The complexities of teaching the complex: Examining how future educators construct understandings of...

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EDUCATIONAL STUDIES, 46: 91–115, 2010Copyright C! American Educational Studies AssociationISSN: 0013-1946 print / 1532-6993 onlineDOI: 10.1080/00131940903480175

SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS CLASSROOM

The Complexities of Teaching theComplex: Examining How Future

Educators Construct Understandings ofSociocultural Knowledge and Schooling

Keffrelyn D. Brown and Amelia M. Kraehe

University of Texas at Austin

INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM

This article examines how students enrolled in a university course focused onsociocultural influences and learning changed in their understanding of the rela-tionship between sociocultural factors, teaching, and schooling over the durationof the semester. In this context, sociocultural factors refer to key social constructssuch as race, class, and gender that play an organizing role in how people andsocieties understand and interact with one another. This article is specifically con-cerned with how students in the course understood the way sociocultural factorsinfluenced schooling and teaching, and the implication these processes had oneducators in meeting the needs of all students. This inquiry is relevant becauseone of the primary challenges teacher educators face is preparing teacher candi-dates to work effectively with students from socioculturally diverse backgrounds.Literature in the teacher education field abounds with reports about the difficultythat university teachers have in helping teacher education candidates develop (a)the requisite background and sociocultural knowledge and (b) personal beliefs,

Address correspondence to Dr. Keffrelyn D. Brown, University of Texas at Austin, Departmentof Curriculum and Instruction, 1 University Station D5700, Austin, TX 78712. E-mail: [email protected]

Downloaded By: [University of Texas Austin] At: 20:10 22 February 2010

92 BROWN AND KRAEHE

dispositions, and habits needed to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse studentpopulation (Banks et al. 2005; Gay 2000; Zumwalt and Craig 2005).

To address these issues, it is necessary that teacher education candidates un-derstand the role that sociocultural contexts play in schooling and the teachingprocesses (Sleeter and Grant [1986] 2006). This knowledge base is broad and com-plex; often challenging teacher candidates to rethink their personal experiencesand the knowledge, belief systems, and perspectives that they hold about the struc-ture and operation of society and schools. This knowledge base is also contentiouswith respect to the myriad explanations offered for why certain populations (e.g.,African American, Latino/Hispanic) experience high levels of underachievement.These explanations situate the problem and remedy for low academic achieve-ment at multiple levels (e.g., student, family, cultural group, school practices,societal inequality, teacher beliefs and practices). What teacher candidates learnabout these explanations constitutes a vital piece of the sociocultural knowledgethey are expected to gain in their teacher education program, as this knowl-edge will inform how the teacher candidate views teachers’ ability, role, andresponsibility to effectively meet all of their students’ learning needs. Teacherpreparation programs, therefore, have a responsibility to make sure teacher can-didates recognize the complex role sociocultural factors play in schooling andteaching. This includes recognizing the role of teacher as one that is efficaciousand responsible for providing all students with a quality and equitable educationalexperience.

With regard to the complexity of this teacher knowledge base—including thecontentious nature that undergirds it—Kuhn (2008) argues that complexity

acknowledges that all levels of focus, whether this is the individual, class, school, na-tional or international associations, reveal humans and human endeavour as complex,and that focusing on one level will not reduce the multi-dimensionality, non-linearity,interconnectedness, or unpredictability encountered. (183)

For effective schooling and teaching to occur, a teacher, then, must recognize that“she has been placed in charge of a sensitive learning ecology whose directionscan be altered by small changes in the boundary conditions and interaction pat-terns of the classroom” (Horn 2008, 141). This recognition relies on a complexityorientation to schooling and teaching that “places the teachers and the studentsat the locus of control in terms of classroom learning, while at the same time ac-knowledging the larger institutional systems with which classrooms and individualschools are linked” (Horn 2008, 141–142).

Although one might recognize the outcomes of complex thinking in a number ofways, fundamental to the notion of complexity is that it manifests as a product thatis different, larger—or, more complex—from the initial, generative componentsthat were present in its original, simpler state. This suggests that any product


EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 93

produced in the context of shifting complex thinking, complex understanding,or a complex system goes beyond the “essential generative elements” (Mason2008, 39) present in the initial conditions. In relation to a learning situation,such “essential generative elements” would refer to both the initial conditionsand expectations embodied in the learning activity(ies) students engage with togain and show evidence of greater understanding. Thus, if complex thinking orunderstanding were to occur, one would see that what students create and cometo understand as a result of such learning activity(ies) goes beyond the initialunderstandings or knowledge they possessed prior to the activity(ies), as well asshows evidence that the students extended the fundamental expectations or goalsset for the activity(ies), as well.

Context of the Study: Goals, Purposes and Theoretical Orientations

Since taking a position in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in fall2006, the first author has sought to deepen students’ understandings about teach-ing and the role sociocultural factors play in the schooling process. She recentlycompleted the first phase of a longitudinal study that examined how 11 elemen-tary teacher candidates’ understandings of the relationship between socioculturalfactors and students’ academic achievement changed after taking a socioculturalinfluences course with her in fall 2006 and later going through the professional de-velopment sequence for elementary teacher certification. Initial findings suggestedthat although the teacher candidates recognized that multiple sociocultural factorsplay a role in the schooling process, they simultaneously held deeply conflictedperspectives about the capability, role, and responsibility that teachers have in nav-igating through these influences to meet the needs of their students. These findingspoint to the challenges faced by teacher educators in helping teacher candidatesdevelop a complex understanding of the role that sociocultural factors play in theschooling process while also recognizing the ways teachers use and circumventthese factors to successfully meet the needs of all of their students. Understandinghow to strike this balance is necessary because, without doing so, preservice teach-ers can become overwhelmed by the influence sociocultural factors and concernswith diversity (Achinstein and Barrett 2004; Causey, Thomas, and Armento 2000)play in the schooling process, viewing themselves as pedagogically powerless ornonefficacious in helping students academically. Such a stance makes it possi-ble for teachers and other school officials to engage in deficit-oriented thinking(Ladson-Billings 1994; Sleeter 2008; Valencia 1997) that presumes students fail toachieve because of something they (or their families) inherently and/or culturallylack. This orientation places the responsibility for ensuring all students succeedacademically on sources outside the influence of the teacher or the practice ofschools.


94 BROWN AND KRAEHE

As a result of these initial findings, the first author redesigned the spring2008 sociocultural course—modifying its structure, organization, and content. Therecent instantiation of the course utilizes text (e.g., research articles, whole lengthmanuscripts, book chapters, newspaper articles) and multimedia (e.g., PowerPointpresentations, film clips, songs, music videos) and places emphasis on visual casestudy methods as a key learning and assessment tool designed to facilitate morecomplex understandings of sociocultural knowledge.

