These American Lives: Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher and the Risks of Empathy

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These American lives: becoming aculturally responsive teacher and the‘risks of empathy’Char Ullman a & Janet Hecsh ba Teacher Education , University of Texas at El Paso , USAb Teacher Education , California State University , Sacramento,USAPublished online: 24 Aug 2011.

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These American lives: becoming a culturally responsive teacherand the ‘risks of empathy’

Char Ullmana* and Janet Hecshb

aTeacher Education, University of Texas at El Paso, USA; bTeacher Education,California State University, Sacramento, USA

Do teacher candidates who identify as White and European Americanthink about issues of difference in ways that vary distinctly from teachercandidates who identify as Latina/o or Hispanic? In this article, we engagewith the literature on culturally relevant teaching that suggests teacher can-didates of color are more likely to have some of the characteristics of cul-turally responsive teachers than are White teacher candidates when theyenter teacher preparation programs. By comparing the attitudes of teachercandidates from a majority Hispanic-serving university and a universitythat serves mostly White and European American students, we questionthe idea that certain bodies are coterminous with particular ideologies.

Keywords: culturally responsive teaching (CRT); multicultural education;United States; teacher preparation; teacher dispositions

Introduction

Teachers must learn to teach students from a wide array of backgrounds,including those that may differ from their own racial, ethnic, linguistic,class, sexual, religious, and/or ability experiences. Today, 43% of all publicschool students in the United States come from minoritized ethnic and racialgroups, and that number jumps to 55% in the western United States(National Center for Educational Statistics 2008). Teacher educators mustguide pre-service teachers toward becoming culturally responsive teachersby first understanding how these future teachers think about difference. Wedefine difference as aspects of identity such as race, ethnicity, and class(among others), which are foundational to the organization of Western socie-ties, and are used to reproduce social stratification (Dei 1999).

The starting place for this study is the literature that suggests teachercandidates of color are more likely to have some of the characteristics ofculturally responsive teachers than are White teacher candidates when theyenter teacher preparation programs (Gomez, Rodriguez, and Agosto 2008;

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Race Ethnicity and EducationAquatic InsectsVol. 14, No. 5, November 2011, 603–629

ISSN 1361-3324 print/ISSN 1470-109X online� 2011 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2011.589172http://www.tandfonline.com

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Kohli 2010; Sleeter 2001). Because we, the two researchers, teach incomparably-sized universities, one with a majority Hispanic1 or Latino stu-dent body, and one with a mostly European American, or White2 studentbody, we saw the opportunity for a comparative project. We also knew thatscholarly knowledge about Latina/o pre-service teachers is limited, and thatlittle is understood about how they might bring their backgrounds andbeliefs to teaching (Gomez et al. 2008). In this case study, we used an epi-sode of the radio program This American Life as an instructional tool tounderstand how pre-service teacher candidates from different ethnoraces3

make meaning in relation to difference.

The contexts for a comparative study

California University and Texas University (pseudonyms) offer an aptopportunity for comparison, in that each is situated in a mid-sized city andeach is a commuter university. The California context was wealthier andmore European American than the Texas context, which is home to mostlyworking class Hispanic or Latino students. Because we were especiallyinterested in how ethnorace impacts teacher candidates’ attitudes, these twocities were ideal places to conduct a comparative study.

The organization of the teacher education programs at each universityoffered useful comparisons as well. Many scholars of teacher educationadvocate teacher preparation programs in which issues of diversity are‘infused’ throughout the curriculum (Grant 1994; Villegas and Lucas 2002;Zeichner and Hoeft 1996), rather than those that have a multicultural educa-tion course or two appended to the core.

While we agree that the infused approach is preferable, it was importantto compare similar programs, and the two programs we have compared areboth of the add-on variety.

It is also important to situate ourselves as researchers, and to note thatboth of us are female and bilingual (Spanish/English). One of us is Euro-

Table 1. City comparisons (US Census Bureau 2007).

Texas University California University

Population of city 598,580 460,242Population of countya 734,699 1,386,667Hispanic 81.6% 18.6%White, non-Hispanic 13.8% 52.6%Median income $35,116 $56,823People living in poverty 28.4% 12.2%

aThis Texas city is part of a border region that includes another city with an estimated 2007population of 1,301,452, which makes the two research locales quite comparable.

604 C. Ullman and J. Hecsh

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pean American, from a Protestant background, and queer, and the other isEuropean American, Jewish, and heterosexual. Both of us have lived for sig-nificant periods of time in Latin America. We believe that in order to guideour students on the path of becoming culturally responsive teachers, weshould be reflective about our own practice, and be engaged in a continualprocess of examining the ways in which our privileges and constraints shapeour worldviews.

In this article, we seek to help teacher educators understand how particu-lar pre-service teachers think about a specific aspect of difference, ethnorace.Our courses address issues of class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability,and ethnorace is just one of many topics we discuss. In order to explore thistheme in more depth here, we have chosen to limit our scope to an analysisof student responses to the radio program, ‘Lifesavers.’ We believe that thisstudy offers teacher educators new avenues for thinking about empathy inteacher education. This analysis offers alternative perspectives to some ofthe assumptions about pre-service teachers of different ethnoraces. We beginby situating the study within pre-service teacher education literature, focus-ing on the fields of multicultural teacher education and culturally responsiveteaching. Our analysis interrogates the role of empathy (Boler 1999) in thedevelopment of culturally responsive teachers, and raises questions aboutassumptions in the teacher education literature about candidates’ dispositionsand their relationship to the classed, raced, and ethnicized bodies they inha-bit. Then, we describe the radio show, This American Life, which provideda mediated first-person account of the life of Lucia, a Mexican Americanhigh school student and gang member in Chicago, who was inspired toleave gang life through her participation in a theater workshop, and finally,we consider students’ responses to the program.

Culturally responsive teaching

What are some of the ways that teacher educators might accomplish the dee-ply transformational work of preparing culturally responsive teachers? Fromcritical multiculturalism (Apple 1995; Freire 1970; Giroux 1993; Kanpoland McLaren 1997) to anti-oppressive pedagogy (Kumashiro 2002), to cul-

Table 2. Villegas and Lucas’ 6 strands for preparing culturally responsiveteachers.

1 Sociocultural consciousness2 An affirming attitude towards students from culturally diverse backgrounds3 Commitment and skills to act as agents of change4 Constructivist views of learning5 Learning about students6 Culturally responsive teaching practices

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turally responsive teaching (Grant and Gillette 2006; Ladson-Billings 1995;Villegas and Lucas 2002), scholars have argued for a variety of approachesto educating pre-service teachers to become culturally responsive elementaryand secondary teachers. Within the culturally responsive teaching (CRT) par-adigm, Villegas and Lucas (2002) envision a curriculum in which the sixqualities listed below serve as the central themes that guide pre-serviceteachers’ coursework and fieldwork.

