Classroom Diversity: Connecting Curriculum to Students' Lives / Edition 1

by Norma Gonzalez, Ellen McIntyre, Ann S. Rosebery

Overview

Visit the Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence!

Why do we honor some students' background knowledge and ignore that of others? How can we build on the "gifts of diversity" in our classrooms? Classroom Diversity offers examples of teachers wrestling with these issues. It presents a new way to look at curriculum design and the learning that can result when we put students' funds of knowledge first.

Classroom Diversity takes a "sociocultural" approach to curriculum design, which provides minority and working-class students with the same privileges that middle-class students have always had: instruction that puts their knowledge and experiences at the heart of their learning. It presents both the theoretical framework for linking students' lives with curriculum and specific strategies from teachers who have done so successfully. Their stories show African American, Haitian American, Latino, Native American, and rural white students of Appalachian descent engaged in contextualized learning as they read and write and do mathematics and science across the grades. All of the classrooms described share one important characteristic: they use students' household-based funds of knowledge as resources for school-based funds of knowledge, building bridges in nontraditional ways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780325003320
Publisher:	Heinemann
Publication date:	01/18/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.31(d)
Age Range:	5 - 10 Years

About the Author

Norma Gonzalez is an Associate Research Professor in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. She teaches and does research in the area of anthropology and education, as well as in language socialization and borderland household analysis.

Ellen McIntyre is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at the University of Louisville, where she teaches literacy research and methods courses and studies children's literacy development in school and community contexts.

Ann Rosebery is a senior researcher at TERC, where she collaborates with teachers to improve science education for students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Table of Contents

Connecting Students' Cultures to Instruction, A. Rosebery , E. McIntyre & N. Gonzalez
Connecting Cultural Traditions: Making Comparisons, S. Maher , G. Epaloose & R. Tharp
Ring My Bell: Contextualizing Home and School in an African American Community, M. Foster & T. Peele
Unearthing the Mathematics of a Classroom Garden, L. Kahn & M. Civil
The Sound of Drums, F. Conant , A. Rosebery , B. Warren & J. Hudicourt-Barnes
Preschool Science: Contextualizing Curriculum with Children's Questions and Family Stories, M. Callanan, , P. Coto , L. Miranda , A. Striffler , J. Allen , C. Crandall , & C. Murphy
Agricultural Field Day: Linking Rural Cultures to School Lessons, E. McIntyre , R. Sweazy & S. Greer
Teaching History: A Cultural Approach for Primary-Grade Children, E. McIntyre & J. Archie
Creating Learning Communities: The "Build Your Dream House" Unit, M. Ayers , J. Fonseca , R. Andrade & M. Civil
Creating Links Between Home and School Mathematics Practices, R. Andrade , C. Carson & N. Gonzalez
Seeing, Believing, and Taking Action, N. Gonzalez , E. McIntyre & A. Rosebery