{"id":750,"date":"2004-09-01T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-09-01T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/cite\/2016\/02\/09\/double-infusion-toward-a-process-of-articulation-between-critical-multicultural-education-and-technology-education-in-a-teacher-preparation-program\/"},"modified":"2016-06-01T20:05:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T20:05:49","slug":"double-infusion-toward-a-process-of-articulation-between-critical-multicultural-education-and-technology-education-in-a-teacher-preparation-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/volume-4\/issue-4-04\/general\/double-infusion-toward-a-process-of-articulation-between-critical-multicultural-education-and-technology-education-in-a-teacher-preparation-program","title":{"rendered":"Double Infusion: Toward a Process of Articulation Between Critical Multicultural Education and Technology Education in a Teacher Preparation Program"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Multicultural education is a relatively young reform movement that has sought to create a national discourse about deeply rooted cultural issues related to fairness, equality, justice, and freedom and the implications for schooling in the United States (US). Part of this discourse has centered on how teacher preparation programs can prepare competent culturally sensitive teachers for US schools. Recent changes in the ethnic composition of the US school population and a global movement toward an interdependent market economy has brought scholars in the field of multicultural teacher education to reconceptualize, retheorize, and reform its approaches to achieve its unchanging mission. This mission is to help prospective teachers develop attitudes, knowledge bases, and dispositions that will enable them to function sensitively and responsibly in schools and society (Banks & Banks, 2002; Nieto, 2000).<\/p>\n
Within this reformation, new questions have emerged about how digital learning technologies can be harnessed effectively to support the production of multicultural learning outcomes for prospective teachers. An increasing amount of scholarly literature has highlighted collaborative efforts occurring between these two areas within teacher education (Damarin, 1998; Gorski, 2002; Marshall, 2001; McCormick & Allen-Sommerville, 2000; Munoz, 2002). More specifically, the literature documents growing interest in how digital learning technologies can support both the pedagogical and programmatic goals of multicultural teacher education (Donaldson & Carter, 2000; McShay & Leigh, in press; Sleeter & Tettegah, 2002)<\/p>\n
These larger discussions explore the question about whether teacher preparation programs can work toward preparing preservice teachers to become culturally responsive teachers through the use of technology. However, less attention has been directed to exploring how recent conceptions of multicultural education, namely critical multicultural education, can be supported by Web-based learning environments and, as a result, produce a different range of multicultural learning outcomes for preservice teachers. This possibility holds great importance for teacher preparation programs.<\/p>\n
Two key issues attributed to the lack of scholarly research in this area include the views that the goals of instructional technology and multicultural education are perceived by some to be more divergent than shared (Damarin, 1998; Munoz, 2002). Second, on a national level, there is little to no consensus about which type of multicultural conceptual framework should be used to support the learning goals of teacher preparation programs. This issue within teacher education undoubtedly stems from what Grant and Sachs (2000) referred to as the lack of academic solidarity within the field of multicultural education. Grant and Sachs (and others\u2019) concern raise important questions for the technology teacher educator. These questions include the following: Due to the evolving nature of both multicultural education and instructional technology, how can the educational leaders in these areas work together to re-articulate the changing aspects with regard to innovative technologies, conceptual approaches, shifting trends, and emerging problems in their respective fields? What steps should be taken to develop a process of articulation that would bridge the growing gap between these two areas? How can teacher educators support the growing movement to use critical multicultural frameworks in multicultural teacher education through the use of technology?<\/p>\n
The first section of this paper describes the goals of critical multicultural education and current challenges that work to impede its integration within teacher education programs and, more specifically, technology in teacher education. The second section introduces a new infusion model that offers both technology and multicultural teacher educators a process for simultaneously infusing critical multicultural perspectives into their respective curricula through the use of technology. The third section identifies digital technologies that support critical multicultural pedagogical practices and provides a brief review and preliminary evaluation of a case project exploring how meaningful learning connections between critical approaches to multicultural education and technology in teacher education courses can be established. Finally, the author calls for technology and multicultural teacher educators to work toward strengthening the process of articulation between their respective fields.<\/p>\n
Critical Multicultural Education<\/p>\n
Early Conceptions of Multicultural Education<\/p>\n
The exploration of possibilities and opportunities for technology use within critical multicultural education in teacher education begins with an articulation of the goals of critical multicultural education. However, it is important to provide background information on the historical development of multicultural education in an effort to clarify distinctions between it and the later critical approaches, which is described in this paper.<\/p>\n
