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Standing at the Crossroads: Multicultural TeacherEducation at the Beginning of the 21st CenturyMarilyn Cochran-SmithPublished online: 14 Jun 2010.

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Standing at the Crossroads: Multicultural Teacher Education at theBeginning of the 21st Century

Marilyn Cochran-SmithLynch School of EducationBoston College

Three decades ago, in 1972, the first of severalCommissions on Multicultural Education sponsoredby the American Association of Colleges for TeacherEducation (AACTE) made three key assertions: (a)cultural diversity is a valuable resource; (b) multicul-tural education is education that preserves and ex-tends the resource of cultural diversity rather thanmerely tolerating it or making it “melt away”; and(c) a commitment to cultural pluralism ought to per-meate all aspects of teacher preparation programs inthis country (Baptiste & Baptiste, 1980). In 1976, theNational Council for the Accreditation of TeacherEducation (NCATE) added multicultural education toits standards, requiring that institutions seeking ac-creditation show evidence that multicultural educationwas planned for (by 1979) and then provided (by1981) in all programs of teacher preparation(Gollnick, 1992). Despite the fact that most teachereducation programs now report that they have incor-porated multicultural perspectives and content intothe curriculum, external examinations often prove tothe contrary (Gollnick, 1995), and critics consistentlyconclude that nothing much has “really” changed(Grant & Secada, 1990; Ladson-Billings, 1995;Zeichner & Hoeft, 1996). In addition, as Jenks, Lee,and Kanpol (2001) have pointed out, a “conservativemulticulturalism,” which focuses on assimilation andpreparing minorities for economic competition in themainstream, now dominates the political landscape

and makes the beginning of the 21st century a par-ticularly challenging time in the history of multicul-tural teacher education.

This article goes beyond suggesting that this is achallenging time, however. This article argues that inthe early years of the 21st century, multiculturalteacher education stands at a crossroads. If the pro-fession is to move toward teacher education that isboth multicultural and critical, we will need morethan the efforts of individual teacher educators whourge prospective teachers to rethink their own beliefsand attitudes about difference, privilege, diversity,and culture (although efforts of this kind are surelyimportant). We will also need sharp awareness andtrenchant critique of competing political agendasthat—although using much of the same language of“equity,” “pluralism,” and “leaving no child be-hind”—nonetheless advocate teacher education pro-grams, policies, and entry pathways that arestrikingly different from one another. In the finalanalysis, these competing agendas and policies forteacher education will have dramatically differentoutcomes for educational access, distribution of re-sources, and the life chances of school children whoare differently positioned from one another in termsof socioeconomic status, culture, language back-ground, and race. In the pages that follow, this arti-cle argues that three situations have the most bearingon how and where we stand at the crossroads formulticultural teacher education at the beginning ofthe 21st century: the changing demographic profile ofthe nation’s students and teachers, competing andhighly politicized agendas for the reform of teacher

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Multicultural Perspectives, 5(3), 3–11Copyright © 2003 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Marilyn Cochran-Smith,Lynch School of Education, Campion Hall 113, Boston College,Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. E-mail: cochrans@bc.edu

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education, and devastating challenges to the researchbase that purportedly supports university-basedteacher preparation. Despite these serious challenges,the article concludes with a brief discussion of prom-ising developments and a renewed call to action fora teacher education that is multicultural and critical.

The Demographic Imperative

The phrase “the demographic imperative” (Banks,1995; Dilworth, 1992) has been used to draw theconclusion—both essential and inescapable—that theeducational community must take action to alter thedisparities deeply embedded in the American educa-tional system. Documented and disseminated over anumber of years, evidence for the demographic im-perative includes statistics and other information inthree areas—the diverse student population, the ho-mogeneous teaching force, and “the demographic di-vide” (Gay & Howard, 2000; Hodgkinson, 2001,2002), or the marked disparities in educational oppor-tunities, resources and achievement among studentgroups that differ from one another racially, cultur-ally, linguistically, and socioeconomically.

