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Academic Areas & Divisions
Curriculum & Instruction
Recent Publications of C&I Faculty
Strategic Transformation: Cultural and Gender Identity Negotiation in First Generation Vietnamese Youth
Stritikus, Tom & Nguyen, Diem. (2007) American Educational Research Journal, 44(4), 853-895
This article explores the various ways in which recent Vietnamese immigrant students form cultural and gender identities as they transition to U.S. schooling. Using data from a 2-year qualitative study that tracked the social and academic adjustment processes of recent Vietnamese immigrant youth, this article examines the tensions that students struggle with as they bring their own values and practices into the school site. The findings suggest that gender functions as a complex social category for recent immigrants that shifts across social contexts. The authors argue that accounting for a full picture of gender identity more accurately captures the manner in which recent immigrant students adapt to U.S. schooling.
Fast Kids, Slow Kids, Lazy Kids: Framing the Mismatch Problem in Mathematics Teachers' Conversations 
Horn, Ilana S. (2007) Journal of the Learning Sciences, 16 (1), 37-79.
This article examines the social nature of teachers’ conceptions by showing how teachers frame the “mismatch” of students’ perceived abilities and the intended school curriculum through conversational category systems. This study compares the conversations of 2 groups of high school mathematics teachers addressing the Mismatch Problem when implementing equity-geared reforms. Although East High teachers challenged conceptions that were not aligned with a reform, South High teachers reworked a reform mandate to align with their existing conceptions. This research found that the teachers’conversational category systems modeled problems of practice; communicated assumptions about students, subject, and teaching; and were ultimately reflected in the curriculum. Because East High teachers supported greater numbers of students’ success in advanced mathematics, this study considers the relation between teachers’ understandings of student learning and the success of equity-geared math reforms. In addition, this study contributes to the understanding of how teacher conceptions of students are negotiated and reified in context, specifically through interactions with colleagues and experiences with school reform.
Popular Websites in Adolescents' Out-of-School Lives: Critical Lessons on Literacy
Stone, Jennifer C. (2007). In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.), A New Literacies Sampler (pp 49-65). New York: Peter Lang. 
This chapter focuses on the textual analysis component of a three-pronged study looking at popular websites, by examining eight websites that adolescents commonly use outside of school. As I illustrate, these sites—despite popular conceptions that they are degrading literacy—actually engage young people in complex literacy practices that converge with many of the values of school-base literacies. However, these sites also raise several key issues that are currently not being addressed in official literacy learning contexts. In particular, I examine what literacies popular websites support for young people, how these relate to the literacies valued in school settings, and what issues these literacies raise for literacy curriculum and instruction.
Public Discourses in Schools: Purposes, Problems, Possibilities
Parker, Walter C. (2006) Educational Researcher, 35 (8), 11-18.
Classroom discussion can play an important role in the formation of citizens, and in more ways than one. Yet recitation persists as the discursive norm in classrooms, and the literature on discussion lacks clarity as to purpose. This article contributes a delineation of two purposes--interpretation (enlightenment) and decision making (engagement)--and argues that they are elemental to both discussion pedagogy and citizen formation. As practices, they upend recitation and offer an occasion for liberal eduation, including opening oneself to difference. The author aims to show that classroom discussion is useful both pedagogically and politically when the two purposes are articulated in a diverse school setting, and that critics risk their own interest when they dismiss the possibilities of discussion.
Democracy and Diversity: Principles and Concepts for Educating Citizens in a Global Age
Questions of how to teach for democracy and diversity are at the centre of education policy debates at national, European and international levels. In July 2006, the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds hosted the UK and European launch of a key new report Democracy and Diversity: Principles and Concepts for Educating Citizens in a Global Age. The Democracy and Diversity report and the conference were designed to encourage teachers and researchers to participate in these debates and develop policy and practice in this field.
Democracy and Diversity represents the product of two years collaborative work by an international group of scholars and teacher educators, led by Professor James Banks of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington, Seattle. Professor Audrey Osler, Director of the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights (CCHRE), was the sole European representative in the drafting group. The launch conference marked an important landmark in an ongoing collaboration between the University of Washington’s Center for Multicultural Education and CCHRE. Download pdf»
Curriculum Materials for Elementary Reading: Shackles and Scaffolds for Four Beginning Teachers
Valencia, S., Place, N., Martin, S., & Grossman, P. (2006) The Elementary School Journal, 107 (1), 93-120.
In this article, we address the ongoing call for research to be more relevant to educational policy and practice by focusing on the public controversy regarding bilingual education. To show how ethnographic research can be relevant, we present findings of two independent but parallel studies of how teachers implement bilingual education policies based on Proposition 227 in California. Findings from both studies indicate that the use of ethnographic methods yields a rich account of various factors that play a crucial role in determining how educational policy is implemented. In reporting on these ethnographic studies, we seek to provide an alternative voice in the ongoing discussion about the role of research in educational policy and practice.
Lessons Learned From Detracked Mathematics Departments
Horn, I. (2006). Theory into Practice, 45 (1), 72-81.
