racy. Given the goal of creating productive citizens, par-ticipants overall believed social studies could provide “lifeskills” or “tools” such as money management, knowledgeabout how government works, and skills to express one’sideas and communicate with others. Such functional skillsare designed to help students take responsibility for theirfuture livelihoods and act as productive members of theeconomy and society. Responsible citizenship is centered

Table 2. Approaches to citizenship and teaching for cultural diversity.

Citizenship approach/number ofparticipants in each cohort Strategies for integrating cultural diversity in the social studies

Responsible citizenship Incorporate cultural materials in the curriculum (3: 1 elementary, 2 urban).5 elementary participants Foster tolerance and acceptance of culturally diverse others among students (4

elementary).2 urban participantsCompetent citizenship Incorporate cultural materials in the curriculum (2: 1 elementary, 1 urban).2 elementary participants Use culture as the basis for the social studies (1 urban).2 urban participants

Create opportunities to learn from the culture of students in the classroom (1 urban).Activist citizenship Incorporate cultural materials in the curriculum (1 elementary).2 elementary participants Create opportunities to learn from the culture of students in the classroom (1 elementary).Cultural citizenship Use culture as the basis for the social studies (3 urban).1 elementary participants Create opportunities to learn from the culture of students in the classroom (4: 1

elementary, 3 urban).6 urban participants

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on socialization and conformity rather than social changeor cultural understanding.

Competent citizenship

Amanda offered the best definition of this kind of citizen-ship when she stated, “We would hope to aim to producecompetent citizens for our country, who are educated andnot ignorant of what’s going on in the world.” These citizenswould be “able to make authoritative decisions becausethey’re educated on our history and our present time.” Forthese participants, the central component of competent cit-izenship is the ability to utilize social studies to understandreality. For example, Gloria explained that social studiesinstruction could help students become more aware of re-ality by presenting “beyond one-sided history” and drawingon multiple perspectives. This approach may provide stu-dents with a more accurate picture of situations from whichto make critical decisions for action. A second way socialstudies fosters competent citizenship is by promoting whatSophie called “futuristic thinking” or the ability to see howinteractions in the past influence situations in the present.In this way, teaching social studies would value making con-nections between the past and the present. Overall, compe-tent citizenship revolves around decision-making and seesthe social studies as a means for promoting a clearer under-standing of reality to inform a citizen’s choices and actionsto improve society. Competent citizenship aligned closelywith notions of participatory citizenship in that being wellinformed was a precursor to active citizenship (Westheimerand Kahne 2004).

Activist citizenship

Like social justice–oriented citizenship, activist citizenshipfocuses on social change and advocacy for justice. Onlytwo participants expressed notions that fell distinctly intothis category. Citing issues such as pollution and the im-portance of supporting education, Heather believed thatsocial studies education should “make productive, demo-cratic citizens who are capable of changing the world anddoing good things.” Heather also stressed the importanceof addressing moral issues and referred to examples such asthe Holocaust and Anne Frank as she explained, “I don’tthink teachers should tell [students] right from wrong. Ithink they should come to that conclusion themselves, likediscuss, deliberate about it.” However, unlike focusing onmorality in the responsible citizenship sense, Heather sup-ported activism by relying on strong moral commitmentsand beliefs, even relating how she was arrested for partici-pating in a peace rally during the 2001 presidential election.Likewise, Brittany described strategies to apply social ac-tion with elementary students to promote citizenship. Shedescribed having students respond to child labor in othercountries by writing a class letter “as a protest against[child labor]” and teaching children that “it’s a big thing

[to] . . . change things.” Activist citizenship advocates forsocial change to right injustices and to address other issueswithin the community. In other words, the citizen workswith others to create a more just democracy.