These course changes align with teacher education research that recognizesthe use of case study pedagogy in teacher education (Cochran-Smith and Zeich-ner 2005; Darling-Hammond and Hammerness 2002; Kleinfeld 1990; Shulman1986; Sykes and Bird 1992), as well as the combination of case study methodsand multimedia (Merseth and Lacey 1993; Pfister, White, and Masingila 2006)as effective in deepening the knowledge base teacher candidates acquire aboutteaching. Case study pedagogy has a long history in education (McAninch 1991),with scholars acknowledging that teacher educators have used case methods toinstruct preservice teachers about several areas related to schooling and teach-ing (Darling-Hammond and Hammerness 2002; Moje and Wade 1997; Shulman1986). For example, Sykes and Bird (1992) argue that cases can play a centralrole in helping teacher educators to prompt changes in students’ prior knowledgeand beliefs about learning, teaching and the function of schools, especially insituations of diversity. Table 1 provides examples of types of text, multimedia andcases used in the course.

Context of the Sociocultural Course

To help students move toward more complex understandings of the socioculturalknowledge related to schooling and teaching, the newly instantiated course drewheavily from insights related to both sociocultural approaches to learning (Tharpand Gallimore 1988; Vygotsky 1978, 1986; Wertsch 1991) and visual culture(Mirzoeff 1998, 2002) approaches. Pedagogically, students engaged in and wereexposed to various learning experiences that included in-class pedagogic activitiesand outside of class course assignments.

In-class pedagogic opportunities. Pedagogic activities for the course were:(a) brief, whole class minilesson/lectures (15–20 min.) that included a PowerPointpresentation of relevant session content; (b) small and large group discussions; (c)small and large group activities; and (d) textual and visual (e.g., film) cases thatexplored how race, social class, and gender play out in society and in schools.Textual cases generally focused on how race, class, gender, equity, and equalityissues play out in school settings; the visual/film cases often explored how race, the



TABLE 1Example of Types of Cases Used in the Course

Category Case Studies

Race Required readings from: the Dallas Morning News & Amanda Lewis’s, Racein the SchoolyardRequired readings that explored the history of unequal and inequitableschooling for various racial groups in the U.S. (e.g., African American,Mexican American, European immigrants, Chinese Americans)Film clips from the film: SchoolFilm clip from the film: What’s Race Got to Do With ItFilm clip from the film: Race: The Power of an IllusionFilm clips from the sitcom: GirlfriendsTextual case from: Pedro Noguera’s, City Schools and the American Dream

Social Class Required readings that explored how college/university students from differentclass backgrounds talk about and understand social class in the U.S.Required reading that explored how social class groupings play out and createinequitable/unequal opportunities to learn in schoolsFilm clips from the film: People Like Us: Class in AmericaTwo (2) textual cases on equity and equality from, Open Minds to Equality

Gender Film clip from the film: Killing Us Softly, 3rd editionFilm clip from the film: Tough GuiseFilm clip from the film: Bowling for ColumbineTextual case from: Myra Sadker & David Sadker’s, Failing at FairnessSong clip about gender (blues artist Robert Bryan)Video clip about gender (pop artist Pink)

struggle for equality and equity in US schools, the social construction of gender,and the role social class plays in the United States.

One example of a visual case used in the course included a segment taken froman episode of a popular, former UPN sitcom, Girlfriends. In the segment shownto the class, one of the main characters, Lynn—a bi-racial (African American andWhite) woman who was adopted by a White family— is celebrating the day heradoption became official with her adoptive White older sister, Tonya. When theTonya comes to town for the celebration, Lynn faces a challenge when her friendsbecome offended by Tonya’s racial performance and self-adopted identity as aBlack woman. In the segment, Tonya, as well as Lynn’s friends, make assumptionsabout, and struggle to make sense of, what it means to be Black. This particularsegment aligned closely with course content that helped students understand howrace operates as a social construct, while simultaneously producing structural,material effects (e.g., institutionalized racism).

Course assignments. Each week students were assigned to read about oneor two selections (between 60–100 pp.) that addressed issues related to: (a) thehistoric and contemporary context of K–12 schooling in the United States, (b)


96 BROWN AND KRAEHE

race and schooling, (c) class and schooling, (d) gender and schooling, (e) cultureand schooling, and (f) teaching and curriculum. Students submitted a one-pageweekly session write up form that outlined 3–5 bulleted main ideas that emergedacross the readings, along with 3–5 questions that came up for them while readingthe pieces.

During the first part of the semester, students wrote an educational autobiogra-phy that chronicled their K–12 educational experiences. Students also completeda take-home midterm in which they responded to one of four provided assignmentchoices. In addition to these assignments, students created a collaborative videocase project (for more description, see the following section) and a final reflectionpaper that discussed what the student learned in the course and how the variouscomponents of the course assisted in their learning (e.g., assignments; in classactivities; minilectures). At the conclusion of the course, students overwhelm-ingly pointed to collaborative, group-oriented nature of the course, along with thetextual/film cases and the collaborative video case project as particularly useful intheir learning.

Statement About Research Design

The findings presented in this article come out of a larger qualitative case study(Merriam 1997; Stake 1995) that drew from theories of sociocultural learning(Vygotsky 1978, 1986) and visual culture (Mirzoeff 2002) to examine the changeand depth of understanding university students hold about sociocultural factorsand schooling during their enrollment in a course on Sociocultural Influences onLearning. Students in the study attended a large, public, urban flagship university inthe South. Participants included both male and female students from diverse racial(e.g., Latino; White; Black; Asian, and biracial) and socioeconomic backgrounds(e.g., working; middle; upper-middle; upper). Although the primary sources ofdata included participants’ course materials (e.g., weekly class session write ups;educational autobiography; midterm exam; reflective final paper; collaborativevideo case project) and one semistructured, 45-60 min interview with each partic-ipant, this aritcle discusses the findings that emerged from the collaborative videocase project.