Drawing on information collected for Census 2000,noted educational demographer Harold Hodgkinson(2001) pointed out that although some 40% of theschool population is now from racially and culturally di-verse groups, this varies dramatically (from 7% to 68%),depending on the state. Hodgkinson (2002) explains an-ticipated demographic changes:

Future population growth in the United States continues tobe uneven—61% of the population increase in the next 20years will be Hispanic and Asian, about 40% Hispanic and20% Asian; but then, as now, 10 states will contain 90% ofthe Hispanic population, 10 will contain 90% of the Asianpopulation, and 7 will do both. Half of all Mexican Ameri-cans live in California! In fact, most of this increased di-versity will be absorbed by only about 300 of our 3,000[U.S.] counties.

If we look at what changes America, it is 1 million im-migrants a year, 4 million births, 2 million deaths, and 43million people moving each year. Transience is a majorfactor in crime rates, poor health care, and poor-perform-ing schools and states … The worst performing states interms of the percentage of 19-year-olds who have bothgraduated from high school and been admitted to a college… also are the states with the most transience and thehighest crime rates. (pp. 103–104)

If projections are accurate, children of color will consti-tute the statistical majority of the student population by2035 and account for 57% by 2050 (U.S. Department ofCommerce, 1996; Villegas & Lucas, 2002a).

Meanwhile, due in part to declining enrollmentsamong Asian, Black, and Hispanic students in teachereducation programs with a proportionate increase in en-rollments in business majors, the teaching force is be-coming increasingly White European American(Hodgkinson, 2002). The most recent information avail-able on the nation’s teaching force suggests a profilethat is quite different from the student profile, withWhite teachers currently accounting for some 86% ofthe teaching force and teachers of color collectively ac-counting for only 14% (National Center for EducationStatistics, 1997). This pattern reflects a modest increasein the percentage of minority teachers since a low pointof only 7% in 1986. Information about who is currentlypreparing to teach indicates a pattern that is generallysimilar to that of the current teaching force (AmericanAssociation of Colleges for Teacher Education[AACTE], 1997, 1999; Dilworth, 1992; Howey, Arends,Galluzzo, Yarger, & Zimpher, 1994) with White stu-dents representing the vast majority (80%–93%) of stu-dents enrolled in collegiate education programs,depending on institution and location. Although there isevidence that teacher education programs may be be-coming somewhat more diverse (AACTE, 1999) andsome alternate route programs are attracting more mi-nority students (Lauer, 2001), it seems clear that theteaching force will remain primarily White EuropeanAmerican for some time to come.

As has been pointed out, the demographic implica-tions for education are far greater than the obvious dif-ferences in the numbers, proportionately, betweenstudent and teaching populations. There are also markeddifferences in the biographies and experiences of mostteachers who are White European Americans from mid-dle-class backgrounds who speak only English, on theone hand, and the many students who are people ofcolor, and/or live in poverty, and/or speak a first lan-guage that is not English, on the other hand (Gay, 1993;Irvine, 1997). Teachers tend not to have the same cul-tural frames of reference and points of view as their stu-dents because, as Gay (1993) suggests, “they live indifferent existential worlds” (p. 287). Thus they oftenhave difficulty functioning as role models for students(Villegas & Lucas, 2002b) or as cultural brokers andcultural agents (Gay, 1993; Goodwin, 2000) who helpstudents bridge home-school differences. They also of-ten have difficulty constructing curriculum, instruction,and interactional patterns that are culturally responsive(Irvine, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1995), which means thatthe students in the greatest academic need are leastlikely to have access to educational opportunities con-gruent with their life experiences. Perhaps most serious,many White middle-class teachers understand diversityas a deficit to be overcome and have low expectationsand fears about students who are different from them-

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selves, especially those in urban areas (Gay & Howard,2000; Irvine 1990; Valenzuela, 2002; Weiner, 1993;Yeo, 1997).