Cultural citizenship

Cultural citizenship as a purpose for the social studies ac-knowledges not only the diversity found in the Americancontext, but also global awareness and world cultures. Thiskind of citizenship mirrors notions of multicultural edu-cation espoused by Sleeter and Grant (2007) in which thefocus is not just on cultural acknowledge but also on under-standing of personal and global culture as well as systemsof inequity (and hegemony) that limit democratic partici-pation for marginalized groups. For example, Gwen main-tained that social studies “plays a big role . . . in being agood citizen . . . learning history, you know about wherewe’ve come from . . . where different cultures have come;the struggles they’ve been through and just taking that andhelping it to shape us as people today.” Samantha alsocommented, “We’re not just America almighty; we’re justanother country in this world.” For Samantha, cultural cit-izenship as a purpose for the social studies has to do withinitiating curiosity and interest among students to exploredifferent cultures. Participants in this category associatedlearning about diversity or different cultures as an essentialcomponent in social studies instruction. Madison saw so-cial studies “as a vehicle for helping them [students] under-stand the concept of diversity . . . seeing how many differentcategories of diversity we all are all over the world.” Like-wise, Erica spoke about sharing cultural stories in her class,defining social studies as “a lot of different aspects and alot of different roles but in a general context . . . learningabout other cultures.” Eun-Jung described the power of so-cial studies “to open your eyes to just not the people in theU.S. but other countries and cultures.” Participants’ per-spectives of cultural citizenship as the purpose of the socialstudies highlighted the importance of understanding cul-tural interactions, cultural histories and stories, and globalculture. Participants described helping students adopt a“cultural world view” (Madison) and to be “open-minded”(Tara) about different cultures in their interactions. Jin’sstatement, “I want a multicultural classroom,” provideda compelling summary of these participants’ interests incultural citizenship and cultural teaching.

Although some participants expressed aspects that fellinto more than one of these categories, we situated eachperson within her or his dominant view of social studiesbased on interview data. Generally, participants were dis-tributed across each of the approaches to social studieseducation (see Table 2), echoing Rubin’s (2006) findingsabout high school students who held varied civic identities.However, as we shall discuss, participants’ orientations in-form their understanding of the relationship between socialstudies and cultural diversity.

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Defining the Relationship between Social Studies andCultural Diversity

As part of the interview protocol, we asked partici-pants to describe the relationship between cultural diver-sity/multiculturalism and the purpose for social studieseducation. Participants’ responses occurred in the form ofstrategies they would use to link social studies with culturaldiversity. These strategies fell into two broad categories:using multicultural content in teaching and creating cul-turally responsive atmospheres. However, drawing on thework of Sleeter and Grant (2007) and Banks (2004), we no-ticed fundamental differences in the strategies participantsdescribed.

Using multicultural content in teaching

We identified two strategies participants suggested for in-tegrating multicultural content. First, seven participantsdescribed incorporating cultural materials into the curricu-lum. Consistent with the additive approach to curriculumintegration, these participants would look for opportuni-ties to add-in cultural materials, resources, and lessons.Amanda stated, “In social studies, you would simply caterto [culturally diverse students] by including their cultureand teaching cultural awareness, like cultural awarenessdays.” Sam and Sophie referred to using multicultural lit-erature and cultural books whenever possible. Sophie re-flected, “If you’re talking about American culture, there[are] a lot of different cultures, so you need to include that.”Likewise, Veronica communicated the need to incorporatediscussion of differences and similarities across cultures.In a similar vein, Heather felt that students should con-sider various opinions from different groups of people todevelop effective decision-making skills for major issues.For these participants, incorporating cultural materials, re-sources, and lessons represents one approach for drawing arelationship between cultural diversity and social studies.

A second approach to integrating cultural content inthe social studies involves using culture as a basis forsocial studies teaching. Eun-Jung believed multicultural-ism should be “the foundation [for social studies] becauseyou’re learning about all these other people and all theseother places in the world.” Likewise, Gloria saw teachingfrom different perspectives involved teaching social stud-ies through a specific cultural lens. She told us, “Culturaldiversity and social studies, they go hand-in-hand. Thereare so many different perspectives in our society, and soit only makes sense to look at social studies through thatcultural lens.” Teaching with culture as the basis for thesocial studies instruction requires the teacher to reorga-nize instruction so as to center on cultural knowledge andcross-cultural awareness, sometimes challenging historicalevents or narratives found in traditional history textbookswith counternarratives or alternative perspectives.