In the course, nine two- or three-member groups were each responsiblefor creating a collaborative video case project that included: an original casenarrative—written in the form of a vignette or scenario that: (a) focused on eitherrace, class, or gender—the three sociocultural factors explored in the course—and(b) could, but did not necessarily have to, have occurred in real life. Each groupcreated and submitted a case narrative planning sheet, a storyboard that illustratedthe events that took place in the narrative, a rough and final draft copy of thewritten case narrative, a sheet that discussed the main ideas that group members



sought to convey in the narrative, and a set of provocative, open-ended questionsthat accompanied the narrative. Group members also acted out and videotapeda 3-min performance of their narratives in class that was later edited and burnedonto CDs. Included in the videotaped performance was a brief reflection on howthe group approached the collaborative video case project assignment. Althoughthe video case assignment served as both a tool for students to describe andsynthesize what they had learned about sociocultural influences and schoolingduring the semester, specific components of the project also offered evidence ofwhat the students understood about this area, as well.

When creating the case narrative, groups were asked to illustrate how the so-ciocultural factors they chose (e.g., race, class, or gender) interacted with a setof course key terms/concepts selected by the group members. Group membersselected seven key terms from a list of 47 that they felt most resonated with themain idea(s) they wanted to convey in their case narrative. Groups were alsoinstructed to address the notions of essentialized thinking and deficit thinking intheir case narrative. In the context of the course, essentialized thinking referredto the practice of attributing a determined belief, perspective, ability, action, orexperience onto an entire group of similarly perceived people, group, class, orcaste; deficit thinking was rooted in a common assumption found among teach-ers, school officials, policy makers, and the general public that students fail toachieve because of something they (or their families) inherently and/or culturallylack. Each group created a narrative that either illustrated or actively challengedessentialized thinking and deficit thinking. This decision was made by the first au-thor because of the existing literature that suggests effective teachers, particularlyof students who come from traditionally underserved populations, do not drawfrom a deficit-oriented knowledge base that places blame for low achievement onpresumed deficits located in students, their families, and/or their racial/culturalbackground (Ladson-Billings 1994; Sleeter 2008; Valencia 1997). Implicit andexplicit across this work is the understanding that teachers value and draw fromthe strengths all students bring with them to the learning process, as well as rec-ognize and acknowledge the in-group differences that exist in groups that are toooften stereotypically portrayed as monolithic.

Data analysis was conducted by both authors and focused on reading and cod-ing all of the collaborative video case project materials for the kinds of knowledgeand understandings the group members held about sociocultural influences andschooling. We worked independently to analyze each groups’ collaborative videocase project materials using a three-phase design grounded in the constant compar-ative method (Strauss and Corbin 1990). First, we coded all final video case projectmaterials data (e.g., case narrative, main idea sheet, provocative questions) basedon the (a) depth of understanding and (b) approach used to convey understandingof the sociocultural factor selected for the case project. These codes addressed theknowledge conveyed about the sociocultural factor explored; knowledge conveyed


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about deficit thinking; and knowledge conveyed about essentialized thinking. Sec-ond, each groups’ video case project materials were reviewed again for emergentthemes that were distinct from the initial set of codes. These categories gener-ally focused on the unique features that stood out across the approach taken toconvey understanding and meaning of sociocultural influences on the schoolingand learning processes. Categories associated with the nature and degree of com-plexity shown in understanding about the sociocultural factor explored generallyemerged during this read of the data (e.g., multiple perspective taking, focus onunconventional groups, decision-making). The third phase of analysis involvedthe identification of disconfirming evidence that contradicted data already codedand making adjustments accordingly (Yin 2003).

Students’ Sociocultural Knowledge Upon Entering the Course

According to a course preassessment questionnaire given at the first class session,21 students (out of 27) in the course planned to become teachers. This assessmentalso revealed that the vast majority of students (19 out of 26) held undevelopedunderstandings of the term sociocultural and what was meant by socioculturalinfluences on learning (e.g., race, social class, gender). Most frequently, theydefined these terms by simply parsing them out into their constituent parts: socialand society, along with culture.

A majority of the students entered the class with the knowledge that not allK–12 students have equal access to quality learning opportunities. This was ev-idenced by multiple statements about the varied circumstances K–12 studentsface. For instance, a student suggested that “in more impoverished areas, thequality of education or opportunities may not be as great” as in wealthier areas.Another student made a similar argument that “not all states/districts have equalresources to apply to classrooms. The difference is extreme and it shouldn’t be so.”However, very few students (less than a quarter) held deficit perspectives aboutstudents and their families. For example, only a handful of students associatedlearning outcomes with either the home environment (e.g., cultural knowledgeand values, language, and interest in education) or individual characteristics of thestudent (e.g., learning styles, individual prior knowledge, and motivation). Yet,at the same time, very few students recognized a relationship between teachers’practices (or those of other school faculty/staff) and inequality. One student whodid connect quality of instruction with educational access stated, “Everyone has adifferent way of teaching. Some teach well and some not so well, so the studentsare being taught different levels of education.” Instead, about half the studentsexplained inequalities in US schooling by pointing to general economic and classdisparities among K–12 students and families (a perspective that might draw fromunderlying deficit-oriented thinking) and recognized a positive relationship be-



tween neighborhood wealth and quality of schooling. About a fifth of the studentssuggested that inequalities were due to unequal school funding and institutionalstructures (e.g., charter, private, public), and a small number thought that K–12students’ upbringing was an important factor in their access to equal opportunitiesto learn.

Only one student (a White, upper-middle class man) entered the course con-fident in his knowledge about the role sociocultural factors play in perpetuatingsocietal inequities. With regards to student receptivity to the course materialsand learning experiences, surprisingly, no students in this class (not typical ofmost courses taught by the first author) expressed overt or subtle resistance to thecourse material. Only one student (a White, middle class woman) struggled tomake sense of how race—rather than social class solely or in concert with (butnot alone)—perpetuated societal and school inequities. For example, this studentoften shared with the class during large group and small group discussions howshe struggled to make sense of the role race, rather than class, played in producinginequitable schooling opportunities. She also discussed this dilemma during herindividual meeting with the first author (e.g., course instructor), in her weeklywrite-ups submitted during the two weeks that the course focused on race andschooling, as well as in her educational autobiography.

WHAT DID WE FIND IN THE VIDEO CASES? MOVINGTOWARDS COMPLEXITY OF UNDERSTANDING

Students’ shifting complex understandings of sociocultural influences on school-ing were demonstrated in their video case projects that focused either on race,class, or gender. Here, the case materials illustrated realistic situations that couldoccur in schools, and they offered explanations for how and why unequal andinequitable learning outcomes emerge in these scenarios. In all nine video cases,educators played an important role and responsibility to provide all students anappropriate opportunity to learn.