Among those who embrace the need for culturally responsive teaching,the question remains as to how the strands listed above ought to be imple-mented in a teacher education program. In fact, all approaches to culturallyrelevant and libratory education resist prescriptive practices, as education istied inexorably to particular students, teachers, and contexts.

But how do teacher educators bring Villegas and Lucas’ six strands intotheir teacher preparation programs? Sleeter (2001) argues that culturalimmersion experiences are most efficacious for helping students developsociocultural consciousness and for them to build affirming attitudes aboutdifference. The next most desirable approach may be putting students in sit-uations in which they have authentic cross-cultural experiences (Sleeter2001; Garmon 2004). However, many teacher education programs are con-strained in terms of resources and time, which makes these preferredapproaches difficult. The option we propose is listening to a particular epi-sode of the richly ethnographic radio show, This American Life. Thisapproach can be used in teacher education programs that have limited multi-cultural education coursework, and it can add texture to programs that arecompletely organized around multicultural principles.

We know that there are perceived differences in teacher candidates’ atti-tudes toward multicultural education, based in part on the ethnorace of thebodies they inhabit, and on the ideological perspectives that often, but donot always, accompany those bodies. Sleeter’s (2001) review of the researchon multicultural teacher education makes these beliefs explicit. First, Sleeterargues for the need to bring more teacher candidates from culturally diversecommunities into teaching, since they appear to bring with them moreunderstanding of multicultural education, and a more articulated commit-ment to teaching all students (Sleeter 2001; Ladson-Billings 1994; Rios andMontecinos 1999; Su 1996, 1997). At the same time, Sleeter calls for moreconsciousness-raising among European American pre-service teachers, whoas a group, appear to have a more limited awareness of multicultural educa-tion (Sleeter 2001; Goodwin 1994) and seem less committed to challengingstructural inequality than are teachers of color (McIntyre 1997).

The work of Sleeter and others cited here argues that teachers from min-oritized communities have more awareness of structural inequality, forgedthrough their own life experiences, than do their European American coun-terparts. Conversely, it argues that different work must be done to raise theconsciousness of European-American teachers in relation to multicultural


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education than must be done with teachers of color. While this binary isassumed within the teacher education literature, and is often discussed anec-dotally, there are relatively few studies that explore teacher candidates’ per-ceptions of ethnorace (Avery and Walker 1993; Dilworth 1990; Irvine 1989;King 1991; Raths 2001; Reyes, Scribner, and Scribner 1999; Su 1996).

The role of empathy in teacher preparation

Numerous scholars of teacher education have explored the idea that an intel-lectual discussion of structural inequality, regardless of its rigor, is not enoughto produce culturally responsive teachers. This conversation about teachers’beliefs and actions is related to the idea of dispositions. There is considerabledebate within the teacher education literature about the dispositions thatteachers ought to have, especially as they relate to social justice (Borko, Lis-ton, and Whitcomb 2007; Burant, Chubbuck, and Whipp 2007; Damon 2007;Diez 2007; Liston and Zeichner 1987; Murray 2007; Villegas 2007). Somescholars argue that dispositions are defined so vaguely as to have virtually nomeaning, and that even if teachers acquire the skills of a respectful disposi-tion, they may elect not to use them (Murray 2007). Others see testing fordispositions as ‘thought control’ (Leo 2005). Still others discuss the need formore rigorous assessment of dispositions (Burant, Chubuck, and Whipp2007), Chubbuck, and Whippand others argue that despite the difficulties ofpinning the concept down, teacher preparation cannot focus solely on the‘how to’ of teaching. They suggest that instead, teacher education programsmust help teachers develop ‘the intellectual habits of reflection on their call-ing and daily work that are the mark of a professional continuously engagedin self-improvement’ (Goodlad, quoted in Yost 1997, 281). Villegas (2007)suggests that the dispositions debate hinges on disparate ideas of knowledge(transmission versus construction) and of the fairness of schools, as they arecurrently configured, to allow students of various ethnic, racial, gender, andclass backgrounds to demonstrate their intellectual merit.

Outside the dispositions debate, but related to it, scholars gesture towardthe concept of empathy with statements such as, ‘an empathic dispositionhas been seen as a desirable trait for teachers in diverse settings’ (McAllisterand Irvine 2002, 433). Ladson-Billings (1994) and Gordon (1999) haveidentified empathy as a component of teachers’ success but have not focusedon it directly. Noddings (1984) has referred to the need for teachers to feel‘with’ another individual in a nonjudgmental way, and Villegas and Lucastalk about ‘. . .promoting the development of empathy for students of diversebackgrounds. . .’ (Villegas and Lucas 2002, 25). Darling-Hammond arguesthat teachers must learn ‘to reach out to students, those who are difficult toknow as well as those who are easy to know,’ and that this ‘requires bound-ary crossing, the ability to elicit knowledge of others, and to understand itwhen it is offered’ (Darling-Hammond 2000, 170).


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Cochran-Smith (2000) argues that bringing narratives about race and rac-ism into the teacher education classroom, along with more intellectual argu-ments about social inequality are essential to effective pre-service teachereducation. She notes that ‘compelling personal stories often evoke a strongsense of empathy for others. . .along with a false sense that all of us haveexperienced hurt and frustration varying in degree but not in kind, that allof us underneath have the same issues, that all of us can understand racismas personal struggle, as individual instance of cruelty, discrete moment ofshame, outrage, or fear’ (174).

Cochran-Smith’s statement suggests that the concept of empathy has lim-itations. Scholars of education who employ more post-structural and psycho-analytic approaches to education are especially aware of the limits ofempathy. Kumashiro (2002) notes that while empathy is an important char-acteristic for teachers to have, knowledge about the experiences of peoplewho have been ‘othered’ often hinges on helping teachers see that thosewho are ‘different’ are, on closer inspection, actually not so different. Britz-man highlights the ways in which empathy leads to the production of same-ness and ‘a more polite version of otherness’ (1998, 87), by extendingnotions of normalcy to include more and more people. She argues, follow-ing Freud, that ‘the project of empathy is actually a projection of the selfinto the conditions of the other’ (83). Similarly, for Rosenberg (1998),empathy can create a false sense of involvement, along with the paradox ofappropriating the experiences of the other.