These two approaches offer strikingly different perspec-tives about the role of cultural content in the social studiescurriculum. The first approach that incorporates culturalmaterials, lessons, and resources in the curriculum mirrorsan additive approach to curriculum reform whereby theessential structure of the curriculum does not change. In-stead, teachers add in content about cultures and othergroups as the teacher deems necessary. In this approach,cultural content becomes “extracurricular” or enrichmentmaterial, as in the “cultural day” Amanda mentionedabove. In the second approach, using culture as the ba-sis for social studies education, the essential nature of thecurriculum is transformed. Cultural stories, histories, andissues become central to the curriculum content. Accord-ing to Banks’s (2004) stages of curriculum integration, thislatter approach would offer more complex ways of intro-ducing multicultural content.

Creating culturally responsive atmospheres. Participantsalso described strategies that they would employ to fos-ter a culturally responsive atmosphere in their classrooms.Participants adopted two different approaches. First, fourelementary participants described fostering acceptance andtolerance for culturally diverse others in their classrooms.For example, Faith reflected on the importance of “justunderstanding that there is . . . diversity and being ableto accept I think everyone’s diversity.” Sam also stressedhelping children accept differences; he questioned, “Whydo other people do different things? Because they are dif-ferent people . . . They have a different culture. Making[students] aware of the other cultures and that it’s okayto have a different thing or have an accent.” In addition,Stacy and Megan suggested teachers help students recog-nize that differences are not only acceptable, they shouldalso be admired and respected. These statements representa human relations approach to multicultural education, thebasic level of multicultural education identified by Sleeterand Grant (2007), which stresses the need for harmony andorder in the community through tolerance and acceptance.

In the second approach to creating culturally respon-sive atmosphere in the classroom, seven participants de-scribed ways they would create opportunities for classmatesto learn from each other about different cultural back-grounds and experiences in the classroom. Unlike the ac-ceptance and tolerance approach, these teachers advocatedfor a deeper and more meaningful cultural dialogue amongstudents. For example, Samantha described how she wouldcreate opportunities in her classroom to help students “un-derstand themselves to understand other people,” claimingthat as Americans, “We don’t know about cultures becausewe are not all multicultural people, so we all need to learn toask.” Samantha described using students’ own familial andcultural backgrounds to facilitate instruction. In a similarvein, Erica described how she would encourage studentsto create cultural stories to share with each other, drawingon her understanding of culturally relevant pedagogy that

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she learned in one of her courses. She explained that shewould want to see students “expressing what their culturemeans to them because for one teacher to say, ‘This is theway that culture is’ isn’t really realistic . . . People can telltheir own stories and learn about all the different parts thatmake up a culture.” Like Erica, Gwen indicated, “I want toincorporate who students are into what we’re learning . . .

different cultures.” Allison and Brittany also related the im-portance of learning from others about different cultures.Teachers seeking to create opportunities for cultural shar-ing appeared to recognize the need for students to developcultural identities and greater sociocultural awareness (Gay2000). These teachers sought to move students beyond mereacceptance and tolerance of culturally diverse others, but tofoster positive cultural identity and well-being within eachstudent as well as among all students in the classroom.

These two approaches to creating culturally responsiveatmospheres in the classroom exist on different ends of thespectrum for multicultural education. Fostering acceptanceand tolerance works at the level of human relationshipswhere the purpose of multicultural education is to preventconflict and promote basic unity (Sleeter and Grant 2007).Although considered by many as a good starting place,more advanced views of multicultural education ask stu-dents to move beyond basic appreciation and tolerance.Both social justice multicultural education and multicul-tural citizenship advocate for deeper and more meaning-ful interactions surrounding cultural differences (Dilworth2008; Sleeter and Grant 2007). Participants who sought tocreate opportunities for students to share their own culturalheritage with each other fall within these more advancedcategories. By facilitating cultural sharing and validatingcultural stories that students bring to the classroom, theseparticipants wanted to help children develop their own cul-tural identities and adopt goals consistent with a more just,pluralistic democracy.

