Resources

A century ago, universities were primarily in the business of molding upper-class young men for the professions. The world has changed, and universities have been forced to keep pace by experimenting with affirmative action, curriculum overhauls, part-time degree programs, and the like. But at the core of the modern university establishment is an ingrained academic culture that has operated in the same ways for centuries, contends Robert Ibarra, and in Beyond Affirmative Action, he calls for a complete paradigm shift. Why does academic culture, he asks, emphasize individual achievement over teamwork? Why do so many exams test discrete bits of knowledge rather than understanding of the big picture? Why is tenure awarded for scholarly publications rather than for sharing knowledge in diverse ways with students and a wider community? Why do undergraduates drop out? And why do so many bright graduate students and junior faculty—including many minorities, women, and some majority males—become disenchanted with academia or fail to be accepted and rewarded by the tenured faculty? Ibarra introduces a theory of "multicontextuality," which proposes that many people learn better when teachers emphasize whole systems of knowledge and that education can create its greatest successes by offering and accepting many approaches to teaching and learning. This revolutionary paradigm also addresses why current thinking about academic systems and organizational culture, affirmative action, and diversity must be revised. Ibarra bases his groundbreaking proposals upon his own synthesis of findings from anthropological, educational, and psychological studies of how people from variouscultures learn, as well as findings from extended interviews he conducted with Latinos and Latinas who pursued graduate degrees and then either became university faculty or chose other careers. From his perspectives as a practicing anthropologist, teacher, researcher, and administrator, Ibarra provides a blueprint for change that will interest: * Administrators developing campus strategic plans * Boards, commissions, and agencies making policy for educational institutions * Students and faculty struggling to find ways that academia can serve multiple constituencies * Academic and career advisors to students * Researchers in cognitive psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, and ethnic studies * Businesses rethinking their organizational cultures and strategies (From the Publisher)

How can Christian educators teach effectively in different cultures? Here are winning principles drawn from educational theory and personal experience. How can Christian educators teach effectively within a culture not their own? In what sense is teaching part of the Great Commission? These questions are being asked more and more often in our increasingly global community. In the opening chapter of Teaching Cross-Culturally, Judith Lingenfelter recounts two contrasting teaching experiences she had early in her career. First, she taught junior high students in a rough urban setting near Pittsburgh. Next, she taught elementary students at a school on the small island of Yap in the western Pacific. Both experiences, she discovered, were examples of cross-cultural teaching. Teaching Cross-Culturally is designed to complement Sherwood Lingenfelter's highly successful Ministering Cross-Culturally. It takes similar insights and applies them specifically to an educational setting. It also guides readers with little understanding of cross-cultural challenges in ministry and helps them see how cultural sensitivity and effective teaching are inseparably linked. Chapters include discussions about how to uncover cultural biases, how to address intelligence and learning styles, and teaching for biblical transformation. Teaching Cross-Culturally is ideal for the western-trained educator who plans to work in a non-western setting. Missionaries, "tentmakers, " and those who teach in an increasingly multicultural North America will find this book helpful. (From the Publisher)

This book goes beyond the "how-to's" of teaching to offer a pedagogy founded in spirituality, providing teachers with the elements necessary to create a truly multicultural classroom. (From the Publisher)

Have three decades of integration and multicultural initiatives in higher education delivered a better education to all students? Are majority and minority students reaping similar benefits, specifically in predominantly white colleges? Do we know what a multicultural campus should look like, and how to design one that is welcoming to all students and promotes a learning environment? Through a unique qualitative study involving seven colleges and universities considered national models of commitment to diversity, this book presents the views and voices of minority students on what has been achieved and what remains to be done. The direct quotations that form the core of this book give voice to Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and bi-racial students. They offer in their own words their perceptions of their campus cultures and practices, the tensions they encounter and what works for them. Rather than elaborating or recommending specific models or solutions, this book aims to provide insights that will enable the reader better to understand and articulate the issues that need to be addressed to achieve a well-adapted multicultural campus. Presidents, academic affairs professionals, student affairs personnel and faculty concerned with equity and diversity will find this book helpful and enlightening. (From the Publisher)

Offering a conceptual framework and practical strategies for teacher preparation in schools with increasingly diverse racial and ethnic student populations, this book presents a coherent approach to educating culturally responsive teachers. The authors focus on the importance of recruiting and preparing a diverse teaching force, as they propose a vision for restructuring the teacher education curriculum, reconceiving the pedagogy used to prepare prospective teachers, and transforming the institutional context in order to support the curricular and pedagogical changes they recommend. (From the Publisher)

Since the 1970s, working-class individuals have made up an increasing proportion of students enrolled in institutions of higher education. At the same time, working-class studies has emerged as a new academic discipline, updating a long tradition of scholarship on labor history and proletarian literature to include discussions of working-class culture, intersections of class with race and ethnicity, and studies of the representation of the working class in popular culture. These developments have generated new ideas about teaching that incorporate both a sensitivity to the working-class roots of many students and the inclusion of course content informed by an awareness of class culture. (From the Publisher)