The authors provide teachers and school leaders concrete suggestions to address workplace relationships; to respond to intergroup conflict; to create positive exchanges among different ethnic groups of teachers; and to create a strategic process to address diversity issues.

A groundswell of interest has led to significant advances in understanding and using Culturally Responsive Arts Education to promote social justice and education. This landmark volume provides a theoretical orientation to these endeavors. Examining a range of efforts across different forms of art, various educational settings, and diverse contexts, it foregrounds the assets of imagination, creativity, resilience, critique and cultural knowledge, working against prevailing understandings of marginalized groups as having deficits of knowledge, skills, or culture. Emphasizing the arts as a way to make something possible, it explores and illustrates the elements of social justice arts education as "a way out of no way" imposed by dominance and ideology. A set of powerful demonstrations shows how this work looks in action. Introductions to the book as a whole and to each section focus on how to use the chapters pedagogically. The conclusion pulls back the chapters into theoretical and pedagogical context and suggests what needs done to be done practically, empirically, and theoretically, for the field to continue to develop.

For the first time, this volume provides a definitive collection of Gloria Ladson-Billings's groundbreaking concept of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP). After repeatedly confronting deficit perspectives that asked, "What's wrong with thosekids?, Ladson-Billings decided to ask a different question, one that fundamentally shifted the way we think about teaching and learning. Noting that "those kids" usually meant Black students, she posed a new question: "What is right with Black students and what happens in classrooms where teachers, parents, and students get it right?" This compilation of Ladson-Billings's published work on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy examines the theory, how it works in specific subject areas, and its role in teacher education. The final section looks toward the future, including what it means to re-mix CRP with elements of youth culture such as hip hop. This one-of-a-kind collection can be used as an introduction to CRP and as a retrospective of the idea as it evolved over time, helping a new generation to see the possibilities that exist in teaching and learning for all students. Featured Essays: 1. Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2. But That's Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 3. Liberatory Consequences of Literacy: A Case of Culturally Relevant Instruction for African American Students 4. It Doesn't Add Up: African American Students' Mathematics Achievement 5. Crafting a Culturally Relevant Social Studies Approach 6. Fighting for Our Lives: Preparing Teachers to Teach African American Students 7. Is the Team All Right? Diversity and Teacher Education 8. It's Not the Culture of Poverty, It's the Poverty of Culture: The Problem With Teacher Education 9. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the Remix 10. Beyond Beats, Rhymes, & Beyoncé Hip Hop, Hip Hop Education, and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Gifted Education is a professional learning tool for practitioners who are working to create more culturally responsive school and classroom environments. This book: Focuses on gifted and talented students from special populations, including those who are culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse. Is presented as a collection of essays written by educational advocates. Aims to increase the cultural competence of teachers and school leaders. Is organized in three sections: Culturally Responsive Practices; Race, Ethnicity, and Culture; and Gender, Sex, and Sense of Self. Provides readers with personal insights into the implicit biases that exist within the educational system and gifted programs. Each chapter illustrates the lived experiences of students from special populations and includes reflection questions for continued conversations and planning. Finally, an Educator Inventory is provided that tasks educators with reflecting on their own personal implicit biases and classroom practices related to the diverse populations of gifted and talented students in our schools.

The book suggests that culturally responsive and sustaining education should be the guiding principle in our schools, and that community partnerships be developed in a similar light. Although many of the chapters focus on specific content or places, a transdisciplinary problem and project-based experiential critical pedagogy is an ultimate goal. This necessitates developing awareness, advocacy and action / engagement regarding issues of race, ethnicity, gender, ability, choice, and culture to promote equity and social justice. The stories included in this collection are those of educators in a variety of contexts, but always through a public education framing. The stories come from educators at all levels of public education who are currently practicing in one of the most diverse urban areas of the U.S. Their experiences serve to provide hope for transformational change in education where the priority is truly equity and social justice for all. The idea is to provide voices of these brave educators who are striving to address equity and social justice issues is schools, education, and society – on their teaching and in the students’ learning.

This third book in the Prevention Practice Kit introduces the topics of social justice and cultural relevance in prevention practice - an increasingly important trend in the 21st century. Covering a wide range of research in this field, the authors skillfully help the readers understand, design, and implement social justice-driven, culturally relevant prevention efforts.

Exploring Spirituality and Culture in Adult and Higher Education is written from the unique perspective of teacher, researcher, and author Elizabeth Tisdell who has extensive experience dealing with culture, gender, and educational equity issues in secular adult and higher education classrooms, and formerly in pastoral and religious education settings on college campuses. This important book discusses how spiritual development is informed by culture and how this knowledge is relevant to teaching and learning. For educators, an understanding of how spirituality is informed by culture, and how spirituality assists in meaning-making, can aid in their efforts to help their students' educational experiences become more transformative and culturally relevant.

Although STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) has been diversely defined by various researchers (e.g. Buck Institute, 2003; Capraro & Slough, 2009; Scott, 2009; Wolf, 2008), during the last decade, STEM education has gained an increasing presence on the national agenda through initiatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES). The rate of technological innovation and change has been tremendous over the past ten years, and this rapid increase will only continue. STEM literacy is the power to “identify, apply, and integrate concepts from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to understand complex problems and to innovate to solve them” (Washington State STEM, 2011, Internet). In order for U.S. students to be on the forefront of this revolution, ALL of our schools need to be part of the STEM vision and guide students in acquiring STEM literacy. Understanding and addressing the challenge of achieving STEM literacy for ALL students begins with an understanding of its element and the connections between them. In order to remain competitive, the Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy has recommended that the US optimize “its knowledge-based resources, particularly in science and technology” (National Academies, 2007, p. 4). Optimizing knowledge-based resources needs to be the goal but is also a challenge for ALL educators (Scheurich & Huggins, 2009). Regardless, there is little disagreement that contemporary society is increasingly dependent on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and thus comprehensive understandings are essential for those pursuing STEM careers. It is also generally agreed that PK-12 students do not do well in STEM areas, both in terms of national standards and in terms of international comparisons (Kuenzi, Matthews, & Mangan, 2006; Capraro, Capraro, Yetkiner, Corlu, Ozel, Ye, & Kim, 2011). The question then becomes what might PK-12 schools do to improve teachers’ and students’ STEM knowledge and skills? This book will look at equity and access issues in STEM education from PK-12, university, and administrative and policy lenses.

This book centralizes the importance of using culturally relevant models within health promoting schools (HPS) to promote the participation of Black students. In current HPS models Black students are often overlooked. The author presses beyond the mainstream, science-focused research on HPS to grapple with issues of power, prejudice, and oppression and focus on the social determinants of health. By focusing on social constructs as a constraint to Black students’ wellbeing (rather than only disease), chapters present a multidimensional whole-school intervention aimed at comprehensively bridging the empowerment gap between Black students and historically privileged students.