Discussion and Implications

Findings from this study suggest that the perspective preser-vice teachers in the urban cohort hold are qualitatively dif-ferent conceptions of the purpose for social studies teachingand the relationship between social studies and teaching inculturally, linguistically, or economically diverse contexts.Urban cohort members gravitated more toward activist andcultural citizenship as a purpose for teaching social studies.Urban cohort members also held more advanced ideas ofinfusing cultural content in the social studies and creatingculturally responsive classroom atmospheres.

Table 2 documents the differences between views of par-ticipants in each cohort. Members of the elementary co-hort (five participants) tended to adopt notions of respon-sible citizenship as the goal for social studies teaching moreso than members in the urban cohort (two participants).As previously noted, this view of citizenship really mirrors

a traditional approach to citizenship education. However,notions of competent citizenship attracted two elementarycohort members and two urban cohort members. This viewcan be seen as more complex in its approach to culturaldiversity than responsible citizenship with its major em-phasis on understanding multiple points of view and cul-tural groups. Two elementary cohort participants, however,championed activist citizenship as the purpose of socialstudies, highlighting the role of citizens to advocate for im-proving society, demonstrating one aspect of multiculturalcitizenship defined by Dilworth (2004). Finally, six of theten urban cohort participants cited cultural citizenship asthe major goal for the social studies in contrast to just onemember of the elementary cohort. Whereas members ofthe elementary cohort favored responsible citizenship asthe purpose of social studies, members of the urban co-hort tended to align more with cultural citizenship, whichcenters more on cultural sharing and story-telling.

Further differences exist between the urban cohort andthe elementary cohort when comparing the ways in whicheach group discussed the relationship between social stud-ies instruction and teaching for cultural diversity. First,seven urban cohort members compared to three elemen-tary cohort members cited examples of how they wouldintegrate multicultural content in their teaching. Three ele-mentary cohort members and three urban cohort memberswould incorporate multicultural materials in their teachingand four urban cohort members reported that they wouldmake cultural diversity a central component of their socialstudies lessons. The data suggested that members of the ur-ban cohort were more attuned to multicultural curriculumand may have been more willing or open to transformingtheir social studies lessons to focus on issues of culturaldiversity.

On the other hand, six members of the elementary co-hort, in comparison to four members of the urban cohort,reported they would integrate cultural diversity into theirsocial studies teaching by creating culturally responsive at-mospheres, suggesting that the elementary cohort partici-pants valued socialization processes occurring in the class-room over content integration as a means for fostering mul-ticulturalism in social studies instruction. However, even inthis category, four elementary cohort members sought tofoster tolerance, acceptance and respect for cultures in theclassroom, while four urban cohort participants and twoelementary cohort participants sought to create opportuni-ties to learn and share cultural stories and experiences fromtheir students. As revealed in Table 2, all four of the elemen-tary cohort participants advocating tolerance and accep-tance of diversity through classroom interactions also heldviews of social studies instruction as promoting responsi-ble citizenship, socialization, and conformity to communitystandards. These participants supported strategies consis-tent with encouraging conformity and participation in bothsociety and the workforce. On the other hand, the four ur-ban cohort participants wanting to create opportunities to

104 Castro et al.

learn from the culture of students in their own classroomsfell into the cultural citizenship category. These participantssaw citizenship in terms of both national and global cul-tural awareness and placed the teaching of culture as thefoundation for social studies instruction. These preserviceteachers sought to create opportunities for cultural sharingand learning among students.

Clearly, the ways in which the preservice teachers de-fine the purpose of social studies influenced their outlookabout the relationship between social studies teaching andcultural diversity. Those who advocated a kind of citizen-ship that resembled social-justice multicultural education(Sleeter and Grant 2007) as well as multicultural citizenship(Dilworth 2008) communicated the more advanced strat-egy for multicultural curriculum—using culture as the basisfor social studies curriculum (Banks 2004)—and for foster-ing culturally responsive classrooms (Gay 2000)—creatingopportunities for learning from the culture of others. Over-all, members in the urban cohort gravitated more towardsthe notions of multicultural citizenship and social-justicemulticultural education.