Early conceptions of multicultural education grew out of the civil rights era of the 1950s and 60s. Impassioned early supporters of this movement were driven by the realization that a majority of the organizational practices within schools were limiting learning opportunities for students of color, particularly, African American children. Proponents of this movement charged that schools\u2019 failure to provide equitable learning environments for students of color would have damning implications for their academic, social, and psychological development. Over time, multiculturalists\u2019 called for schools to be deliberate in their efforts to serve the needs of all students regardless of their social identity group membership.<\/p>\n
Even though calls for greater inclusion and the utilization of human relations and compensatory approaches to address inequalities in schools received some degree of acceptance, emerging multicultural critics maintained that the purpose and scope of this conception of multicultural education was limited and, as a result, unable to reach its overarching goal (Giroux, 1992; Sleeter & Grant, 2003). Moreover, these critics claimed that traditional conceptions of multicultural education did not do enough to challenge the ways in which monocultural power structures upon which school institutions were based produce and perpetuate school inequalities. Nevertheless, calls for a reconceptualization of multicultural education were slow to take root in a majority of teacher education programs across the US.<\/p>\n
Critical multicultural scholars within teacher education programs made a central part of their work analyzing the conceptual framework supporting the development of multicultural education programs. This effort was an attempt to determine the underlying causes of the lack of success in institutionalizing approaches seeking to ensure that equitable education is provided to all students in K-12 schools. The periodical literature on critical multicultural education revealed that multicultural education had an underdeveloped theoretical base, which rendered it incapable of challenging dominant organizational structures within schools (Dolby, 2000; Giroux, 1992). Critical multiculturalists charged that, as schools embraced mainly assimilationist approaches to combat inequalities in schooling, discourse about the educational needs, home culture, and social status of the learner would always take center stage. However, discussions about the role that schools play as institutions in shaping students\u2019 learning experiences would simultaneously be pushed to the periphery. Calls for multicultural education to bare its conceptual inadequacies and retheorize its approaches that seek to move schools toward providing equitable education for all students, therefore, became louder and more prevalent.<\/p>\n
Organizational Challenges Impeding Curriculum Reform<\/p>\n
Multicultural teacher educators have attempted to answer the call to help preservice teachers more fully understand the goals of critical multicultural education and its implications for K-12 schools by calling for teacher education curriculum reform. Similarly, instructional technology faculty members have been charged to reform the curriculum in an effort to improve school learning by helping preservice teachers develop technology-based competencies that aid them in the process of infusing technology into the K-12 curriculum. These concurrent movements toward curriculum reform within teacher education have created a new collaborative opportunity for technology and multicultural teacher educators. Seizing this opportunity requires that both program areas go beyond independent attempts to infuse technology concepts and multicultural concepts into the teacher education curriculum by simultaneously integrating the themes, concepts, issues, and perspectives from both fields into the curricular experiences of the preservice teacher.<\/p>\n
Leavell, Cowart, and Wilhelm (1999) commented on how the organizational structure of teacher education programs can inadvertently affect preservice teacher learning. They maintained that if prospective teachers are offered learning experiences that are either consciously or unconsciously disconnected from other curricular content their perspectives about the value of interdisciplinary learning will be limited. Dewey (cited in Noddings, 1998) stated that \u201cstudents should experience a personally unified curriculum and the lines between disciplines should be less rigid\u201d (p. 38). An interpolation from Dewey\u2019s remark would suggest that offering prospective teachers opportunities to learn how the course content within their program of study is connected to other areas would strengthen their preparation as teachers.<\/p>\n
Instructional technology and critical multicultural teacher education agendas (uncommon with other program areas) are rarely pursued collectively to achieve educational goals. Because of this, it is a challenge for prospective teachers to envision how technology can be used to support the learning goals of critical multicultural education and, conversely, how critical multicultural education can be used to support learning within a technology context.<\/p>\n
Ziechner and Gore (1989) reported another organizational concern within teacher education. They maintained that prospective teachers are prone to developing objectivist views about education because they tend to be trained in learning environments where the actual theories they are being taught to use in their future classrooms are not modeled. For example, within instructional technology classroom settings, preservice teachers are taught ways that technology could be integrated into the K-12 curricula to produce meaningful learning. Similarly, in a multicultural education course, students learn that critical multicultural education is pervasive in nature, which means that it should be infused across all levels and aspects of the school curricula and social system. The organizational structure of most teacher education programs should work to increase opportunities for preservice teachers to observe these key elements of these program areas in practice, subsequently, expanding their views about the scope of learning opportunities available to students within the area of study.<\/p>\n