The third part of the demographic imperative has todo with the staggering disparities in educational out-comes and conditions for students with and without theadvantages conferred by race, culture, language, and so-cioeconomic status. Villegas and Lucas (2002a) offer anexcellent, but chilling, discussion of these disparitiesbased on standard sources of education statistics as wellas original analyses. They point out that the UnitedStates has the highest rate of children living in povertyamong advanced nations worldwide (Children’s DefenseFund, 2000), and that the percentage of Black and His-panic children living in poverty (42% and 40%, respec-tively) far exceeds the percentage of White children(16%; Kilborn, 1996). Further, they note that theachievement levels of Black and Hispanic students onthe National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP) mathematics and reading assessments are con-sistently and markedly lower than levels for White stu-dents (National Center for Education Statistics, 1997,1998, 1999) as are high school graduation rates (Educa-tional Research Service, 1995; National EducationGoals Panel, 1994). Villegas and Lucas conclude that“the consistent gap between racial/ethnic minority andpoor students and their White, middle-class peers … isindicative of the inability of the educational system toeffectively teach students of color as schools have tradi-tionally been structured” (p. 9).

In addition to staggering disparities in educationaloutcomes, it has long been documented that there aremajor discrepancies in allocation of resources (e.g.,equipment, supplies, physical facilities, books, access tocomputer technology, and class size) to urban, suburban,and rural schools (Darling-Hammond, 1995; Kozol,1991). A California lawsuit filed in 2000 by the Ameri-can Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of publicschool children in 18 California school districts points tocontinuation of this pattern. The suit charges that chil-dren who attend schools that lack basic learning toolssuch as books, materials, functioning toilet facilities,safe and infestation-free buildings and grounds, trainedteachers, and enough seats for all students are deprivedof fundamental educational opportunities. In the plain-tiffs’ schools, 96.4% of the student population are chil-dren of color, compared with 59% across the state(ACLU–South California, 2000). Along these samelines, there is growing evidence that children of colorand children who live in urban or poor areas are themost likely to have teachers who are not fully qualifiedor licensed to teach (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Dar-ling-Hammond & Sclan, 1996).

What does all this add up to? What is the demo-graphic imperative for teacher education at the begin-

ning of the 21st century? In short, it is the recognitionthat bridging the chasm between the school and life ex-periences of those with and without social, cultural, ra-cial, and economic advantages requires fundamentalchanges in the ways teachers are educated. This does notmean that changing teacher education will—in and of it-self—change the schools or fix what is wrong withAmerican education. Weiner (1993) has argued cogentlyand persuasively that teacher preparation cannot changeschools, despite some expectations to the contrary. (Alsosee Weiner, 1990, 1993; Yeo, 1997, for discussion alongthese lines, as well as Cochran-Smith, 2001a; Earley,2000; Weiner, 2000.) Teachers can, however, join withothers to work for change. This is not a new idea, ofcourse, and many scholars have made this argument foryears. Unfortunately, however, despite the fact that thedemographic imperative is now widely acknowledgedand meticulously documented, there is still great need. Inthe context of the current political climate, it is assumedthat mandatory and widespread use of high stakes testsof achievement will bridge the gaps between groups.Now more than ever, we need pointed analyses of differ-ential access to resources and learning opportunities aswell as plans of action to remedy these disparities.

Competing Agendas for Reform

A second important aspect of multicultural teachereducation at the crossroads of the 21st century is the in-terplay between two national agendas for educational re-form generally, and teacher education reform inparticular. These intensely political agendas are overlap-ping in certain ways but simultaneously competing andeven contradictory in others (Apple, 2000, 2001;Cochran-Smith, 2001b; Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2001).On the one hand, the current agenda to professionalizeteaching and teacher education, which is linked to theK–12 curriculum standards movement of the 1990s, wasspear-headed by Linda Darling-Hammond and the Na-tional Commission on Teaching and America’s Future(NCTAF) and forwarded through the joint efforts ofNCATE, AACTE, the National Board for ProfessionalTeaching Standards (NBPTS), and the Interstate NewTeacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC;Gallagher & Bailey, 2000). These organizations supporta broad-based effort to develop a consistent approach toteacher education nationwide based on high standardsfor the initial preparation, licensing, and certification ofteachers. Supported by foundations including the Carne-gie Corporation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the FordFoundation, and the DeWitt Wallace Reader’s DigestFund, proponents of professionalization advocate stan-dards- and knowledge-based teacher preparation andprofessional development as well as teacher assessments

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based on school and classroom performance across theprofessional lifespan.