Students’ mastery of and achievement in high school mathematics is considered pivotal to their opportunities for and within postsecondary education. For this reason, many educators have attempted to implement equity-geared reforms, including detracking, that affect the organization and instruction of high school mathematics. This article describes how schools with successful detracked mathematics programs share 4 characteristics: (a) a view of subject that focuses on connections and meaning, (b) a curriculum focused on important mathematical ideas, (c) a balance of coordination and professional discretion for teaching decisions, and (d) clear distinctions between doing math and doing school in the structures of the classroom and the evaluation of students' thinking. This analysis can support other schools' attempts to detrack mathematics.
Why We Can’t Discuss Science Education Reform
Windschitl, M. (2006). Phi Delta Kappan, 87 (5), 348-355.
Abstract:
This article examines a children’s book writing workshop for middle school students of color in which 12 girls participated. The curriculum was developed to create intersections between students’ in- and out-of-school lives. The students’ writing within the workshop is analyzed by unpacking their “recontextualizations” of settings, characters, language, and popular culture.
Learning on the Job: A Situated Account of Teacher Learning in High School Mathematics Departments
Horn, I.S., (2005). Cognition and Instruction, 23 (2), pp. 207 - 236.
Abstract:
To investigate teachers’ everyday on-the-job learning, I used a comparative
case study design and examined the work of mathematics teachers in two high schools. Analysis of interviews, classroom observations, and teachers’ conversations highlighted three key resources for learning: (1) reform artifacts oriented the teachers’ attention to key concepts of a reform, while the interactions surrounding them established local meanings; (2) conversation-based classification systems communicated pedagogical assumptions; and (3) the rendering of classroom interactions in conversations shaped opportunities for teachers to consult with and learn from colleagues. Taken together, these learning resources provide a conceptual infrastructure for teachers to make sense of their practice. This research highlights the social and situated nature of teachers’ pedagogical reasoning and specifies the role of teacher community in teacher learning.
Textual tactics of identification
Gomez, M.L., Stone, J.C. , & Hobbel, N. (2004). Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 35 (4),
pp. 391 - 410.
Abstract: In this paper, we merge de Certeau’s theory of strategies and tactics with more recent work on socially situated identities to investigate how youth in one eighth-grade reading class withstood and resisted identities of “being remedial.” On the basis of observational and interview data collected during a year-long ethnographic study, we illustrate how students used various texts to participate in official school practices while subverting these practices.
Making A Difference: A Decade of Research, Teaching, and Service, 1992-2002
James A. Banks, Peter Cookson, Geneva Gay, Willis D. Hawley, Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, Sonia Nieto and Walter G. Stephan
2000/24 pp. Click here for Summary, Ordering Information, and How to Download.
Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education: Second Edition
James A. Banks, Cherry
A. McGee Banks, Editors (2003) Jossey-Bass
The second edition of the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, edited by James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks, was published in October by Jossey-Bass, an imprint of John Wiley & Sons.
The first edition of the Handbook was published in 1995 to provide the education community with an overview and summary of the theory and research in the field. The Handbook received a warm reception from scholars in the U.S. and abroad, receiving the 1997 Multicultural Education Book Award from the National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME)
The second edition of the Handbook grew out of the editiors' recognition that the field had evolved significantly, with new issues that had become important, such as the increase in immigration, the rising number of multiracial children in the U.S., and a focus on testing and accountability in schools.
Twenty-nine chapters from the first edition have been revised and updated, and 20 new chapters were added to this landmark volume. The second edition describes and analyzes the changes to the educational and social landscape of the U.S. and provides global perspectives.
The Handbook is divided into 12 parts that clarity the meaning and boundaries of multicultural education. Topics include trends and developments, ethnic groups in historical and social science research, language issues, academic achievement, higher education, and international perspectives on multicultural education. The volume also offers comprehensive and balanced analyses of key controversies and debates in the field.
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, the Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard University, comments on the second edition of the Handbook: "This comprehensive and enlightening volume embraces the major research and scholarship in multicultural education -- tracing historical themes that shape our contemporary views, crossing disciplinary boundaries, joining theory and practice, and provoking a new public discourse about navigating the twin goals of excellence and equity in education. The Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education will surely be a valuable resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers."
The Handbook may be ordered from Jossey-Bass (ISBN 0-7879-5915-4)
Exploring test performance in mathematics: The questions children's answers raise.
Kazemi, E. (2002). Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 21, 203-224.
Abstract:
This article investigates children's mathematical performance on test items, specifically multiple-choice questions. Using interviews with 90 fourth-graders, it reveals why particular kinds of items are more or less difficult for students. By using multiple choice questions and juxtaposing them with similar open-ended problems, the findings underscore the costs of not attending to children's thinking in designing and interpreting problems. The data from this study suggest that when answering multiple choice questions, students' attention is drawn to the choices themselves. They do not necessarily think through the problem first and thus make their choices based on (often incorrect) generalizations they have made about problem solving. Whether students answered a multiple-choice question or a similar open-ended problem first impacted both their performance and their reasoning. Moreover, children draw on their life experiences when the context of the problem is salient, thus ignoring important parameters of the stated problem. Implications for investigating children's thinking, instruction, and test design are discussed.