‘The risks of empathy’

Philosopher of education Megan Boler has explored the role of empathy as itrelates to reading multicultural literature. In her book Feeling Power: Emo-tions and Education (of which one chapter is entitled ‘The Risks of Empa-thy’), she argues that there are different kinds of empathy. Boler suggeststhat the traditional conceptualization of empathy is what she terms ‘passiveempathy,’ and that it is problematic, because it allows readers to consume thestory of another as a pleasing work of art, while ‘being spared the emotionsof rage, blame, or guilt’ (Boler 1999, 163). Instead of employing passiveempathy, Boler argues that there are ways to read other people’s stories thatemphasize issues of power and the social hierarchies that complicate the rela-tionship between the text and the reader. She calls this testimonial reading.

Testimonial reading is a way of reading that makes people reflect aboutpower dynamics and their own role in relation to the people about whomthey are reading. It should implicate the reader in a different trajectory fromthat of the person portrayed in the story, and rather, onto a path that is inter-twined with the main character. Indeed, we acknowledge that empathy is anecessary but not sufficient condition for people to become culturallyresponsive teachers.


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Boler’s keen analysis of empathy is accompanied by rather unelaboratedreferences as to how testimonial reading might be implemented in the class-room. Schertz (2007) has noted this limitation as well, but has found Boler’sframework useful in exploring how empathic pedagogy might be developedin elementary school classrooms, specifically those in which philosophy isbeing introduced to children. He argues not for testimonial reading per se,but rather advocates an approach influenced by Hoffman (2000), thatinvolves asking students to imagine themselves in situations similar to thoseof the embattled protagonist.

We find Boler’s notion of testimonial reading to be a worthy goal, andone that resonates powerfully with Villegas and Lucas’ description of socio-cultural consciousness. While asking learners to imagine themselves in simi-lar contexts to that of the protagonist (Schertz 2007) may be a useful step inthe journey toward testimonial reading, this approach also has pitfalls. Giventhat learners are likely to appropriate the experiences of the protagonist (i.e.,map their own feelings over those of the hero/heroine), or that they maythink they understand a social group because they have consumed a piece ofart about them (Britzman 1998; Rosenberg 1998), we argue that testimonialreading for sociocultural consciousness is a better goal. That is, reading/lis-tening should be done with the intent of understanding the protagonist’sexperiences as intersecting with one’s own, within complex relations ofpower.

This American Life

The Public Radio International show, This American Life, is a weekly one-hour radio program that highlights mostly non-fiction, journalistic stories aswell as memoirs and short fiction. It was created by Ira Glass in 1995 atWBEZ in Chicago, and quickly became nationally syndicated. Currentlyheard by 1.7 million radio listeners, the show is also consistently rated byiTunes as their first or second most popular podcast. This American Life haswon accolades for its richly ethnographic portraits of contemporary Ameri-can experiences.

Each week, the show is organized rather loosely around a theme, and theparticular program we used in this study was entitled ‘Lifesavers’ and it waspart of the program entitled ‘What You Lookin’ At?’ (We encourage you tolisten to it at: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?epi-sode=118). This show dealt with stories of seeing and being seen. Act 3,‘Lifesavers,’ focused on the story of Lucia Lopez, a Mexican Americanteenager in Chicago who found her way out of gang life through herinvolvement with the non-profit group, Music Theater Workshop (MTW).

Founded by actor/activist Meade Palidofsky in 1984, the MTW grewfrom a mission ‘to find the right marriage between her talents in writing andperforming arts and her commitment to social change’ (Music Theatre


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Workshop 2009). While there is no explicit mention of it on the Music The-atre Workshop’s website, the MTW approach appears to draw on AgostoBoal’s Theater of the Oppressed (1985). Boal developed a way of creatingtheater that was influenced by Paulo Freire, in which participants translatetheir inner reality into the social and political world. This kind of theater isintended to provoke critical thinking and to spark mobilization for largersocial change.

The MTW staff talked with youth all over Chicago, collecting their lifestories, with the intention of turning the stories into a play. A scene fromLucia’s life story had been written into the play, and Lucia had been chosento act in the play, telling her own story. The radio show began with host IraGlass interviewing Lucia and some of her high school teachers about herinvolvement in MTW.

Lucia was 18 when the show was recorded. Hauntingly, Lucia recountedthat she had never, never had ‘an OK day’ (“What you lookin’ at? ThisAmerican Life 1998). Having grown up in and around gangs, she had livedwith high levels of family and community violence. She told Glass that herphilosophy was, ‘Don’t be looking at me. Something could kick off’ (ThisAmerican Life 1998). Both a victim and a victimizer, Lucia understood thatif someone merely looked at her, it was a physical challenge. She said thatshe had thrown chairs at teachers, and if a teacher asked her to be quiet, sheinterpreted it as an attack. Participating in the theater workshop led Lucia toconfront whether or not it was ever acceptable for someone to look at her.She began to realize that she could not single-handedly assault an entireaudience, so she started to rethink how she had interacted with other peopleup until this point. Spending time with peers who were not in gangs,through the MTW rehearsals, ultimately helped her to make the decision toleave gang life.

The show focuses on Lucia talking about her life at home and at school,and the culture shock that came with her first experience of being aroundyouth who were not in gangs. Glass connects Lucia’s story with the work ofeducational anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath, who has studied the impactof the arts on the achievement of ‘at-risk’ youth (Heath 2001; Heath andWolf 2005). The piece ends with Lucia’s moving performance of a scenefrom her own life, in which she watches, enraged and helpless, as her broth-er’s friend dies as a result of a drive-by shooting. She expresses fury as shehears the paramedics on the scene complain about the pointlessness of theirjobs, since gang members will just be shot again anyway. This episode isemotionally potent, and it makes connections between social injustice andthe characteristics of school experiences that can promote individual andcollective transformation.

Lucia’s story was particularly compelling to us, in that she is an ambigu-ous subject – someone who did not easily fall into the categories of hero orvillain. Instead, she was complex and difficult to categorize. This was


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important in part because our comparison groups were comprised of onegroup who identified as mostly Hispanic, and another who identified asmostly White. It was essential that there be an aspect of diversity (gangmembership) that could cross both ethnic groups, and that the subject besomeone whose presence could call into question beliefs that there is justone way to be Hispanic, or a gang member. This made Lucia a protagonistwith the potential to provoke deeper thinking about social categories, socialjustice, and the development of empathy.