When considering how complexity emerged in the cases, several differentindicators were noted, including multiple perspective taking when narratingthe case scenario; the inclusion of atypical racial and ethnic groups; and theacknowledgement that because they often make crucial decisions in the lives ofstudents, educators have a role and responsibility to challenge deficiency orientedperspectives of students and their families. Important to note is that none of theseperspectives were related to course assignment expectations, but rather emerged aspart of the students’ shift in understandings about sociocultural factors and school-ing. Table 2 provides a brief summary of the nine video cases created in the course.

In the section that follows, we begin with a discussion of how complexitywas accounted for in cases that engaged in multiple perspective taking. Several


100 BROWN AND KRAEHE

cases demonstrated complex understandings by presenting multiple, and some-times competing, perspectives on an issue. We then consider how some casesincluded and addressed racial and ethnic groups that are typically invisible in theeducational discourse on diversity. Next, we highlight how the cases portrayed

TABLE 2Summary of Video Cases

Race

R1 Context: A high school in an historically White suburb with increasing numbers of familiesof color moving in.Plot: White male counselor has worked at the school for many decades and decides on courseplacements for all students. Two new parents—one an Asian American and one a MexicanAmerican—challenge the academic placements of their children. The former has been placedinto all advanced courses, yet his learning disabilities remain unaddressed; and the latter hasbeen placed into remedial and vocational classes, yet he is highly intelligent and will pursueadmission to an Ivy League school upon graduation from high school.

R2 Context: A fifth-grade English-dominant classroom in a school that is enrolling increasingnumbers of immigrant students.Plot: Horacio is a recent immigrant from Mexico whose teacher, Ms. Sparrow, does not speakSpanish. Ms. Sparrow is unable to communicate with Horacio and believes he is not capableof keeping pace with the class. She seeks help for him from the special education teacher, Ms.Green, who immediately begins a case file for Horacio. A sullen Horacio meets with Ms.Green to complete assessments. When shown the results of Ms. Green’s evaluation, Ms.Sparrow is surprised to learn that Horacio is quite intelligent and academically capable. Sheworks to develop strategies for culturally responsive teaching that will build on the skillsHoracio already has.

R3 Context: A second- grade classroom in which students work in groups on a science project.Plot: A frustrated White female student complains to the White female teacher that Madeeha,a Muslim, Arab-American female student, is not contributing equally to the group project.Rather than operate from a colorblind perspective, the teacher attempts to respond in arace-conscious and culturally sensitive manner. She explains that Madeeha’s ethnic groupholds different expectations for girls than for boys and, thus, Madeeha’s family teaches her tobe submissive, docile, and less interested in education. By holding different expectations forhow Madeeha may interact with her peers, the teacher permits her disengagement fromlearning.

GenderG1 Context: Under the supervision of a teacher, a group of young students line up to go to lunch

in the cafeteria.Plot: A female student is eager to get to lunch so she may finish eating and quickly move onto recess. She skips ahead of other students in line and is caught by the teacher who, afterhearing the reason for the girl’s indiscretion, asks her to return to her original location in line.Motivated by the same desire to get to recess as quickly as possible, a male student also getsin front of other students in the lunch line. The same teacher also catches the boy, yetreprimands him more harshly, sends him to the rear of the line, and denies him recess.

G2 Context: A high school administrative team comprised of a male principal and two guidancecounselors—one man and one woman—meet to arrange the course schedule and assignstudents to their classes for the upcoming school year.

(Continued on next page)



TABLE 2Summary of Video Cases (Continued)

Plot: The team discusses many factors (e.g., students’ academic achievement; teachers’discipline management skills, instructional methods, levels of teaching experience; and theinterpersonal relationships between students and teachers) as they make decisions aboutwhich students to place with which teachers. The team places students who are deemed“college-bound” and female students, all of whom are generally assumed to be quiet andwell-behaved, into a beginning female teachers’ class. They keep the “rowdy” boys at bay soas to ensure this teacher a good first year teaching experience. The administrators select amale teacher who is also the basketball coach to work with the football players. They predictthis teacher will be sympathetic to the academic accommodations athletes need to maintaintheir eligibility to play sports at the school. The administrative team’s last decision is basedon the assumption that male students require less assistance in mathematics than femalestudents. They place male students with a teacher who holds higher learning expectationsand requires greater autonomy of students and female students with the teacher whosecourse is less rigorous and expectations not as high.

G3 Context: A junior high school mathematics classroom in which the female teacherfrequently feels she must attend to disruptions caused by two male students so that all thestudents may learn.Plot: During a mathematics lesson, two male students, Michael and Sean, continually causedistractions when they excitedly talk out loud or at inappropriate times. The teacherroutinely addresses their off-task behaviors to the neglect of the female student, Maria, who,after numerous failed attempts to receive assistance from her teacher by raising her hand andasking questions, is forced to stay after school to get help. Maria’s grades ultimately suffer,while Michael and Sean receive immediate attention from the teacher and maintain theirHonor Roll status.

ClassC1 Context: A highly regarded suburban high school that serves predominantly upper-class

students, is recognized for its programs that prepare students to attend college, and permitschildren of employees who live outside the district to attend its schools.Plot: Isabel’s mother works in the high school cafeteria so that Isabel is able to attend thisreputable high school. Isabel excels in public speaking and, after taking a drama class atschool, lands a supporting role in the statewide drama competition that takes place in anothercity. School policy requires each of the participants to bear the costs of the trip, but Isabel’smother is unable to pay for these expenses. Isabel asks her drama teacher for guidance.

C2 Context: An eleventh-grade class in a Chicago area school whose student body iseconomically and racially diverse.Plot: Mary and Paige are two students in this class, taught by a White female teacher fromthe suburbs of Chicago. As the eldest of three siblings, Mary works part-time after school tofinancially help her family. She also cares for her younger brothers and assists them withtheir homework at night when her mother is at work. Mary enjoys school but is unable todevote as much time to her studies as she would like. Paige is the sole child of two busycorporate executives. She is heavily involved in extracurricular activities and studentgovernment. Her parents have aspirations that Paige will follow in their footsteps bycompleting her doctorate at Stanford University. Both girls’ grades suffer due to missedassignments, and the teacher maintains a no-late-work policy. Understanding that both girlsdo not have enough time to complete the work from class yet for very different reasons, theteacher decides she will tutor Mary outside class time and offer her additional time to makeup her work. She does not offer this opportunity to Paige, who feels unfairly treated.

