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Center for
Multicultural Education
Recent Events
See Upcoming Events »See Older Events »
Summer Seminar in Curriculum and Instruction: Professor Suzanne Romaine, Instructor.
Language, Culture, and Identity: Implications for Policy, Planning, Teaching, and Learning
The varied cultural and linguistic contexts existing in contemporary societies around the globe pose complex challenges for policy makers and planners as well as for teachers and learners. The pervasive presence of some degree of multilingualism indicates a universal need for multilingual/multicultural policy and planning to ensure that members of different language groups within nations have access to and can participate in national affairs without discrimination. Because issues of identity, culture, power, and nationhood are linked closely to the use of specific languages in the classroom, policies concerning choice of language(s) as the medium of instruction are essential. This courseprovided an international perspective on language, culture, and identity by examining some critical dimensions of policy planning, teaching, and learning. Students will have the opportunity to engage with theoretical and practical aspects of the subject with reference to specific case studies in countries around the world.
Book Talk: Tyrone Howard: Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in America’s Classrooms
March 4th, 2011
In his new book, Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in America’s Classrooms, Professor Howard describes the changing racial, ethnic, and cultural demographics in U.S. schools and calls for educators to pay serious attention to how race and culture play out in school settings. While race and culture remain important variables in how young people experience schools, they are often misunderstood by educators and school personnel. Building on the work of three studies that investigated schools that were successful in closing the achievement gap, Professor Howard shows how a greater awareness and a comprehensive understanding of race and culture can improve educational outcomes. This book is important reading for anyone who is genuinely committed to promoting educational equity and excellence for all children.
Fall 2010 Symposium: Guadalupe Valdés
Guadalupe Valdés, professor of education at Stanford University, was the featured speaker at the Center's fall symposium lecture on November 19 at the UW Club. Past speakers have included Gloria Ladson-Billings, Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, and Claude Steele.
Valdés's research explores many of the issues of bilingualism relevant to teachers in training, including methods of instruction, typologies, measurement of progress, and the role of education in national policies on immigration. Specifically, she studies the sociolinguistic processes of linguistic acquisition by learners in different circumstances—those who set out to learn a second language in a formal school setting (elective bilingualism) and those who must learn two languages in order to adapt to immediate family-based or work-based communicative needs within an immigrant community (circumstantial bilingualism). Her research in these areas has made her one of the most eminent experts on Spanish-English bilingualism in the United States.
Book Talk: Patricia A. Banks, Represent: Art and Identity Among the Black Upper-Middle Class
Patricia A. Banks is featured in the Center for Multicultural Education's Book Talk series on May 14, 2010. In her book, Represent: Art and Identity Among the Black Upper-Middle Class, Banks traverses the New York and Atlanta art worlds to uncover how black identities are cultivated through black art patronage. Drawing on over 100 in-depth interviews, observations at arts events, and photographs of art displayed in homes, Banks elaborates a racial identity theory of consumption that highlights how upper-middle class blacks forge black identities for themselves and their children through the consumption of black visual art. More»
Education for Diversity in a Global Society: A Puget Sound Regional Conference and Publication Launch
International multicultural education was the theme for a daylong conference at the UW Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 that was also a book launching event for The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education, edited by the UW's James Banks.
The conference, titled "Education for Diversity in a Global Society," featured authors whose work appears in the volume.
Seminar in Curriculum and Instruction , July 13-24, 2009
Gloria Ladson-Billings — Culturally Relevant Teaching:
Theory and Practice
In a standards driven, high stakes tests environment is the construct of a culturally relevant pedagogy a viable, useful, or necessary one? This course was based on the premise that teachers can and do make a difference in the educational life chances of students and that difference can be enhanced through a culturally relevant approach.
Book Talk:
Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion.
The Area of Curriculum of Instruction and the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington presented the 12th Book Talk in its Book Talk Series, featuring Diana Hess, author of Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion.