The cultural experience

If, as Villegas and Lucas suggest, teachers need to develop: (1) socioculturalconsciousness; and (2) an affirming attitude towards students from culturallydiverse backgrounds if they are to become culturally responsive teachers(Villegas and Lucas 2002), then teacher educators must know somethingabout the beliefs prospective teachers bring with them to teacher preparation(Landorf, Rocco, and Nevin 2007). Villegas urges teacher educators to ‘cre-ate ample opportunities early in the program for candidates to examine criti-cally their taken-for granted beliefs in relation to classroom actions’ (374).Raths (2001) notes that when teacher candidates encounter teaching thatchallenges their beliefs, they typically determine it to be incorrect, too ‘piein the sky,’ or too difficult to implement. Understanding teacher candidates’beliefs is crucial to beginning the process of educating culturally responsiveteachers.

Students in this study were enrolled in similar multicultural educationcourses, and because both researchers had flexibility in course design, wechose to lay a similar foundation in each course before presenting the radioprogram, the cultural experience that would tell us more about what our stu-dents thought about teaching students from backgrounds different from theirown. At the beginning of the semester, we asked students to create a culturepuzzle, an activity that encourages pre-service teachers to reflect on theirown social identities, and helps them to see that their worldviews areimpacted by their experiences, families, and social roles (Landorf et al.2007). We followed this initial reflection with readings and discussion aboutthe hidden curriculum (Anyon 1980) and social reproduction in education(MacLeod 1995). This laid the groundwork for students to reflect on theexperiences that have shaped them, and to begin thinking about the repro-duction of inequality through schooling, as well as issues of social stratifica-tion.

Before listening to the radio program, the students at each university readan interview with Shirley Brice Heath about the impact of arts organizationson student achievement (Kellam 1999). We did this because Heath’s work ismentioned in the program itself, and we wanted teacher candidates to havean understanding of the effects of arts education on learners who have been


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labeled ‘at risk.’ Then, students at both universities listened to the PublicRadio International program This American Life that dealt with Lucia’sstory, and discussed it in class, using the same problem-posing protocol ineach locale. Afterwards, we asked students to respond in writing to 12 ques-tions about the program, and it is from written responses to one of thesequestions that the analysis discussed in this article is drawn.

We selected Lucia’s story with the goal of using it to elicit empathy,which we understand to be important to the development of socioculturalconsciousness and testimonial reading. Experience is a crucial component oflearning (Dewey 1938; Knowles 1989), and we wanted the experience oflistening to Lucia’s story to be a way for us to better understand pre-serviceteachers’ beliefs about cultural diversity (Hollins and Torres Guzman [2005]offer an insightful review of this literature). While we knew that it is com-mon for pre-service teachers to hold negative views about minoritized stu-dents (Richman et al. 1997), we also knew that most of this research wasdone with pre-service teachers who identify as White. We wanted to ‘createa space’ (Villegas 2007, 375) for teacher candidates to express their beliefsabout an individual student (Lucia), thinking that this would produce moreauthentic responses than methods involving direct questions about beliefs,such as surveys and interviews.

Methods

Sleeter (2001) recommends that researchers would do well to gain some dis-tance from the study of their own courses by studying another instructor’scourse. We chose to achieve that distance through a comparative study,working together to analyze data from each of our classes. While we madethe experience described a required part of the courses, students had theoption to not have their work become part of the study.

We ended up with 54 responses that were coded first descriptively andthen interpretively (Miles and Huberman 1994), and we used content analy-sis to identify emerging categories (Babbie 2007). Given that this studyexplores practical concerns about teacher beliefs in relation to exposing dis-empowerment and prejudice, it is an example of critical action research(Kemmis and McTaggart 2005). It is an attempt to use the tools of criticalsocial science to make clear teacher candidates’ beliefs so that we, as tea-cher educators, can take action on what we have learned, and understandhow to better prepare culturally responsive teachers.

Analysis of the data

A student who identified as White and who attended California Universitynoted that the particular This American Life used in this study was differentfrom other episodes with which she was familiar. She said, ‘Lucia’s story


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was real, gritty, and sad. Ira’s interview of her was his classic, friendly style,but the rest of her story didn’t seem to connect with the funny, left wing,urban intellectual tone of Ira’s typical themes.’ This show is different. Itfocuses on one student’s transformation. That is why we chose it.

We took on what Villegas and Lucas identify as the more challengingtask of motivating teachers to ‘inspect their own beliefs about students fromnon-dominant groups and to confront negative attitudes they might havetoward these students’ (Villegas and Lucas 2002, 24). We started with theviewpoint that cultural groups are complex and not neatly bounded. Whileat one time, Lucia would have beat you up if she caught you looking at her,her life was transformed by being on stage, with crowds of people lookingat her. Transformation is indeed what we were after, and as researcher/edu-cators we have often shied away from this complex area of inquiry (Mageo2002). This is in part because transformation is both an external and aninternal process, and as ethnographers of education, we have been cautiousabout the power issues involved in our voyeurism of the internal states ofothers. But the reality is that our study of more external issues involves justas much care and reflexivity as does the investigation of more internal con-cerns, so we can no longer use this as a reason not to study individual andgroup transformation.

What follows is an analysis of statements students made in writing,within a week of listening to the radio show. The question they answeredwas, ‘Given that you have had time to reflect on the radio show, “Lifesav-ers” (Lucia’s story), what are your feelings about it now?’ We identified keythemes that stood out in their responses, which included: a false sense ofinvolvement, comparison from a distance, and emotional distance from theexperience. Other themes that emerged included the beginnings of empathy,structure versus agency, and what we called inching towards becoming anagent of change. Pseudonyms were used to refer to participants, and wepaired them with their university affiliation, and with their self-selected eth-norace identifiers.

Because both of us identify as White and one of us conducted her partof the study at Texas University, a majority minority context (90% of stu-dents there identify as Latina/o), there are complexities to consider in thecollection of data around ethnicity and race and the negotiation of identities(Arber 2000; Daza 2010). It is quite possible that participants would havefelt more comfortable talking about ethnicity and race with a professor ofcolor than with a queer, White professor, albeit, one who is Spanish speak-ing. However, in this minority majority context, it is often African Americanstudents (a small percentage of the local population), whose views are mostlikely to be harshly interrogated. Latina/o students sometimes express disbe-lief about African American students’ experiences of racism, perhapsbecause what they describe does not fit the national narrative of White rac-ism toward people of color, and perhaps because they are implicated in it.


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What African American students describe is institutionalized racism anddaily humiliations from the majority Latina/o population. In this context, thenegotiation of identities in relation to narratives of power and legitimacy iscomplex, and while the Texas University researcher strove to be reflectiveabout her social location, it is likely that some students held back their moregenuine feelings. This may be especially true for the African American stu-dents.

