An education in diversity: our nation's students may reflect many races and cultures, but they all share the need for an education upon which to build their futures--and the future of the United States.

America the beautiful is increasingly becoming America the beautifully diverse. Long known as 'the melting pot," our nation is now a rich stew of spices from cultures around the world. As our diversity has increased even further in recent years, a new oxymoron has joined the English lexicon: majority-minority state.

In August 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that Texas was the latest state to become a majority-minority state, as its population was estimated as of July 2004 to be 50.2 percent minority. Texas joins Hawaii (77 percent), New Mexico (57 percent) and California (56 percent). The District of Columbia is estimated to be 70 percent minority. Five more states--Maryland, Mississippi, Georgia, New York and Arizona--are poised to join the ranks of the majority-minority states, with population estimates currently at around 40 percent. The Census Bureau counts the minority population as including all people except non-Hispanic single-race whites.

As our cultural diversity has increased, so has the awareness of the necessity for adapting teaching methods to meet the needs of all students. Educators now face special challenges, but in career and technical education, teachers have always faced the challenge of educating students with diverse needs and abilities.

Teaching and Unteaching

Prejudice is not something we are born with but something we acquire from influences around us. As Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote in their song for South Pacific:

"You've got to be taught to be afraid/ Of people whose eyes are oddly made/ And people whose skin is a different shade/ You've got to be carefully taught."

Parents concerned about both subtle and unsubtle influences of prejudice that their children encounter are still the first line of defense, but all too often, the burden to "unteach" what has been carefully taught falls upon teachers.

The National Coalition for Equity in Education (NCEE), based at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is a coalition of early childhood through university educators that supports the achievement of equity in education. The organization notes that educators are an important force in helping many people overcome the effects of societal bias and discrimination.

According to NCEE, "Equity in education is more complex than celebrating diversity. It requires articulating individual and school goals and making changes in practice."

The NCEE approach to achieving such equity includes an ongoing effort to learn about how bias and prejudice affect schools, teaching and learning. It also asks educators to confront their own beliefs and assumptions. Other elements of the NCEE approach include development of leaders who understand the issue and can build unity, and strategies that "address policies, practices and personal transformation while focusing on specific academic disciplines or school goals."

Another source of information for educators on strategies for dealing with diversity in the classroom is the Northeast and Islands Regional Education Laboratory at Brown University. The Lab at Brown notes that culture is central to learning, as it not only plays a role in communication of information but in shaping the thinking processes of groups and individuals.

The Lab cites the characteristics of culturally responsive teaching as the following:

* positive perspectives on parents and families

* communication of high expectations

* learning within the context of culture

* student-centered instruction

* culturally mediated instruction

* reshaping the curriculum

* teacher as facilitator

The Lab at Brown's Web site offers the what, why and how information on dealing with each of the elements it lists as characteristics of culturally responsive teaching. The Education Alliance at Brown University's book, The Diversity Kit: An Introductory Resource for Social Change in Education, supports the work of the university's Teaching Diverse Learners Web site where the information on culturally responsive teaching can be found.

So if those are the characteristics for multicultural teaching, what should be the characteristics of a multicultural curriculum? EdChange, an organization dedicated to diversity, equity and justice in schools and society, offers a list of "Seven Key Characteristics of a Multicultural Education Curriculum."

* Delivery must acknowledge and address a diversity of learning styles while challenging dynamics of power and privilege in the classroom.

* Content must be complete and accurate, acknowledging the contributions and perspectives of all groups.

* Teaching and learning materials must be diverse and critically examined for bias.

* Content must be presented from a variety of perspectives and angles in order to be accurate and complete.

* Students must be engaged in the teaching and learning process, learning from one another's experiences and perspectives (critical inclusivity).

* Students must be educated about social justice issues and civic responsibility.

* Curriculum must be constantly assessed for completeness, accuracy and bias.

While this may seem like an enormous task to add to an educator's already overwhelming burden, many career and technical educators who deal with a diverse classroom population and a variety of learning styles have already instinctively initiated many of these characteristics into their curricula.