Friday, May 8th, 2009
Book Talk:
The Latino Education Crisis/The Color of Success
Authors Patricia Gándara and Frances Contreras (The Latino Education Crisis) and Gilberto Conchas (The Color of Success) discussed their recent publications at the 11th CME Booktalk.
More»
Friday, February 20, 2009
25th CME Symposium Lecture: Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society
Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, New York University
One child in five in America is the child of immigrants, and their numbers increase each year. Very few will return to the country they barely remember. Who are they, and what America do they know? More»
October 24, 2008
Seminar in Curriculum and Instruction: Culture, Gatekeeping, and Learning Morale in Educational Settings
Culture has been conceptualized in differing ways. In schools various aspects of culture influence both the provision of instruction and the reactions of students to that instruction. Cultural judgments by educators can function for “educational gatekeeping,” as a means of judging and sorting students in ways that do not benefit them educationally; or cultural judgments can inform “learning morale building,” as a means of making learning environments maximally welcoming to and supportive of students. Relations between culture, gatekeeping, and learning morale in educational settings will be explored in the seminar through readings, lecture/discussion, and review of video examples. As a final exercise students will write a short reflective paper on major topics of the course.
July 7 – July 18, 2008
Frederick Erickson is George F. Kneller Professor of Anthropology of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where from 2000-2006 he has also been director of research at the Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School, UCLA's laboratory school. He received his bachelors and masters degrees in the history of music and his PhD in education at Northwestern University. His contribution to the field of anthropology of education has earned him numerous honors and awards including Spencer and Annenberg Institute for Public Policy fellowships, a Fulbright Award, and an Award for Scholarly Contributions to Educational Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association. Erickson’s writings on the microethnography of classroom and family interaction, and especially how this interaction affects disadvantaged students, continue to be ground-breaking and widely cited. His recent book, Talk and Social Theory: Ecologies of Speaking and Listening in Everyday Life (Polity Press, 2004) received an Outstanding Book Award for 2005 from the American Educational Research Association. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Research on Language and Social Interaction and Teachers College Record. In 1998-99 he was a fellow in residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, to which he returns as a fellow for the academic year 2006-07.
Teaching the Levees
The West Coast Launch of a Curriculum Guide about Teaching about Hurricane Katrina and its Aftermath
Co-Sponsored by the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington Seattle and the Education Program at the University of Washington Bothell.
This special event will consist of the West Coast launch of a Curriculum Guide that focuses on teaching about Hurricane Katrina and its meaning for America. 
This curriculum, created by educators at Teachers College, Columbia University and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, takes Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, as impetus, touchstone, and text for democratic dialogues in schools, colleges, and community organizations. The historical essay and curriculum units that comprise this book are designed to stimulate serious deliberation about the meaning of Hurricane Katrina and the breach of the levees. Discussions of race and class are often avoided in American schools, colleges, and communities. This curriculum aims to stimulate dialogue about these tough issues by posing the questions: Who are we as a country? What kind of country do we want to be?
May 2, 2008
Panel Members
Margaret Smith Crocco,
Teachers College, Columbia University
Michael Honey,
University of Washington, Tacoma
Joy Williamson,
University of Washington, Seattle
MODERATOR
Walter C. Parker, University of Washington, Seattle
Participants will be able to purchase of copy of the curriculum guide, TEACHING THE LEVEES, after the panel discussion and questions and answers.
23rd Symposium Lecture
Contingencies of Identity and Schooling in a Diverse Society:
Toward Reducing Inequality of Outcomes
Claude M. Steele
Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences at Stanford University
Friday, November 3rd, 2006
The University of Washington Faculty Club (Conference Room)
University of Washington
11:00AM-12:30PM
Claude M. Steele is director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences at Stanford University. His research interests are how people cope with self-image threats; how group stereotypes can influence intellectual performance; and addictive behaviors. Professor Steele is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize and the Distinguished Scientific Career Awards from both the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society. He has received honorary doctorates from Yale, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and the National Academy of Sciences. His papers have been published in numerous scholarly journals such as American Psychologist, Harvard Educational Review, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Center for Multicultural Education