(Continued on next page)



TABLE 2Summary of Video Cases (Continued)

C3 Context: A ninth-grade history class in a high school.Plot: Elizabeth and Kelsey have attended the same schools since kindergarten and are bestfriends. Each is a quick learner, makes high grades, and enjoys school. Elizabeth lives in awell-to-do neighborhood with her parents, who are doctors, and she has much academicsupport from her older sister. There are abundant learning resources in her home, includingcomputers and reference books. Elizabeth’s only responsibilities are school and herextracurricular activities. Kelsey lives in a public housing project and is bused to the highschool. Like Elizabeth, Kelsey lives with both parents, but she has responsibilities in thehome such as caring for her four younger siblings, cooking supper, and laundering clothesbecause her father works long hours and her mother has a part-time job. Kelsey does notparticipate in extracurricular activities. Because her access to resources like encyclopediasand a computer are limited at home, Kelsey often uses the school’s resources during afterschool hours to complete her class assignments. Elizabeth is rarely permitted to do so.

educators undertaking the complex task of decision-making, as they struggled toaccount for both individual differences and equity in their professional practice.We conclude the section by showing how, in light of their complexity, some of thecases paradoxically drew unexpected, and potentially problematic conclusions intheir reinscription of deficit thinking from the perspective of teachers and schoolofficials, as well as, existing power relations found in schools and society.

Multiple Perspectives

Of the four cases that represented multiple perspectives, three of them focused onrace, and the fourth dealt with class. All four cases contrasted the perspectivesof various constituents of schooling, including teachers, students, counselors, andparents. The racialized ways in which educators perceived their students wereillustrated in all three race-focused video cases by articulating diverse, oftencompeting, points of view on students’ academic abilities. One race-based videocase (R1) contrasted the perceptions held by a Mexican American parent of herown child and by an Asian American parent of her own child to the perceptionof those students held by a White male school counselor. Each parent had toadvocate for her child’s individual needs to redress the counselor’s inaccurateassumptions of the students’ cultural deficits and assets that led the counselor totrack students of color. The counselor’s racialized tracking practices were harmfulto both students. The Mexican American student was held to low expectationsdue to assumptions about Mexican Americans’ limited intelligence, and specialeducation services were almost denied the Asian American student due to thecounselor’s assumptions about the superior academic abilities of Asians.

Another case dealing with race (R2) showed disparate perceptions of alanguage- and ethnic-minority student held by two of his teachers—a special



services teacher and a fifth-grade classroom teacher. The purpose of depictingopposing perspectives in this case was to demonstrate how different teachers per-ceive students’ funds of knowledge (Moll et al. 1992) to greater and lesser extents.Contrasting two teachers’ perceptions of the same student also illustrated how thelevel of cultural and pedagogical knowledge possessed by teachers and schoolofficials may be a better way to account for learning outcomes than a student’ssupposed innate abilities or aptitude.

Working from the perspective of two White characters—a female teacher anda female student—the third video case about race (R3) centered on their con-versations about another female student who was a Muslim and first-generationArab American. The dialogue between the White teacher and student was usedto complicate dominant cultural narratives about equality by showing how stu-dents and teachers experience classroom interactions differently depending ontheir understandings of race and gender.

Whereas all three race-focused cases provided various viewpoints on the centralissue, none of the three gender-focused video cases, and only one of the three class-based cases, offered multiple perspectives. In the class-focused video (C1), thestoryline was set first in the classroom of an affluent school and then during afamily conversation. Through the pronouncements of the teacher, the classroomscene outlined the school’s policy that all students purchase their own materialsand equipment for the extracurricular interscholastic drama competition. Thiswas contrasted by the subsequent scene where a lower class student asked hermother for the money to participate in the school event as her mother prepareda meal. Regretfully, the mother was unable to afford the costs of her daughter’sparticipation in the competition, and the young girl returned to school to informher teacher. In this case, the ways in which the affluent school and its mostlyupper-class student body normalized school participation based on assumptionsof wealth was contrasted with the ways the lower income family experienced theexclusionary and inequitable effects of the school’s policies.

Unconventional Groups

Two of the race-focused video cases that were previously discussed centered ongroups that seem to receive less attention in discussions of equity in school-ing. The case (R1) in which the White male counselor drew from essentialistviews of Mexican American and Asian American students in assigning studentsto class tracks was successful in complicating the popular model minority narra-tive (Lee 1994; Takaki 1998) that assumes that all Asians achieve economic andeducational success while obscuring the achievements of other ethnic-minoritygroups like Hispanics (Banks 2009). Moreover, the historical practices of trackingMexican American students for primarily industrial and domestic sciences withlittle academic preparation (Donato 1997) was confronted through the portrayal of



a college-bound Mexican American student who aspired to attend an Ivy Leagueschool. Not only did the depiction of an Asian American student who needed spe-cial education and a high achieving Mexican American disrupt popular narrativesabout these ethnic groups’ approaches to schooling and academic achievement(e.g., Asian American students as the model minority; Mexican American stu-dents as less interested in schooling and academic achievement), but the casealso challenged existing stereotypes about the parents of students of color, bypositioning them as actively involved in and invested in their children’s education.

A second video case (R3) also addressed race in an unconventional way byattending to the low expectations a teacher holds for her Muslim Arab Americanfemale student. Like high-achieving Mexican Americans and Asian Americanswith special needs, Arabs and Arab Americans make up another racial/ethnicminority group in the United States that, until the events of 9/11, seldom havebeen addressed in the literature on sociocultural influences on schooling (Wingfield2006). When they are discussed, Arabs and Arab Americans often are portrayeddisparagingly in Orientalist historical narratives (Said 1978) and in US popularmedia representations (Schrag and Javidi 1995; Shaheen 1997; Stockton 1994).This video case suggested a more complex understanding of the ways commonUS constructions of race do not account for all groups of students that schools areresponsible for educating.

Decision Making

All nine video cases incorporated educators as active participants implicated inthe reproduction of inequities in education. As such, educators were depicted asresponsible for recognizing and challenging deficit-oriented thinking and prac-tices (Sleeter and Grant [1986] 2006). All the cases showed complexity of well-intentioned educators’ struggles to account for both individual differences andequity in their decision-making.

Race-Focused Cases

In the aforementioned case (R3) centered on the Muslim Arab American femalestudent, the White female teacher was portrayed as having drawn from deficitviews of Arab American gender roles in her attempts to enact culturally sensitiveteaching practices:

[The] classroom is one in which Madeeha, an Arab student in the second grade, isessentially excused from group work and class activities because the teacher assumesthat since she is female and Muslim, she is taught by her culture to be submissiveand disengaged. . . . Race and gender intersect in this case in the way that Madeeha



as a female and an Arab is assumed to be submissive, docile and less interested inher education. . . . [The teacher] also views race as a determining factor of whoMadeeha is and believes that this fact predetermines the way Madeeha can interactwith her fellow students. (Case R3, Main Idea Sheet)

The teacher’s role in ascribing a passive and nonintellectual racial and genderidentity to that student was complicated by her intent to be culturally sensitive.Because her own cultural frame positioned Madeeha’s culture and home life asbeing deficient or backward in how it valued women, the teacher used the student’sculture as an excuse to allow Madeeha to participate less and, thus, to receive feweropportunities to learn than other students in her class. The authors of this casepointed out that the teacher failed at culturally responsive teaching (Gay 2000),in which the teacher would have viewed Madeeha’s cultural background as aresource for, rather than a hindrance to, greater learning.