A false sense of involvement

The radio show came alive to me and made me feel like I really understoodthe situation and could actually see what was going on. (Heidi, CaliforniaUniversity, White)

As a future teacher, I have this passion to help every child who crosses mypath in any way I can. After listening to Lucia say that she did not know whatit was like to have an OK day, it broke my heart. I felt that the radio showallowed me an inside view of things that Lucia’s was feeling. (Lizeth, TexasUniversity student, Hispanic)

My reaction was more emotional hearing her voice, I could actually ‘see’Lucia in my head. (Annie, California University, White)

I was able to see through Lucia’s eyes as she narrated the scene of Robertoand the walk-by made to take his life. (Letty, Texas University, Hispanic)

The production really hit home to me. I can still hear Lucia’s story in myhead. (Cathy, California University, White)

It makes me understand what kind of kids are out there and how their ownlife is and why they might act the way they do. (Juan, Texas University, His-panic)

I thought the show was great because it makes you open your eyes to realityby listening to some of the experiences that some of these people wentthrough. . .This helps us as future teachers to prepare ourselves because we aregoing to get students who are going to go through a similar situation orworse. (Felix, Texas University, Hispanic)

It is interesting and the show really got my attention because I could relate tothat little girl in some ways. (Rosa, Texas University, Hispanic)

These responses highlight one of the dangers of an initial ‘cultural expe-rience’ such as this one. Students may have a false sense of involvement,believing that they have more understanding of the experiences of Latinagang members than they actually do, simply by having listened to a 20-min-ute radio show. Others may appropriate the experiences of the main


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character, erasing the protagonist’s experiences and replacing them with theirown (Spellman 1995), which is also problematic. Many students did seemto overgeneralize the knowledge they gained from listening to the radioshow, suggesting that their understanding of Lucia was so visceral that theycould ‘see through her eyes.’ At the same time, three of the students, Lizeth,Juan, and Felix, heard the program through their positionality as futureteachers, rather than putting themselves in Lucia’s place, as the others did.Significantly, Lizeth, who identified as Hispanic, made explicit her commit-ment to teaching all students, saying, ‘I have this passion to help every childwho crosses my path in any way I can.’ Lizeth also mentioned in class thatshe had never known any gang members. This is in keeping with the litera-ture that suggests teachers of color are more likely to articulate their desireto teach every student, not merely those to whom they can easily relate.

Among those who felt that they now understood Lucia, it was only Rosawho expressed caution about the limits of her understanding, with her useof the quantifier ‘some.’ Rosa acknowledged that while she could relate toLucia, her experience might not have been identical to Lucia’s. In class,Rosa shared that she had cousins in Los Angeles who are involved in gangs.Although she talked about not knowing that part of her family well, perhapsit was her first-hand experience that made her able to relate to Lucia’s story,at least partially. Or perhaps it was because she knew some gang membersherself that she was able to see the particulars of Lucia’s experience. Thestudents who put themselves in their roles as future teachers were on theroad to the kind of testimonial reading that Boler has identified, and all ofthem self-identified as Hispanic.

Comparison from a distance

A number of students compared themselves to Lucia and came away feelinggrateful that they had not suffered as she had. This is a common way to beimpacted by others’ experiences, but to avoid thinking about how one mightinteract with ‘the other’ or how one’s own ‘blessedness’ in fact helps to pro-duce the other’s oppression. This is a common sense response to sufferingthat indeed helps to maintain the status quo (Gramsci 1971). It is a way ofseeing the suffering of another as individual and disconnected from sharedsocial experience. The excerpts below reflect this perspective.

My problems are so miniscule in comparison to hers that they engulfed myworld. (Antun, California University, White)

After hearing the excerpt of the radio show, a classmate and I were comment-ing about our own personal experiences. We both spoke about how fortunatewe are to have been raised in gang-free, stable homes. Although our hearts goout to Lucia, we cannot possibly relate with her experiences. (Josefina, TexasUniversity, Hispanic)


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This radio show was really touching. It really made me think of what I have.It has made me appreciate my life and my family. It’s really sad to hear sucha young innocent voice say such awful things or even feel such awful things.(Cynthia, Texas University, Hispanic)

Every day is a challenge for them [students like Lucia] to survive. That is nota way to live and it made me realize how blessed I am right now with what Ihave. (Sara, Texas University, Hispanic)

I feel sorry for Lucia because of what has happened to her and how her lifehas been. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to be brought up in that kindof environment. Then on the other hand, I think that if someone would justtake the time to show her that they care then maybe she would realize thatnot everyone is bad and out to get her sometimes that is all it takes to showthat you care. (Jenny, Texas University, White)

The view that many teacher candidates expressed here tends to fosterpity rather than empathy. Pity establishes a power differential between thepowerful one offering the pity and the less powerful other receiving it. Thenotion that ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ seems to produce sympathyrather than empathy. One does not have to identify with the other in orderto experience sympathy or pity. In fact, maintaining a certain emotional dis-tance from the protagonist is essential for the feeling of sympathy/pity. Boler(1999) understands sympathy to be based on the perception of similar expe-riences, and she sees it as a weaker form of identification than that of herhighest form, testimonial reading.

Freire (1973) has also offered a useful frame for thinking about the waysin which consciousness can change as a result of educational practices suchas problem posing. He argued that there are distinct stages of social aware-ness, and he labeled them as naïve, magic, and critical. From a Freirean per-spective, the data presented thus far under the subheadings, ‘A false senseof involvement’ and ‘Comparison from a distance,’ would fall under the cat-egory of naïve consciousness. When one is in the stage of naïve conscious-ness, blame for social injustice is placed solely on individuals, groupcharacteristics, or cultural practices. In this perspective, ‘naïve consciousnesssees causality as a static, established fact, and thus is deceived in its percep-tion’ (44). Freire says ‘naïve consciousness considers itself superior to facts,in control of facts, and thus free to understand them as it pleases’ (44). Sev-eral of the participants saw the circumstances that led to Lucia’s suffering ashaving had the potential to be interrupted, not through structural change, butby the presence of someone, perhaps a teacher, ‘who cared.’

While authentic emotional connections between students and teachers arevital (Noddings 2005; Valenzuela 1999), they are not sufficient to stop thecontinued violence and harassment that gang life, poverty, and racism pro-duce for youth like Lucia. Indeed, these perspectives embody naïvety in justthe sense that Freire describes.


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The view that ‘someone who cares’ can interrupt social inequality is themajor theme in Hollywood movies about teaching, such as in Freedom Writ-ers (2007), Dangerous Minds (1995), and with different ethnorace dynamicsin The Great Debaters (2007), Stand and Deliver (1988), and Coach Carter(2005). This approach makes imaginable the notion that educational failuresare remedied not by systemic restructuring, but by one individualistic, cru-sading teacher who has a heart. In this view, when the heroic teacher cares,generations of structural inequality are undone. Would that it were so.