The Double Infusion Model<\/p>\n
However, the question remains, what are ways in which educational leaders in these areas can work together to articulate changing technologies and conceptual approaches in their respective fields? And subsequently, what steps should be taken to develop a process of articulation that will seek to strengthen the connections between these two areas?<\/p>\n
In an effort to respond to these questions, this paper describes a model that uses a critical multicultural conceptual framework to support the infusion of simultaneous technology and multicultural-based learning experiences across the teacher education curriculum (McShay & Leigh, in press). Specifically, this double infusion model offers technology and multicultural teacher educators a systematic process for helping preservice teachers become proficient in using technology to enhance student learning in K-12, while they work toward strengthening their conceptions of critical multicultural education.<\/p>\n
The double infusion model is based upon a critical multicultural conceptual framework used widely within multicultural teacher education. Aspects of this framework have its roots in the work of Gay (2002), who contended that prospective teachers should critically examine four areas within their multicultural teacher education program: (a) self knowledge, (b) cultural differences, (c) knowledge of pedagogical skills for diverse learners, and (d) community involvement practices. Other conceptual areas providing the basis for the double infusion model come from the research of Sleeter (2000), Boyle-Baise and Sleeter (1998) and Nieto (2000). These researchers all support the view that prospective teachers can learn to embrace critical multicultural perspectives on K-12 schooling and society by investigating the historical roots of racism in the US to gain an understanding the nature and impact of oppression based upon race, social class, gender on academic achievement, and broaden their conceptions about the nature of culture. This double infusion model was developed to help prospective teachers systematically examine these conceptual areas through both the technology and multicultural teacher education curriculum.<\/p>\n
Double Infusion at the Program Level<\/p>\n
Figure 1<\/a>, double infusion at the program level, depicts a teacher preparation program committed to incorporating critical multiculturalperspectives throughout its curriculum. The separate effort to infuse multicultural concepts into the curriculum is depicted in Figure 1 by the blue boxes and circles on the left. Critical multicultural themes and perspectives inform a foundational, required multicultural course, which in turn, influences perceptions and experiences of both faculty and students in the remainder of the curriculum. In addition to the influence of the required foundational course, the remaining core and elective courses are also directly informed by multicultural literature and research. The preservice teachers are, thus, exposed to critical perspectives on multicultural education, depicted by small blue circles that contribute to their total curricular experiences.<\/p>\n Figure 1<\/strong>. Double Infusion Model \u2014 Program Level<\/p>\n Similarly, there is a separate effort and commitment to model and provide technology experiences for the preservice teachers. The yellow circles and boxes at the right of the figure represent these concepts and their infusion into the curriculum. There is a foundational technology course that is a part of the required core curriculum. This course, which is informed by technology literature and research, also influences the remaining courses in the teacher education program. Ultimately, students are exposed to technology concepts, depicted by the yellow circles, also adding to their total curricular experiences. The green circles in the diagram portray curricular experiences after this double infusion. The callout diagram, double infusion at the course level, at the upper right hand corner of Figure 1, depicts in more detail the multicultural concepts or layers of knowledge incorporated into the students\u2019 courses and experiences.<\/p>\n The double infusion model calls for prospective teachers to explore how cultural identity, values, and behaviors are related to three overlapping domains of knowledge: knowledge of self<\/em>, knowledge of other<\/em>, and knowledge of community\/society<\/em> (for an expanded discussion on these knowledge domains refer to McShay & Leigh, in press). The goal for the teacher educator would be to provide learning experiences for preservice teachers that will enable them to explore each knowledge domain as they learn about technology use or critical multicultural education within their courses.<\/p>\n Table 1 provides a description of the primary learning goals with respect to each layer of knowledge. The technology teacher educator\u2019s role would be to help prospective teachers develop proficiency in achieving a broad range of technology-based learning objectives, such as creating multimedia projects, spreadsheets, and Web pages, while simultaneously working toward the learning goals represented in each domain (see Table 1). Specific projects and activities that might embody double infusion approaches may include using computer mediated communication technologies to participate in an online intercultural exchange, developing a Web site for a community-based organization (i.e., Boys and Girls Club or Big Brother Big Sister\u2019s program), or using video production software to complete a relevant oral history presentation.<\/p>\n Table 1<\/strong>
\nDouble Infusion Model: Domains of Knowledge<\/em><\/p>\n