Similar to the case about Madeeha, the other two race-focused video cases (R1and R2) associated educators’ initial attempts to address students’ racial and cul-tural differences with underlying deficiency-oriented assumptions about studentsof color. For example, one case (R2) showed how a teacher’s low expectationsfor the intelligence of a Spanish-dominant student then led to her believing thatthe student required special education services. Another case (R1) illustrated theracist tracking practices of a school counselor. In the end, both educators in thesecases experienced moments of greater awareness and reflexivity, leaving open thepossibility of their making more equitable decisions in the future.

The dilemmas central to the three race-focused cases remained unresolved, andthe case authors provided questions to prompt analysis of the dilemmas. For exam-ple, the scenario of the counselor tracking Mexican American and Asian Americanstudents included these questions for its viewers: “In what ways could Mr. Mudgeimprove his cultural competence to better improve the academic success of thenew [in]coming minority students?” and “Does a school’s administration use es-sentializing, in any form, to help place new students with an unknown academicbackground into classes? Why or why not” (Case R1, Questions)? The questionsposed as part of the case project suggested that the case authors believed educatorshad a responsibility to deepen their cultural knowledge and actively strive towardequitable school policies and practices.

Gender-Focused Cases

The three gender-focused video cases also featured educators as agents in thereproduction of inequitable schools. As decision-makers, teachers played a partin the gender discrimination experienced by female, as well as male, students.Like the race-focused cases that illustrated negative ramifications of educators’



decisions, the first gender-focused case (G1) showed a teacher applying punitivediscipline unequally to two students—one boy and one girl—based on her as-sumption that girls are naturally docile and nice, yet boys are naturally aggressiveand unruly. In the following case synopsis, two scenes were juxtaposed to illustratethe sexist practices of the teacher:

Children are waiting in line to get their lunches from the school cafeteria. A girl jutsin line but is caught by the teacher and pulled aside. The two talk about it calmly andthen the girl is allowed back into the line where she was originally. Next scene: Thistime a boy cuts in line, but [the] teacher catches him, too. He is pulled aside and . . .talks to him with a very angry tone. . . . Not only is he sent to the back of the line,but he is also required to sit out at recess that day. (Case G1, Synopsis)

The case authors explained that “[d]espite the fact that his reasoning for cutting[into the line] was exactly the same as the girl, he is punished much more than thegirl was” (Case G1, Synopsis).

Teachers’ disciplinary judgments were also highlighted in another gender-focused case (G3). Here, too, the teacher treated students differently based ontheir gender, but the teacher’s motives were less overtly sexist:

Maria, Michael and Sean are all in the same class at Bonham Junior High School.Every day Sean and Michael are constantly disrupting and talking about irrelevantmatters during class time. Their teacher, Mrs. Martin, must constantly reprimand theboys and spend the majority of the day keeping them on task. Mrs. Martin knowsthat Maria is very dedicated to her schoolwork . . . [and] has some prior knowledgeabout fractions but does not completely understand the subject. (Case G3, Narrative)

This case went on to show how, over time, the teacher routinely attended to theperceived disciplinary needs of the male students to the detriment of the femalestudent’s education. Under these circumstances, Maria became increasingly dis-enchanted with math and her grades suffered (see Sadker and Sadker 1995).

The third gender-focused case (G2) described the responsibility of administra-tors in balancing the needs of individuals with educational equity for all groups ofstudents. This dramatization showed the ways in which the administrative leadersof the school tried to account for what they perceived to be the strengths and needsof “football players [who] tended to be more rowdy;” “females [who] are usuallyquiet and well-behaved;” and “males [who] tended to perform better in math classand . . . did not require as much personal attention outside of class to complete theirassignments” (Case G2, Narrative). These essentialist characterizations of studentgroups were the basis of administrators’ decisions about classroom placements,or which teachers to place with which students. The following excerpt illustratedthe gendered decision-making process for administrators in this case:



“Since Mrs. Jacobs is a brand new teacher to our school this year and she is rightout of college with little classroom experience,” said Mr. Chandler, “let’s give hera classroom full of excellent students to help ease the transition into her new job.”. . . They also placed a majority of girls in her classroom due to the assumptionthat females are usually quiet and well behaved and would therefore provide fewerdiscipline problems. The administrators believed that if Mrs. Jacobs had a great firstyear experience, she would want to stay in the teaching profession for several moreyears. (Case G2, Narrative)

For male students, a similar thought process based on gender was outlined:

[The administrators] wanted the football players to have a teacher that could relateto them as well as make sure that they got good grades in order to continue playingfootball. “Female teachers just don’t understand how tiring practice is sometimes,and the football players need to have a teacher who will give them a little bit of leewayafter a hard game or training session,” said Mrs. O’Neil. (Case G2, Narrative)

In considering how to best match the supposed gender needs and strengths ofstudents with those of the teachers, a two-pronged tracking system was formedthat both privileged male students and expected male teachers’ collusion in thatprocess. Ultimately, the teachers were tracked. along with their students, in waysthat reinforced low expectations for female students’ math abilities, increased thelikelihood that males struggling in math would be overlooked, and, for studentsand teachers alike, normalized passive female and active male behaviors. Thisvideo case positioned administrators as agents directly involved in the produc-tion of educational inequities that arise from a male–female binary that assumesessentialist gender constructions of students and teachers.

Class-Focused Cases

The video cases that dealt with class asserted that educators play a key role inensuring equitable education for students. One of the class-focused cases de-scribed earlier (C1) questioned the fairness of policies at an affluent school thatprivileged students whose families could afford the expenses of extracurriculardrama activities under the guise of holding equal expectations for all students.This school’s insistence that individuals have the ability to fully participate incostly, yet commonplace, activities implicitly taught what it meant to belong (andnot belong) in the upper class. This hidden curriculum (Apple 2004) in the dramaprogram was a means by which social class distinctions were reproduced, andconcomitant class inequalities were reinforced. In this scenario, the case authorspointed to a responsibility that educators have to weigh individuals’ circumstances



and access to material resources against the standardizing practices of institutingone-size-fits-all policies that lend the appearance of equal opportunities.