Emotional distance from the experience

Other students avoided talking about their feelings in relation to the show,and moved quickly to a more analytic response. That meant instead of usingwords that represent feelings, such as sad, unhappy, and so on, theyanswered the questions ‘How did you feel after having had time to reflecton the radio show “Lifesavers?” What are your feelings about it now?’ bytalking about reasons for Lucia to have felt as she did. Since the promptasked how they ‘felt’ after listening to and reflecting on the show, it is sig-nificant that they either chose not to discuss how they felt, or they took theword ‘felt’ to mean ‘thought,’ which is a common usage in academic set-tings. The excerpts below provide a sample of their responses.

I quickly realized that so many angry kids that I confront at the school that Iwork at almost certainly have similar inner battles. . .My concerned question,then is what are we offering our kids, what avenues are we setting up, to helpour students ‘let it fly away’? [A reference to Lucia’s reflection on doingdrama about her own life story, and the ways in which it helped her workthrough some of her trauma and come to feel more peaceful.] (Eve, CaliforniaUniversity, White)

The show did an excellent job of bringing to light the problems faced byinner city youth. (Bill, California University, White)

A few students’ responses explicitly reflected their lack of ‘feeling’ aboutthe radio show, and they seemed not to have experienced the show as anemotional event.

I don’t want to sound like an insensitive jerk but I don’t really have any feel-ing about the “What You Lookin’ At?” excerpt. At the moment I was hearingthe clip, I was happy that she had made a better life for herself. Soon afterthat I dismissed it from my head and looked forward. I guess it’s hard for meto foster any feelings because it doesn’t hit close to home. (Martin, TexasUniversity, Hispanic)

I don’t have any strong feelings about the show. It was interesting to listen to,and very sad. Children should not have to deal with such things. (Mel, Cali-fornia University, White)


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It is interesting that most of the students who summarized the show’sthemes rather than stating their feelings or those who stated explicitlythat they did not have feelings about the show identified as male. Con-nell notes that hegemonic masculinity is often characterized by ‘an espe-cially tight control over emotions’ (Connell 2005, 128). Is the dominantform of masculinity then implicated in preventing the development ofempathy? It would be reductionist to draw that conclusion, especiallywhen one considers the varied ways that masculinity can be performed,and the ways in which these performances are inflected by ethnorace,and class.

Another version of ‘distancing’ is seen in the following excerpts. Here,Lucia’s story is portrayed as far removed from the listeners’ life experience.These responses also express the judgment that Lucia lacked a sense of per-sonal responsibility for her actions.

I have a hard time with this kind of defense mechanism that certain peopleuse. I understand that many people have a hard life and that many people,especially Lucia, have never had a good day. But I still think that there is asense of responsibility that one must grasp when encountering any situation.For someone to feel that much hate towards other people and have that muchanger and sense of helplessness that the first reaction is to attack peoplemakes me wonder. Once again, I do understand that I have a different life,this also made me take another look at my students. I hope that none of themhave these serious trust issues and that if they do, that I can create a safe andinviting environment. (Bob, California University, White)

My feelings are that Lucia is trying to act tough. I think that she got lucky bygetting a part in the play, but if she goes on with this bad girl attitude she’snot going to get far in life. (Mike, Texas University, Hispanic)

The two students who responded to Lucia’s story with judgment abouther lack of personal responsibility identified as male. This is an interestingresponse, given that alongside her violent outbursts, Lucia accomplishedsomething quite impressive: She left the gang that she had been in all herlife, and graduated from school. Instead of seeing Lucia’s less-than-socialbehavior along with her accomplishments, these men only saw her aggres-siveness and ‘poor attitude.’ This may have something to do with normativenotions of appropriate feminine behavior. It is indeed amazing that Lucia’sviolent response to her violent surroundings stood out more for these stu-dents than did her transformation from gang member and future drop-out tograduate and former gang member. In fact, Lucia’s aggressiveness, whichsome might term female masculinity (Halberstam 1998), is likely to bepoliced more powerfully by male bodied people than by other female bodiedpeople, as Bob and Mike’s comments suggest.

It seems that these two men see Lucia’s story as solely individual and donot yet understand the social forces that have also produced her life story.


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Their responses can be categorized as examples of ‘magic consciousness,’within the scale that Freire proposed. That is, outcomes are a result of God’swill, luck, or fate. Mike notes that Lucia ‘got lucky’ by getting a part in theplay, but he implies that a superior power will soon put her in her place, ifshe continues to act in what he views as unacceptable ways.

The beginnings of empathy

The following comments are those in which students have come to thinkexplicitly about Lucia’s story in relation to their future roles as teachers.They grappled with the ways in which they might work with a student suchas Lucia. This seems to constitute the beginnings of empathy, an ability towitness Lucia’s pain, and to think about what one’s role might be in relationto that pain. Given that these comments were still in response to the ques-tion, ‘What are your feelings about “Lifesavers”?’ they represent significantdepth of thought.

I feel it is my responsibility as a teacher, to try to help those kids to cope withthese type of situations, and let them know they are not alone. (Linda, TexasUniversity, Hispanic)

I feel that I must get to know each of my students because behind that youngmind may be a child in great need of help. (John, Texas University, Hispanic)

This is so hard, to listen to with our hearts!...The story of Lucia Lopez istotally real and breath-taking because this happens every day and it is hard toface the truth of our young generation. (Gina, Texas University, Hispanic)

But when I think about how Lucia’s situation would impact me as a teacher,it makes me realize that as an educator it is important to really get to knowmy students because they could be struggling with similar situations as Luciadid. (Lupita, Texas University, Hispanic)

It was a very powerful and emotional piece, it made me stop and think aboutsome of the things my students might be going through. (Annette, CaliforniaUniversity, White)

I felt angry and disturbed, and hopeful. I felt angry, sad, and disturbed by theway that some children have to grow up. I also felt these emotions towardsthose that have given up on children such as Lucia. I felt hopeful becausethere is a chance for those like Lucia to ‘make it.’ (Meagan, Texas University,White)

It makes me sad that this young woman has not felt peace in her life. Notunderstood a good night’s sleep. As a future teacher, possibly I can create aroom she would find peace within. I know this is a very extreme case andmany children have struggles possibly not as difficult as Lucia’s. But as a tea-cher, being aware and being there to help. (Eileen, Texas University, White)


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I feel very sad for Lucia, especially the fact that she said that she would lookat other kids and envy their happiness. It is heartbreaking that she said shefound it so difficult to watch others enjoy themselves like people should.Also, she mentions that she had a really tough time with teachers and alwaysfelt like she was being attacked. This made me think about situations thatmay occur in my career as a teacher and how I can handle it so that studentslike her can open up to me without feeling angry. This show is an eye-openerfor me. From this point on I will always consider what the student may begoing through out of school in their daily lives without making any assump-tions or passing judgment. (Susan, Texas University, African American)

The views expressed by these students are more closely aligned withBoler’s notion of a testimonial reading, in which one positions oneself andone’s own social identities in relation to the protagonist. At the same time,these students’ comments appear rather naïve in terms of their understandingof what merely ‘getting to know’ a student might accomplish. They are stillunable to articulate an awareness of structural oppression in relation toLucia’s story. However, they are beginning to think about their own personalresponsibility in relation to students such as Lucia.