We believe that participating in the urban cohort hada positive influence on the views and ideas of urban co-hort members. First, conversations about meeting the needsof diverse learners, specifically in urban schools, formed amajor component of the instruction in the urban cohort.Participants learned from partner teachers about teach-ing children who differed from their backgrounds in termsof culture, linguistics, and socioeconomic status. In addi-tion, frequent visitations to partner schools allowed par-ticipants to not only interact with urban children, but alsosee experienced teachers model how to integrate culturallearning in their teaching and how to create a communitythat valued cultural differences. Finally, in the urban co-hort, both faculty and partner teachers communicated thevalue of promoting cultural citizenship as a way to preparechildren for democratic living in the twenty-first century.However, despite our beliefs in the positive impact of theurban cohort program on participants, we recognize thatparticipants were self-selected for enrollment in this co-hort. Clearly, more research is needed to determine possi-ble relationships between participant self-selection and howparticipants engaged with the curriculum in their teachereducation program.

Jin, an Asian American member of the urban-elementarycohort, declared, “I want a multicultural classroom.” Jin’sstatement signifies both a desire to position cultural learn-ing at the center of social studies teaching and an atti-tude of openness and appreciation for the diverse fabric ofAmerican society. Findings from this study offer insightsfor classroom teachers who also wish to place cultural cit-izenship at the center of their classroom instruction. First,teachers ought to make cultural learning the foundationfor their social studies lessons. Teachers can accomplishthis by teaching the histories of various cultural groupsas well as discussing different cultural values, beliefs, and

traditions. Involving guest speakers from various parts ofthe community, such as from religious, cultural, ethnic,and service organizations will demonstrate for children theimportance of diversity in one’s community. Teachers canalso encourage students to share cultural stories and fam-ily histories. For example, students could interview familymembers to trace family migrations internationally, nation-ally, and regionally. Teachers can ask students to connectthese stories of family migrations with social studies con-tent, such as concepts of push-pull factors in migrationor historical migration patterns. Finally, perhaps most im-portant, fostering cultural citizenship demands an attitudeof openness and appreciation for diversity. Even in class-rooms that appear homogeneous, diversity abounds withineach student’s family, cultural, or ethnic histories, personalvalues, religious beliefs, and prior experiences. With an at-titude of openness and inquiry, teachers can illuminate thedifferences and create teachable moments about living in apluralistic society.

As teacher educators faced with the challenge of prepar-ing teachers to teach for cultural citizenship, we must en-courage and model this open and inquiring attitude in ourteaching and curriculum. The partnership between the Col-lege of Education and the local schools that formed the ur-ban cohort provides insights into the kinds of agreementsand collaboration that are needed to offer consistent cur-riculum messages—around notions of culturally respon-sive teaching, social and emotional learning, curriculumdifferentiation—both in the university and field experiencecontexts that help encourage and model teaching for di-versity in the social studies. As teacher educators, we drawconnections between the social studies aims and culturaldiversity in our classrooms and in our practices.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank writing group members forcomments on this manuscript, as well as Elisabeth Gradoand Sarah Shear for editorial assistance.

Note

1. All names are pseudonyms.

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Appendix A

Interview protocol.

• General background and school experiences◦ Please describe the high school you graduated from?

(urban, suburban, rural; demographics, public or pri-vate)

◦ Do you see yourself teaching in a school similar to theone in which you attended?

◦ What grade level do you see yourself teaching in?

• Purpose of schooling and social studies◦ Generally, what do you think is the purpose of school-

ing today?◦ Do you think the purpose of schooling has remained

the same or changed since the time your parents werein school?

◦ Given you sense of the purpose of school, what roledo you think learning about social studies plays inschools today?� What experiences have you had that helped shape

your sense of social studies teaching?� As a future teacher, what do you hope that

your students will gain from your social studieslessons?

◦ What are the major cultural, social, economic, and/orpolitical events that have influenced the way you seesocial studies teaching today?

• Cultural diversity◦ Tell me a little bit about your experiences interacting

with individuals who have different cultural, racial, oreconomic backgrounds from you?

◦ What is your understanding of the term cultural di-versity (or cultural pluralism)?

◦ How is cultural diversity related to your sense of thepurpose of teaching social studies?