In direct opposition to the professionalization agenda,however, is the well-publicized movement to deregulateteacher preparation by dismantling teacher education in-stitutions and breaking up the monopoly that the profes-sion has “too long” enjoyed. Supported byself-described conservative groups and private founda-tions including the Fordham Foundation, the HeritageFoundation, the Pioneer Institute, and the Manhattan In-stitute, the deregulation agenda argues that the require-ments of state licensing agencies and schools ofeducation are unnecessary hurdles that keep brightyoung people out of teaching and focus on social goalsrather than academic achievement. Advocates of deregu-lation push for alternate routes into teaching, and theysupport high stakes teacher tests (and K–12 studentachievement tests) as the major gatekeepers for theteaching force. The deregulation agenda is part of alarger political agenda for the privatization of education(Whitty, Power, et al., 1998) and a market-based ap-proach to educational reform (Apple, 2001).

Although the goals of the deregulation agenda are inmany ways directly opposed to those of theprofessionalization agenda, each intersects in certainways with the standards and accountability movements.As noted previously, the professionalization movementseeks to align teacher preparation with new and higherteaching and learning standards in the various disciplin-ary and subject matter areas. The deregulation move-ment also intersects with the standards movement, but ina different way, advocating widespread implementationof high stakes testing programs that purportedly reflecthigh standards for all students and, increasingly, allteachers.

There is little doubt that these two agendas are shap-ing the way teacher education reforms are constructed,debated, and implemented in many states across the na-tion. In some states, there are unprecedented actions tocontrol teacher education and limit the role of collegesand universities by establishing new state-level require-ments that regulate nearly every aspect of the teacher ed-ucation curriculum. In some states and cities,particularly where there are or will be severe teachershortages, there are major efforts to establish alternateentry routes into teaching, some of which bypass col-leges and universities altogether, whereas others arelinked to streamlined alternative programs developed byhigher education institutions. In a number of states, thereare contradictory—and confusing—initiatives regardingteacher preparation. The clearest examples of the lattercome from states where there are simultaneous initia-tives to establish new tight controls of existing collegeand university-based teacher preparation programs, onthe one hand, and state-level preferences for alternate

entry routes into teaching that monetarily reward thosewho have had no college and university-based teacherpreparation at all, on the other.

The dueling agendas of professionalization and de-regulation have important implications for multiculturalteacher education at the crossroads. For example, inplaces where alternate routes into teaching are encour-aged and the major gatekeeper for entering the teachingforce is college preparation in the subject area and/or apassing state teacher test score, deregulation opens thegate for what many critics describe as the “under-pre-pared” or those who are “not fully qualified” becausethey have had no professional preparation (Dar-ling-Hammond & Sclan, 1996; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner,2002; Oakes, Franke, Quartz, & Rogers, 2002). Theseterms have also been used to refer to those who aregranted entry into teaching on an “emergency” or“waiver” basis with little or no preparation even in thesubject areas they will teach (and sometimes even with-out a college degree). Obviously teachers who are notfully certified and/or who are “waivered” into teachinghave not had coursework or field experiences that pro-mote understanding of language and cultural differ-ences, multicultural or culturally responsive pedagogy,urban schooling, linguistically diverse learners, commu-nities and families different from their own, and the im-pact of social contexts and purposes on schooling. Notsurprisingly, there is mounting evidence that uncertified,unprepared, and not fully licensed teachers are morelikely to be hired in urban locations and in areas wherethere are large numbers of poor and minority students,whereas more affluent districts continue to hire the bestqualified and best prepared teachers they can afford(ACLU, 2000; Darling-Hammond, 1996; Oakes, Franke,et al., 2002).