The other two cases dealing with class differences (C2 and C3) demonstratedhow students of different class backgrounds have unequal access to material re-sources and, therefore, unequal chances of being academically successful in asystem that equates equality, or sameness, with equity. The teachers featured inthese cases were committed to equity—that is, providing students with equal ac-cess to the resources needed for academic success (Nieto 2000)—and, as a result,gave more attention to economically disadvantaged students than to those wealth-ier students who possessed the economic capital to complete their assignmentswithout requiring additional supports from the teacher.

Reinscription of Deficit Thinking and Existing Power RelationsFound in the United States

At this point, it is worth reiterating that the video case assignment required thatstudents either challenge or not engage in essentialist and deficit oriented per-spectives when representing historically marginalized groups. Contrary to theauthors’ intentions to challenge deficit thinking and essentialized constructionsof oppressed groups, three cases—one race-, one class- and one gender-focusedcase—still reinscribed deficit thinking and/or existent power relations.

The authors who developed the race-focused video case (R1) about the Whiteschool counselor who drew from essentialist notions of Asian American andMexican American students in assigning them to different courses explained thattracking students based on “essentialized ideas about racial skills and abilities canhurt students’ intellectual development” (Case R1, Main Idea Sheet). Instead of“essentialized ideas,” they proposed that students’ “real abilities and deficiencies”be the basis of tracking decisions. Just as the case challenged the counselor’s prob-lematic assumptions about the abilities of students of color, the authors justifiedthis critique by insisting that the counselor identify the students’ deficits prior toplacing them into a course. This reasoning presupposes there are real deficits tobe found, and the opportunities afforded students should be based on those realshortcomings. Real deficiencies, therefore, would not be fully accounted for whenessentializing groups of students.

In challenging deficit thinking, a class-focused video case (C2) tried to accountfor equity in a teachers’ decision making around the issue of social class, yet,it, too, reinscribed deficit oriented perspectives. In this scenario, the teacher’sno-late-work policy was amended to account for the additional responsibilities alower-class student, Mary, had at home due to her family’s modest income, whereasthe same leniency was not extended to Paige, a more affluent student, who turnedin her work late because she “is really involved in extra-curricular activities like



choir, art club, captain of the soccer team and drill team” (Case C2, Narrative).Although the teacher was sympathetic and responsive to the financial constraintson Mary’s family, she was not equally sympathetic to Paige’s life outside theclassroom. The authors of this case challenged essentialized characterizations ofMary by the teacher and critiqued her for only noticing what she and her familylacked:

Ms. Walker is using deficit thinking because her focus is on what Mary lacks ratherthan what she has. She knows that Mary does not have as much time or money tosuccessfully complete all her school work, but she doesn’t stop to think of what shedoes have, such as good work ethic, intrinsic motivation to succeed, and the love andsupport of her family. (Case C2, Main Idea Sheet)

The authors continued their line of reasoning, positing that “this is unfair to [moreaffluent] students like Paige because she ignores her needs because she doesn’tfeel that she has any deficits. This causes divisions in the classroom becausethe students know that they are treated differently” (Case C2, Main Idea Sheet).Interestingly, the authors inadvertently engaged in deficit thinking while trying todisrupt essentialized perspectives of students from both low and higher incomefamilies.

By suggesting that the teacher, in fact, had disregarded Paige’s needs becauseshe did not think Paige had any deficits, the case authors reinscribed deficitperspectives. In this complex case, deficit thinking was problematic in relationto how the teacher normalized who needed help and who did not. Because of theway the case was created, it is unclear the extent to which the more affluent studenthad academic needs that went beyond her abundant economic resources. Still, thecase authors equated the noneconomic needs that the affluent student may havehad to the material needs of the lower class student. In their struggle to makesense of equality and equity in the localized context of a classroom, the authorsof this case came to the conclusion that the economically privileged student waspenalized by the teacher’s effort to provide an equitable education to historicallymarginalized groups of students. The case reinscribed not only deficit orientedperspectives, but also existing power relations by positioning the affluent studentas part of a disadvantaged group in the classroom in spite of the privileges sheenjoys as a result of historical structural inequalities in US society.

In similar fashion, another video case (G1) described earlier, in which a femaleand a male student both cut into line on the way to lunch, ended by reinscribingexisting gender power relations. In that case, gender discrimination led to disparatetreatment of a male student and a female student. Because “society tends tonaturally view boys as wilder than girls and they also feel boys are more likely tobreak the rules. . . . there is a tendency for boys to be punished more often and inharsher manners” (Case G1, Main Idea Sheet). The case authors argued that “since



the boy is indeed punished differently than the girl for breaking the same rule itcould easily be considered unfair treatment based on his gender” (Case G1, MainIdea Sheet). Unequal power relations were reinscribed when the authors isolatedthis incident in the school from macro-level outcomes for boys and girls. Althoughthe case challenged the social construction of girls as “innocent, fragile, gentle,and obedient” and of boys as “wild, outspoken, delinquent, and mischievous”(Case G1, Main Idea Sheet), the micro-level benefits the authors associated withbeing female in this situation were used to position the individual male student aspart of a systematically victimized group.

WHAT DO THESE FINDINGS TELL US ABOUT TRYING TOTEACH THE COMPLEX?

Findings from this study suggest that the participants’ understanding about socio-cultural influences and schooling became more complex over the course of thesemester as evidenced by the fact that the students’ case projects went beyond thegoals and basic understandings that framed the expectations of the assignment.The cases illustrated this complexity by recognizing that educators’ discourses andpractices play an important, powerful role in schooling and that educators have aresponsibility to understand their role in reproducing (or challenging) inequitiesin schools. From a complexity theory standpoint, this suggests that the cases il-lustrate more “complex thinking or understanding” on the part of the studentsbecause these final products extended beyond the generative essential elementsassociated with the initial assignment (i.e., assignment expectations). Additionally,in the initial questionnaire taken by the students, and in comments made duringthe beginning of the semester, such understandings about sociocultural factors andschooling were rarely acknowledged or accounted for by students in the course.

For example, although students were asked to select and create a case focusedaround a specific sociocultural factor (e.g., race, class, gender) that addressedand/or challenged both deficit thinking and essentialized thinking, the studentswent beyond these components by illustrating the complicated nature of teach-ing and schooling and the complex nature sociocultural influences play in theseprocesses. Across the majority of the cases produced in the course, students pre-sented narratives that presented the multiple, often contradictory, perspectives thatexist in the daily practice of teachers and educators in schools. These narrativesillustrated the complexities that school officials face in their daily work and intheir sometimes unsuccessful efforts to effectively address issues of difference,equity, and equality. These perspectives highlight how school officials often inad-vertently (and ignorantly) engage in essentialist and deficit oriented thinking aboutcommunities of color and those from low-income backgrounds that curtail thesestudents’ opportunities to learn.