Their comments also reflect Freire’s notion that ‘magic understandingleads to magic response’ (Freire 1973, 44). That is, if the students have notyet grasped the ways in which structural inequality has worked alongsideLucia’s individual choices to produce her life experiences, they attribute hercircumstances to bad luck or fate. If they do that, it indeed makes sense thatthey would respond to Lucia’s circumstances by invoking magic, such asthe belief that a teacher’s getting to know her will solve her problems.

Structure versus agency

A small number of California and Texas students demonstrated a beginningunderstanding that Lucia’s life situation is not merely the result of ‘badchoices,’ but that racism and other kinds of structural oppression havestrongly shaped her life experiences. The understanding that social structuresshape our worldviews and life chances is the foundation of Villegas andLucas’ notion of sociocultural consciousness, the first strand of their SixStrands for Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers (2002) discussed atthe outset of this article.

It is significant that five of the seven students who expressed an under-standing structural inequality and its impact on Lucia’s life came from TexasUniversity, and identified as either Hispanic or African American. Only twostudents who identified as White, Jenny and Karen, both from CaliforniaUniversity, demonstrated a similar awareness.

It’s the condition of their environment that pushes good people into dangerouspaths. (Aliza, Texas University, Hispanic)


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I think that we noticed that there was a lot of injustice towards Lucia. At first,though, I thought she was just a rebel girl that was going against everythinggoing on in society, but then I noticed that it was really not all about herbeing a bad person. I noticed that somehow society had changed this girl, thatsomehow she had so much hate and confusion toward the system that it hadmade her look as a bad person. (Joe, Texas University, Hispanic)

I think Lucia and other gang members feel like they have no choice but to bein a gang. (Karen, California University, White)

I thought the story was very enlightening. Lucia’s voice epitomized the racialinjustice that took place when her brother’s friend was neglected. (Lynne, Cal-ifornia University, White)

This kind of attitude is caused by what children suffer and their lifestyles isreally not their fault. (Cynthia, Texas University student, Hispanic)

When I remember her voice in my mind, I feel anguish, frustration, and dis-criminated by the authorities of this country. (Letty, Texas University, His-panic)

I feel that she has had a rough life that is not completely her fault so she isdefensive about everything and you can’t blame her because she doesn’t trustanyone. (Susan, Texas University, African American)

I think it’s bad that nowadays there’s still a lot of discrimination and teachersthat don’t help to make the difference in a student’s life, that they just leavethem without giving them an opportunity to change and succeed. (Adele,Texas University, Hispanic)

Adele spoke strongly in her critique of teachers who ‘just leave’ studentslike Lucia. Interestingly, Adele is a pre-service teacher who does not posi-tion herself as a member of the teacher category, as some have done. Thatis, she is able to critique teachers who have failed students like Lucia froma distance, and not be implicated in the category, because she does not yetidentify as a teacher.

After listening to the radio show I got a sense that there is hope no matterhow tough life has treated you. Lucia’s testimony itself brings a message toeveryone that anyone can change. I felt Lucia gave herself an opportunity inlife and she succeeded. It was not easy, but she did it. (Selena, Texas Univer-sity, Hispanic).

Among the perspectives highlighted above, Selena focused more on theagency aspect of the continuum, though her comment that ‘it was not easy’hints at issues of structural constraint. The fact that five of the seven stu-dents who expressed some understanding of the ways in which social struc-tures impact people were students of color is in line with what the teacher


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education literature assumes: Hispanic and African American students aremore likely than White or European American students to come to the uni-versity learning environment with an understanding of structural oppression(Goodwin 1994; Ladson-Billings 1994; Rios and Montecinos 1999; Sleeter2001; Su 1996, 1997). However, the findings described here must be consid-ered cautiously, as only seven of the 54 respondents expressed an under-standing of the ways in which structural inequalities might impact people’slife chances. In terms of ethnorace self-identifications, the bigger picture isless than encouraging.

Of the 33 teacher candidates who identified as Hispanic or AfricanAmerican (see Table 3), only five made statements that hinted at sociocul-tural consciousness. Of the 21 students who identified as White, only twoarticulated an idea that could be described as falling under that heading.These data do indeed demonstrate a trend toward the suppositions expressedin the literature. To put it another way, 15% of the students of color showedevidence of sociocultural consciousness, as compared to 9% of the Whitestudents.

It is important to remember that this activity was conducted after studentsin both classes had completed and shared their own culture puzzles and readabout and discussed ideas about social reproduction in education (Anyon1980; MacLeod 1995). These data demonstrate that the assumptions we hadas professors who use the teacher education literature to guide our instruc-tion were borne out, but not as strongly as might have been expected.

We do not want to suggest that any single classroom activity leadsunproblematically to the development of sociocultural consciousness. Giventhe reality that undergraduates in the United States have been continuallyinculcated with information about American individualism and meritocracythroughout their lives (Groves, Warren, and Witschger 1996), it is unreason-able to imagine that in an initial exposure to ideas about difference andstructural inequality, even with some scholarly and experiential preparation,that they would understand and apply concepts such as social stratification,for example.

Inching toward a commitment to becoming an agent of change

Two students gave responses that hinted toward a kind of testimonial read-ing of Lucia’s story. However, expecting that students would have a fully

Table 3. Participants’ ethnorace self-identifications.

Hispanic 31African American 2White, European American 21Total 54


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developed sense of critical consciousness or the ability to read in a testi-monial way would be unrealistic, given that the data reflected only a fewweeks of exposure to multicultural education coursework. Even so, thereare two final pieces of data that beg to be considered apart from the rest.Two participants from California University, both of whom identified asWhite, made comments that suggested they were grappling with ways tobecome agents of change. Strand number 3 in the Villegas and Lucas’(2002) model is a ‘commitment and skills to act as agents of change’ (24).While they did not express confidence that they had the requisite skills,both women seemed to be inching toward a kind of commitment to socialchange.