At the same time that deregulating teacher prepara-tion is undermining the professionalization agenda byopening the gate for more unqualified teachers to teachpoor and minority children, however, it appears to behaving mixed effects on the recruitment and retention ofminority members into the teaching force. There is evi-dence that in some states teacher tests—like other testshistorically biased against minorities—may play a rolein the decline of minority participation in the teachingprofession (Gitomer & Latham, 2000) by discouraginginterest among minorities and/or prompting tighter ad-missions standards for university-based programs. Onthe other hand, there is some evidence that certain alter-nate routes into teaching—especially those in urban ar-eas—are attracting more teachers of color into theteaching profession (Wilson, Floden, et al., 2001;Zeichner & Schulte, 2001) and that policies that permitalternate entry points may be helping to diversify theteaching force in some areas (Lauer, 2001). It is impor-tant to note here as well that in some highly visible alter-

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nate routes into teaching that place teachers in urbanareas, such as “Teach for America,” many teachers leaveteaching after two years in keeping with the way theprogram is designed in the first place (Raymond,Fletcher, et al., 2001).

The overall impact on multicultural teacher educationof these two competing agendas—professionalizationand deregulation—is complex, and some impacts seemto be most evident at the school district rather than thenational level. Nonetheless, there are enormous prob-lems facing educators not only in poor and urban areas,but in every location where they are trying to preparestudents to live in a diverse democratic society. Giventhese problems, it seems unlikely that teachers with lessrather than more knowledge about culture, pedagogy,and language differences will be the solution to thehighly qualified teachers challenge.

Challenges to the Research Base

The third major aspect of multicultural teacher educa-tion at the beginning of the 21st century is intense scru-tiny—and some would say direct attack—of the researchbasis for college- and university-based teacher prepara-tion. First made visible in the debates about the evidencefor professionalization versus deregulation as policy op-tions (e.g., Ballou & Podgursky, 2000; Dar-ling-Hammond, 2000; Education Commission of theStates [ECS], 2000), these arguments have grown in-creasingly heated and, in some cases, ad hominem(Abell Foundation, 2001a; Cochran-Smith & Fries,2001; Darling Hammond, 2001). Policy makers have be-come intensely interested in whether or not there is a re-search basis justifying various educational policies andpractices in terms of their bottom-line, value-added im-pact on teaching quality and student achievement. Alongthese lines, an OERI-funded synthesis of empirical re-search on teacher preparation (Wilson, Floden, et al.,2001) concluded that the research basis for particularteacher education policies and program alternatives is“thin.” The report pointed out that although there aremany peer-reviewed and published articles about teacherpreparation, most do not meet accepted criteria for disci-plined inquiry, namely rigorous methods of investigationand analysis as well as findings described sufficiently toassess their value and validity. Along similar lines, ECSsponsored a secondary analysis of the same set of stud-ies, but with a particular focus on policy-related ques-tions (Lauer, 2001). This report also concluded that theresearch base for teacher preparation is inadequate andthat there is a clear need for research that accounts forcontext, draws on complementary research methods, andexamines the impact of various policy options regardingteacher preparation on student learning.