Yet, paradoxically, these more complex understandings accompanied otherunintended learning outcomes that neither authors anticipated prior to beginningthe course. These outcomes included the reinscription of both deficit thinking onthe part of teachers and school officials, as well as of existing power relationsfound in US society that efforts to teach for equity, ironically, seek to redress.These instances of reinscription were evident most often in cases that addressedsocial class and that sought to account for concerns with equity and schooling.

So, what does this mean? This study highlights how students’ understandingsabout sociocultural knowledge can shift and become more complex in a singlecourse when provided scaffolded learning opportunities to develop more complexunderstandings about the role sociocultural factors play in the schooling process.Students in this course were exposed to a diverse body of visual cases that spannedfilm, music, and textual scenarios that addressed issues related to race, social class,and gender. These cases were used because they effectively conveyed complex per-spectives in a format that allowed students to connect with, engage directly in, and,perhaps most important, collaboratively with one another and the material. Theseinteractions encouraged the students’ acquisition of sociocultural knowledge thatthey were eventually able to apply in new, complex ways. Indeed, what stands outabout the cases is how the students recognized and accounted for how decisionsmade in the local, daily context help to both create and sustain inequitable learningopportunities for students. This observation illustrates the students’ recognitionthat what teachers and other school officials do in schools and classrooms mattersin the educational lives of the students they serve. These cases also illuminate thestruggles that many student groups positioned as different from the norm face inschool settings.

However, it is necessary to note that in the midst of these shifts in understand-ing around the role sociocultural factors play in the schooling process, students’acquisition of more complex renderings of this knowledge concurrently createdunintended consequences that complicated their overall learning experience. Thefact that students collaboratively developed cases that sometimes slipped intodeficit thinking (from the perspective of teachers and other school officials) andalso reinscribed, rather than challenged, the existing unequal power relations thatexist in United States at present, demonstrates the particularly slippery terrainfaculty face in preparing future teachers. In an effort to help students broaden howthey recognized and approached sociocultural influences, learning, and schooling,the course content asked students to wrestle with how to account for the complex,deeply structural/institutional ways these influences emerged in the context of thedaily, seemingly individual, level of school/classroom practice. Issues related toequity, equality, difference and deficit thinking seemed to present the most difficultchallenges for students, particularly in the way they tried to account for momentswhen individual students were subjected to seemingly unfair treatment and disad-vantage by teachers and other school officials. In most instances, these individuals



were presented as unaware of the ways their actions drew from normalized expec-tations about students based on the students’ race, gender, or social class identities.They were unable (or simply failed) to illustrate their understanding of how thesepractices fit in the larger sociohistorical context of privilege in the United States.

Similarly, case authors sometimes found it difficult to distance themselves fromthe notion that it is the responsibility of teachers and school officials to “figureout” what students lack or need to be successful academically and socially inschool. We argue that this assumption framed why these individuals created casesthat presented the teacher as failing to account for the deficits that students pos-sessed, and thereby ignoring the legitimate needs these students possessed—evenwhen such students were privileged because of their social class and/or genderpositionality. Such thinking is not unique to the students in this course. The firstauthor found in a previous study that preservice teachers who attended a teachereducation program that held a commitment to critical multicultural education andreflective practice, also possessed the view that teachers had a responsibility toengage in risk discourse—or, identifying those students that possess factors (i.e.,deficits) that made them more likely than their peers to experience low academicachievement (Brown 2006). This study illuminated the way in which such think-ing pervades the knowledge base that preservice, and later inservice, teachers holdabout academic achievement and their role in facilitating the learning process.

IMPLICATIONS OF THIS STUDY

Although the shift in student understandings was promising in this study, wedo not overstate the learning that students experienced across the semester. Werecognize that such advancement occurred in the context of a 14-week courseand was situated in the context of the overall course content and assignmentexpectations and, consequently, may not lead to lasting change or translate intoteacher practice once students begin their work as classroom teachers. Theselimitations, however, do not diminish the important insights these findings offerteacher education faculty and programs committed to preparing teachers to teachfor equity and social justice. This study highlights that students can and do struggleto make sense of course content when provided scaffolded opportunities to en-gage with and in complex sociocultural knowledge. Thus, at a foundational level,these findings point out the need for teacher educators and other faculty to recog-nize the power of their pedagogic and curriculum choices. This suggests the needto fully interrogate the knowledge and learning experiences offered to studentsabout the role played by sociocultural factors in schooling and teaching. In thisstudy, students did not come into the course possessing a vast amount of knowledgeabout sociocultural factors and schooling, nor did they display overt opposition orresistance to the content of the course. Rather, these particular students struggled



to understand how the complex ideas of the course operated in the daily work ofteachers and how these individuals might competently and equitably address allof their students’ needs.

One way that instructors of such courses might address the complexities ofteaching about sociocultural knowledge is to first recognize that both course ped-agogy and course content matter. Instructors should not minimize the important,powerful role that both these aspects of teaching play in student learning. Assuch, instructors should spend time clarifying the big learning goals they holdfor the course, as well as how effective their scaffolding of the specific topics,key terms and concepts play in their students’ understanding of course material.Often, time constraints and other institutional barriers make it difficult for facultymembers—particularly those in their pretenure years—to spend quality time or-ganizing courses, and reflecting on how effective the course is in helping studentsto learn.

Additionally, more sustained and engaged conversations should occur withfaculty members responsible for teaching courses on sociocultural knowledge,schooling, and teaching. These conversations should highlight the goals and pur-poses that faculty members hold for their courses, as well as the specific topics,key terms/concepts, pedagogic activities, and assignments that seem effective inmoving students to more complex understandings. Although the goal of theseconversations is not to standardize how course instructors approach the teachingof such courses, they should provide insight and clarity into the approaches thatdifferent instructors take in their teaching and open the door for more support andcommunal engagement around this work. In doing this, we suggest that studentsare more likely to experience a richer learning environment and leave such courseswith a deeper, more complex understanding of the vital role that sociocultural fac-tors play in education, and the potential mislearnings that students may leave thecourse holding. Indeed, this knowledge is needed if teacher education programsare to nurture teachers that both possess sociocultural knowledge about schoolingand that can use this knowledge to work effectively with all students.

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