Karen, mentioned in an earlier excerpt, was a California University stu-dent, and identified as White. She was reflective about her relationship to astudent such as Lucia, and expressed trepidation about her ability to affectchange, yet spoke of her commitment to what sounds like a kind of socialchange.

Lucia’s story has opened my eyes to see gang members as individuals. I thinkLucia and other gang members feel like they have no choice but to be in agang. I feel like reaching out and helping my students who are in Lucia’sshoes to find social stability. But, I am still not confident that I have what ittakes to teach somebody as tough as Lucia that life has options/choices. Icome from a middle-class white family and the students I am teaching maynot think I am capable of understanding their situation, and maybe they’reright.

Heidi, another California University student who identified as White,asked how she could help students like Lucia. She seemed to be taking thison as a challenge to herself, and it appeared that the question was neither anintellectual exercise nor something that simply applied to other people.

It [the radio show] made me feel very emotionally empathetic toward the situ-ation. I was originally very sad because of the difficult situation Lucia faced.Now I feel more challenged to help change students’ lives for the better theway the play did for her. What can I do as a teacher to help students findwhat she was able to find through acting?

These are honest, hopeful, and complicated musings. Karen seemed tounderstand the social gap between herself and students like Lucia, and sheappeared to be, quite appropriately, questioning whether or not she has orwill be able to acquire the skills she needs to bridge that gap. Heidi usedthe words ‘empathetic’ and ‘challenged’ to describe her feelings about Luciaand her own role in relation to students like Lucia. She describes feelingmore challenged to find ways to affect students’ lives.

Perhaps it is because Karen and Heidi conceive of themselves asexpressly different from Lucia, the protagonist, that they feel the need to


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articulate their commitment to her education. It may in fact be that the His-panic and African American students understand themselves to be ‘automati-cally’ committed to the success of students of color because of their sharedbackgrounds, so they feel less of a need to state it explicitly. And issues offacility with English may have come into play in this data as well, giventhat most of the Texas University students were learning English as a Sec-ond Language, while most of the California University students were nativespeakers of English.

Conclusions

While we advocate for culturally situated teaching and learning that takesinto account the needs of individual learners in particular contexts (Laveand Wenger 1991), we also believe that looking at students’ reactions to theradio program described and analyzed in this paper has implications for allteacher educators. To put it another way, thinking about how a particularexperience was interpreted by students in one context can be generative forthose who might think of doing something similar in their own milieu.

The cultural experience described and analyzed here invited students toengage emotionally with a narrative about someone whose life experienceswere ostensibly different from their own. It gave them the opportunity tothink about themselves in relation to the oppressive practices that producedthe protagonist’s suffering. While some students responded with pity/sympa-thy, there were those who pointed to the oppressive social structures that ledto Lucia’s painful life experiences, and some who began to position them-selves as people who have responsibilities in relation to that suffering,namely, as teachers.

Empathy is produced within networks of power relations. Boler (1999)suggests that perhaps empathy is about being able to sit with ambiguity, andbeing able to see that although we may have things in common with others,our feelings must not be carelessly mapped over theirs. That is perhaps whyit makes sense to introduce teacher candidates to an ambiguous subject likeLucia. The key seems to be for the reader/listener to implicate him or herselfas having a different trajectory from the person portrayed in the story, but tosee that trajectory as intertwined with that of the protagonist.

And perhaps most importantly, this study calls into question some of thefoundational ideas within the teacher education literature about the attitudedivide between teachers from minoritized and dominant ethnoraces. Whilethe teachers of color were more likely to express ideas that hint at evidenceof sociocultural consciousness, the vast majority of students from all back-grounds did not come to the classroom with those views. Most of the stu-dents in this study came to their teacher education programs with limitedsociocultural consciousness, and with almost no awareness of structuralinequities.


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It is essential that teacher educators understand who pre-service teachersare. They need to know about the beliefs that teacher candidates bring withthem to the classroom, and not to assume that particular ideologies arecoterminous with particular bodies. Therefore, it is critical that in engagingteacher candidates with cross-cultural experiences such as the one outlinedin this article, that we, as teacher educators, consider sociocultural con-sciousness to be a continuum. Our responsibility is to assist the teacher can-didates (via this strategy and others)4 to move from where they are to morefully realized identities as agents of change. In order to do this well, teachereducators need to know more about teacher candidates and how they think.The more we, as teacher educators, know about the people we are preparingto become teachers, the more effectively we will be able to lead themtoward culturally relevant teaching. Essentially, we must require of ourselvesthe very attributes and strategies of culturally relevant teaching that we seekto develop.

Notes1. Study participants were asked to self identify their ethnicity and or race with no

prompts, and among those of Mexican descent, the majority chose ‘Hispanic’and one person chose ‘Latina.’ Following the tradition within anthropology torefer to participants as they refer to themselves (Gonzalez 2001), we haveelected to use the term Hispanic and have used Latina once.

2. White is the identity category that all of the students of European American des-cent selected for themselves.

3. The experience of Latinos in the US makes the conceptual distinctionsbetween race and ethnicity complex. Goldberg (1993) suggests the category‘ethnorace’ can bring both aspects of identity together, highlighting two cate-gories that are essential to understanding Latino experience in the US. Alcoff(2006) echoes Goldberg’s use of ‘ethnorace’ as it prevents White Latinos andWhite European Americans from thinking that the category of race does notapply to them.

4. Additional materials that teacher educators might use include: (1) Stories forChange http://storiesforchange.net; (2) Digital Story Center, http://storycenter.org; (3) Los Cenzontles, http://themockingbirds.info and www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130866714; (4) Theatre of Urban Youth: Youth andSchooling in Dangerous Times, Kathleen Gallagher, 2007, University of TorontoPress; (5) Two for One, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Two-for-One-An-Urban-Drama/290201197338; (6) Youth in their own Words, http://bayareabib-liophile.wordpress.com/category/urban-drama/; (7) Global Debate, http://global-debateblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/debate-sharpens-minds-of-urban-youth.html;(8) Boys Will Be Men http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/boys.html; (9)Violence among Urban Youth, http://wn.com/Effects_of_Violence_Among_Urban_ Youth_in_Oakland; (10) Soul talk, urban youth poetry: A writing projectfeaturing syracuse city school district students, M. Kristina Montero ed., 2008.Syracuse University Press; (11) Unheard voices, http://courses.unt.edu/nunez-janes/voices/voices.html; (12) The Class (2008) A French film about a teacherin an urban school.


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These American Lives: Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher and the Risks of Empathy

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