A Social Process

A report from the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning (NCRCDSLL) called "Educating All Our Students: Improving Education for Children from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds" discusses the sociocultural theory of learning--that learning is also a social and cultural process.

According to the report, "Teachers are beginning to view learning as a social process, influenced by culture. Understanding the different expectations that children from different cultural backgrounds may bring with them to school can help teachers devise effective instructional approaches for all students."

The Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE) has continued the work of NCRCDSLL with its research program based on the five standards for effective pedagogy: joint productive activity, language and literacy development, contextualization/making meaning, challenging activities and instructional conversation.

Contextualized teaching has long been a staple of the career and technical classroom, but CREDE notes that, "Increase in contextualized instruction is a consistent recommendation of education researchers."

Career and technical educators know how an abstract theory can be learned more easily when students can connect it with a real-world application. In teaching culturally diverse populations, CREDE notes that culturally, meaningful contexts utilize "students' funds of knowledge and skills as a foundation for new knowledge."

This approach, according to CREDE, "fosters pride and confidence as well as greater school achievement."

To foster such confidence, however, may mean that teachers must put aside their own preconceptions about students from another culture. The truly successful teachers are those who genuinely believe in their students' abilities to achieve. The career and technical educators honored with awards by ACTE are often asked about how they motivate their students to succeed. Some of them teach in schools or classrooms where the students are largely minority and come from low-income families.

These outstanding educators may seem surprised by the question, because as one says, "It just never occurred to me that they couldn't do it."

The Face of Teaching

Recent studies have shown that minority students learn better from teachers who look like them, and programs such as the Minority Teacher Incentive Program of the Rock Island/Milan school district in Illinois--featured in this month's article, "Charging Up Careers"--are encouraging more minorities to enter the profession. Other areas of the country are also looking for solutions to the problem.

In Maryland, Bowie State University and the Prince George's County schools are addressing the shortage of African-American men in teaching through a new program that will help male teachers earn certification by paying for their classes and certification exam fees, reports a September 11 article in The Baltimore Sun.

When the Des Moines school district in Iowa received a $2.7 million U.S. Department of Education grant to attract quality teachers, the district's executive director announced that minority recruitment would be one of the main focuses, according to The Des Moines Register.

The purpose of the Oklahoma Association for Minorities in CareerTech Education (OAMCTE) is to increase awareness of career and technology education in minority youth and adults, and to provide leadership and direction in Oklahoma's economic and technical development. The spring newsletter from the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education reports that, at the Oklahoma leadership conference, OAMCTE stressed the value of being and becoming a career tech educator.

One new source of minority teachers has been the Troops to Teachers program. According to a report from the National Center for Education Information (NCEI), "Thirty-seven percent of Troops teachers are persons of color."

Only 15 percent of the overall K-12 public school teaching force is nonwhite.

The NCEI report also notes that, "Nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of Troops teachers are black, compared to only six percent of the overall teaching force; nine percent-compared to four percent--are Hispanic."

So while our nation's teaching force is still lacking when it comes to being completely representative of the student population, clearly efforts are being made to change that. In the meantime, teachers will have to continue to teach with an appreciation for the cultural diversity of the American classroom.

Throughout history, wars have been fought because of differences of race, religion and culture. Today that pattern continues, and although we clearly have battles to fight within our own borders when it comes to racism and bias, we have the opportunity to teach the world how to live in peace and understanding. In a nation so representative of world cultures, if the lessons of understanding and respect for others can be taught in our classrooms, then perhaps those lessons might spread to other nations.

As for career and technical education, it will continue to teach both life skills and job skills--skills for peace and prosperity. It's the American dream.

Exploring Diversity in Education

Here are some resources for exploring the issue of diversity in education.

The National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning www.ncela.gwu.edulpubslncrcdsllledall.htm

The National Coalition for Equity in Education http://ncee.education.ucsb.edu

The Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence www.crede.org

The Education Alliance at Brown University www.alliance.brown.edu

EdChange www.edchange.org

The American Association of University Professors "Resource Guide to Diversity in Education" www.aaup.org/issues/AffirmativeAction/ Articles/resources.htm

Susan Reese is a Techniques contributing editor. She can be contacted at susan@ printmanagementinc.com.