Promoting conceptual thinking in four upper-elementary mathematics classrooms.
Kazemi, E., & Stipek, D. (2001). Elementary School Journal, 102, 59-80.
Informed by theory and research in inquiry-based mathematics, this study examined how classroom practices create a press for conceptual learning. Using videotapes of a lesson on the addition of fractions in 4 primarily low-income classrooms from 3 different schools, we analyzed conversations that create a high or lower press for conceptual thinking. We use examples of interactions from these fourth- and fifth-grade lessons to propose that a high press for conceptual thinking is characterized by the following sociomathematical norms: (a) an explanation consists of a mathematical argument, not simply a procedural description; (b) mathematical thinking involves understanding relations among multiple strategies; (c) errors provide opportunities to reconceptualize a problem, explore contradictions in solutions, and pursue alternative strategies; and (d) collaborative work involves individual accountability and reaching consensus through mathematical argumentation.
Teaching Democracy: Unity and Diversity in Public Life
Idiot (idiotes) was a term of reproach in ancient Greece reserved for persons who paid no attention to public affairs and engaged only in self-interested or private pursuits, never mind the public interest-the civic space and the common good. This book is about the role schools can play in the contemporary struggle against idiocy, that is, the quest for a just democracy in a diverse society. It is at once a book about citizenship education and multicultural education. Democratic character development (moral education) is central to both of these because neither democratic living nor justice appears magically out of the blue. Both are hard-won cognitive, moral, and social achievements; none of us wanders into them accidentally, easily, or alone. Access to such an education is a central topic, too, because it does not now widely exist nor can it ever be assumed in a society where educational opportunity is so unequally allocated, school funding so inadequate and wildly uneven, and where economic motives for education so often overtake liberal (mind-expanding) and public (community-building) purposes.
Education for Democracy: Contexts, Curricula, Assessments
There can be no democracy without democrats. Democratic modes of association are not given; they are created, and much of the creative work is undertaken by citizens who share some understanding of what it is they are trying to build and sustain together. These citizens are not given either. They are not "natural"-born already grasping principles of democracy such as toleration, equality and impartial justice, or the need for limits on majority power. They are not born already inclined toward or capable of deliberating public policy issues with other citizens whose beliefs and cultures may be sharply different. These things are not, as is everywhere too apparent, born into our genes. They are social, moral, and intellectual attainments, and they are hard won. This is why educators are asked to meet the challenge of educating democrats.
Immigrant Children and the Politics of English-only Views from the Classroom
Stritikus examines the effects of California's anti-bilingual initiative, Proposition 227, on the education of Latinos. He highlights the teachers' role in enacting the policy, studying two schools which developed their own Proposition 227 implementation plans. One ended its bilingual program and began a program of English immersion, and a second maintained its bilingual program through obtaining parental waivers.
Using sociocultural analysis of classroom observation data, Stritikus shows how Proposition 227 implementation legitimized questionable educational practice and made effective teaching more difficult. His research documents how teachers actions under the policy were closely connected to their political and pedagogical ideologies.
Below the Bar: Profiles of students who fail state reading assessments
Riddle Buly, M. & Valencia, S.W. (in press). Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
In this study, we probed beneath students' failing scores on a state reading assessment and found that reading failure is multifaceted and individual. These struggling readers exhibited several distinctive patterns of performance that contributed to their poor scores. We argue that understanding this complexity is essential for reform-oriented policies aimed at improving teaching and learning. One-size-fits-all policy cannot possibly meet the real needs of all students.
Framing Constructivism as the Negotiation of Dilemmas: An Analysis of the Conceptual, Pedagogical, Cultural, and Political Challenges Facing Teachers
Windschitl, M. (2002) Review of Educational Research 72 (2), 131-176.
This article presents a theoretical analysis of constructivism-in-practice by building a framework of dilemmas that explicates and interrelates the conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political planes of the constructivist teaching experience.In addition to providing a unique theoretical perspective for researchers, the dilemmas framework has significant implications for teachers in examining their own practice. In this capacity as a heuristic, the framework has embedded throughout it a number of critical questions that prompt teachers to interrogate their own beliefs, to question institutional routines, and to understand more deeply what forces are at work to influence their classroom practice.
Unpacking the social imaginary of literacy education: A case study
Stone, J.S. (2003). English Education, 36(1), 35-55.
Abstract: Stone examines the tension between basic skills and whole language discourses in literacy education. She demonstrates how prospective teachers recruit their own experiences to position themselves within this binary and suggests important ways in which university coursework and practicum placements can provide a context in which preservice teachers might make sense of the social imaginary of literacy education
Internet Environments for Science Education
Linn, M.C., Davis, E.A.,Bell, P. (Eds) (2004) Internet Environments for Science Education. Erlbaum
This book synthesizes 25 years of research to identify effective, technology-enhanced ways to support students in becoming lifelong science learners--one inquiry project at a time. This approach to technology-enhanced inquiry takes advantage of global, networked information resources and socio-cognitive research on learning and teaching to better understand how to design responsive learning environments.
Curriculum & Instruction