The most recent challenge to the research base forteacher education is contained in the U.S. Secretary ofEducation’s report to Congress on the status of teacherquality in the nation (U.S. Department of Education,2002). The report concludes that schools of educationand formal teacher training programs are failing to pro-duce the highly qualified teachers the nation needs be-cause of the states’ low academic standards coupledwith hurdles and barriers that prevent qualified prospec-tive teachers who have not completed collegiate teacherpreparation from entering teaching. The report is quiteclear in its conclusions about the research base that sup-posedly supports the efficacy of collegiate teacher prep-aration: “In summary, we have found that rigorousresearch indicates that verbal ability and content knowl-edge are the most important attributes of highly quali-fied teachers. In addition there is little evidence thateducation school coursework leads to improved studentachievement” (p. 19). There are multiple problems withthe conclusions of the Secretary’s Report, as a numberof critiques have made clear, including its inconsistencywith other major reports, its reliance on private founda-tion literature rather than empirical research, and its fail-ure to provide evidence for its claims about howalternative routes will solve simultaneously the teachingquality and teacher shortage problems. Despite its clearinaccuracies and the fact that in the report, politics ap-pears to trump all kinds of empirical evidence, the Sec-retary’s report on teaching quality has struck what somefear is a fatal blow to the case that there is strong re-search evidence for the efficacy of university- or col-lege-based teacher preparation.

The intense scrutiny of the empirical research basisfor teacher education is part of the much larger account-ability zeitgeist that dominates education at the begin-ning of the 21st century with its emphasis on outcomes,impacts, evidence, bottom lines, results, effectiveness,and added value. This emphasis is bolstered by what ap-pears to be the new orthodoxy of federally funded re-search about “what works” or what is “evidence-based”in terms of reading and other instructional areas. Consis-tent with the production imagery embedded in the lan-guage of outcomes and effects is the definition ofscientific research certified by the federal government inthe reauthorized Elementary and Secondary EducationAct, No Child Left Behind. According to the federalgovernment, “scientific research” is to be evaluated “us-ing experimental or quasi-experimental designs … withappropriate controls to evaluate the effects of the condi-tion of interest, with a preference for random-assign-ment experiments” (No Child Left Behind, 2001). Thisdefinition of educational research contrasts with the oneput forward in the National Research Council’s recentreport, Scientific Inquiry in Education (National Re-search Council, 2001), which emphasizes that it is not a

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particular method that makes research scientific, but aparticular inquiry process guided by scientific princi-ples. According to the NRC report, this means that manyparadigms of educational research can be scientific, al-though asking different kinds of questions, a conclusionthat runs completely counter to the one being forwardedby the Department of Education.

Debates about research paradigms, the research basisfor teacher education, and what kinds of research areworthy of government funding figure largely in theteacher education context generally. These issues alsoapply to multicultural teacher education more specifi-cally. Over the last 15 years or so, a relatively largebody of theory, policy analysis, and empirical study hasbeen generated about issues related to multiculturalteacher education. This body of research (Cochran-Smith, Davis, & Fries, in press) has emerged from vari-ous theoretical frameworks and research paradigms andhas relied on many different methods of data collection,analysis, and interpretation. Despite the contributions ofthis work, however, only a tiny portion has examinedthe effects of teacher preparation, or what prospectiveteachers actually do with what they learn in teacherpreparation courses. Only a small number of studieshave followed student teachers into K–12 schools andclassrooms to study systematically the pedagogies theydevelop, the curricula they construct, the beliefs and atti-tudes that shape their decisions, and the ways they inter-act with parents, families, and communities. Even fewerstudies have followed teacher candidates after they com-plete teacher preparation programs and begin work asfull-fledged teachers in K–12 schools. Almost no re-search has examined the impact of multicultural teacherpreparation on K–12 students’ learning.

As I have pointed out previously, students’ learningas measured on standard achievement tests is the onlyoutcome that is currently being emphasized by the De-partment of Education. I am in no way supporting theconservative agenda that elevates test scores above allelse here, nor am I suggesting that students’ achieve-ment is the only important outcome of multiculturalteacher education. To the contrary, there are major prob-lems with isomorphic equations between teaching qual-ity and test scores and between student learning and testscores. These equations are grossly inadequate to thetask of understanding teaching, learning, and schoolingwithin a complex and culturally diverse society(Cochran-Smith, 2003). But this critique does not pre-clude the conclusion that we need much more researchthat examines the impacts of multicultural teacher edu-cation and makes an argument for a richer notion of im-pact than simply test scores. As a field, we need researchthat maps forward from the preservice teacher prepara-tion period by following new teachers into K–12 class-rooms and studying their impact on students’

experiences, especially students’ learning as indicatedon a variety of measures, including but not limited to,high stakes test scores (Cochran-Smith, 2001b; Sleeter,2001). We also need research that maps backward fromsuccessful classroom practice in diverse classrooms toteacher preparation. This kind of research would be de-signed to begin with the identification of teachers whowere successful in enriching K–12 students’ learning, asmeasured in multiple ways, and then mapping back toidentification of the components and structural arrange-ments of preservice teacher preparation that supportedthese teachers’ growth and development. Research thatfocuses on the outcomes and impacts of multiculturalteacher education by mapping forward to, and backwardfrom, teacher preparation will need to speak to currentconcerns about accountability and professional responsi-bility. However, this research will also need to eschewnarrow and single-measure conceptions of students’learning, making an argument for rich notions of out-comes and of “added value” that include gains in accessto learning opportunities, more equitable distribution ofresources, and contributions to the development of amore socially just society.

Standing at the Crossroads

The three situations described above are part of thecomplex context of multicultural teacher education inthe early years of the 21st century—changing demo-graphics that increase the divide between privileged anddisadvantaged groups; competing agendas for educa-tional reform with the emphasis on privatization and theequating of high standards with high stakes testing; and,the devaluation of all but the most narrow definitions ofteaching, learning, research, and evidence. Exacerbatedby the acutely conservative political climate, the conver-gence of these three situations makes the development(and endurance) of a teacher education that is criticaland multicultural both less likely and more essentialthan ever before.

Even in the face of these considerable challenges,however, there have been promising developments inmulticultural teacher education over the last two de-cades. For example, there have been local pockets ofdramatic change with a number of innovative programsdesigned to prepare teachers for urban schools (e.g.,Haberman & Post, 1998; Oakes et al., 2002) and for par-ticular populations traditionally not well-served by theschools (e.g., Au, 2002). In addition, there is some evi-dence that community experiences may be a particularlypromising practice in multicultural teacher education(Seidl & Friend, 2002; Zeichner & Melnick, 1996) thatcan have an impact on the complexity of students’ viewsof culture, their cultural understandings, their apprecia-

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tion of family resources, and their ability tocontextualize the concepts they are learning. The qualityand extent of the learning, however, seems to depend onthe quality and extent of reflection and reading that areconnected to the community experience, the durationand quality of the experience itself, and the facilitationand support prospective teachers receive as they makesense of the experiences.

Another promising trend in multicultural teacher edu-cation is that a growing number of teacher educators areinvolved in reinventing teacher education courses andprograms, working to challenge what is taken forgranted and questioning traditional notions of authorityand position (e.g., Martin & Gunten, 2002; Obidah,2000). Increasingly, teacher educators are engaged inpractitioner inquiry, narrative research, and self study,taking their own professional programs and courses assites for self-critical reflection and systematic study ofissues related to identity, access, and power. This sug-gests that many teacher educators are not satisfied withthe status quo; rather they take their work seriously,self-consciously posing questions and investigatingthem by gathering and analyzing the data of practice.The focus of much of this work is on what teacher edu-cators and prospective teachers actually learn fromcourses and program experiences designed to enhancemulticultural understandings—how their knowledge, at-titudes, and beliefs may change, how they interact withprogram content, and what kinds of learning opportuni-ties are provided by particular teacher educationpedagogies. Along these lines, it appears that opportuni-ties for educators to reflect on their own identities andraise questions within the context of larger communitiesof learners may be particularly rich sites for learning.

An important development in multicultural teachereducation is the development of rich and sophisticatedtheories and conceptual frameworks. Although there issome divergence in viewpoints, of course, the concep-tual and theoretical research related to multiculturalteacher education over the last decade or so has beenfairly consistent. This body of scholarship promoteswhat might be thought of as the “new multiculturalteacher education” (Cochran-Smith, Davis, & Fries, inpress), which does not add on to or supplement existingstructures and paradigms in teacher education, but fun-damentally reinvents them. Radical new ways to con-ceptualize the preparation of teachers for a diversesociety are intended to interrupt conventional teacher ed-ucation discourse and tradition, which, although not ableto meet the challenges of the 21st century, have becomeingrained and institutionalized (Gay & Howard, 2002;Ladson-Billings, 1999). Although there is a great dividebetween theory and practice, the new multiculturalteacher education conceptualized in theory provides aframework and a vision for multicultural teacher educa-

tion as it is carried out in the real world of institutionalconstraints and political exigencies.

The early part of the 21st century is dominated by arelentless focus on high stakes tests, a growingunderclass that many fear will be permanent, and a con-vergence of factors that places the least well-qualifiedteachers in schools with students in the greatest peril. Inaddition, in many areas of the country, there is a signifi-cant backlash against affirmative action, bilingual andother language education programs, and race-based ad-missions and scholarship policies in higher education. Inmany states, new ways of assessing teacher quality andsuccessful schools are burying issues of diversity undertechnical notions of equity defined as opportunities forall to be held equally accountable to the same highstakes tests, despite grossly unequal resources and op-portunities to learn.

Now more than ever, multicultural teacher educationstands at a crossroads. To move forward, we must ac-knowledge and build on the promising developments inteacher education such as those noted previously, but wemust also pay much more attention to the current politi-cal situation and to the failings of previous research ef-forts. Those of us who are committed to a teachereducation that is both multicultural and critical mustlaunch a research agenda that focuses on the impacts andoutcomes of multicultural teacher preparation for K–12students’ learning as well as for prospective and experi-enced teachers’ learning. This will require the develop-ment of rigorous and multiple measures of bothstudents’ and teachers’ learning that include scores onhigh stakes tests, but also includes the acquisition ofknowledge needed to live and work in a multiculturalsociety, participate in a democracy, and engage in criti-cal discourse about competing ideas.

Those who are committed to multicultural teacher ed-ucation will also need to make a compelling argumentfor the necessity of a multicultural agenda in a demo-cratic and increasingly diverse society. Our voices willneed to be heard much more loudly and articulately inthe policy-making arenas that are dominated by conser-vative and well-organized forces, arenas that have tradi-tionally been avoided by university-based educators whoprefer the supposedly more rational and less politicaldiscourse of academic debate and scholarship. Finally,we will need to conjoin our efforts in all our individualspheres of influence, whether these are public, profes-sional, or political. We will need to be part of largermovements for social change and demonstrate to othersthat social justice itself is a valid outcome and an essen-tial purpose of multicultural teacher preparation thatruns much deeper than traditional measures of achieve-ment but, in the final analysis, undergirds the future ofour society.

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NAME ListServNAME has activated its new ListServ (e-mail discussion group). It is called NAME-MCE and is the only of-

ficial ListServ of NAME. NAME-MCE will attempt to distinguish itself from other e-mail discussion groups byfocusing on classroom and institutional practices. Of special interest will be nurturing those new to multicul-tural education who seek a supportive environment for discourse and the exchange of ideas and best practices. Itwill be a moderated list. Effective practice cannot be undertaken without a sound theoretical foundation. How-ever, those interested in more abstract, theoretical debate will be referred to some of the other fine discussiongroups. It is not illogical to belong to several groups in order to have needs met. Finally, NAME prides itself ashaving amongst its membership many of the leading authors and practitioners of multicultural education, manyof whom will also be joining in on the e-mail discussion.

To subscribe, please sign up following these directions: Send an e-mail message to listserv@umdd.umd.edu(put anything you want in the subject). The message should read: Subscribe NAME-MCE your first and lastname, as in “Subscribe NAME-MCE Chris Jones.” We welcome your participation.

The new website for NAME is www.nameorg.org

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