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Jigsaw Group Readings #7 ((How young is too young? Exploring beginning…

- - - - "Writings in the philosophical or conceptual strand of the literature aim to tease out the meaning of social justice in abstract, philosophical and/or theoretical terms"
    - - "A third strand in the social justice literature includes ethnographic and narrative works that offer portraits of injustice related to schools and education, reflections by educators committed to social justice, and narratives about personal experiences of lived injustice"
      - "The overriding goal of much of the writing in this strand is to increase understandings of personal experience related to difference and discrimination"
    - - Involves the positions that are connected to specific leftist and or radical movements within academia. (Hytten 2011,pg. 16)
      - "Cultural studies parallels multiculturalism and critical pedagogy in that it is one of the more contemporary theoretically specific discourses that some social justice-oriented educators claim as their ideological home"
    - - "Novak (2000) argues that some of the difficulty we have making sense of social justice starts with the term itself"
      - "Differing perceptions of what social justice meant, from changing individual perspectives to understanding specific actions, let to uneven levels of commitment"
    - - They claim that among its primary purpose, education should help to promote the knowledge and skills needed for thoughtful citizenship.( Hytten 2011, pg. 19)
      - Weheimer and Kahne's vision of developing justice oriented citizens parallels that of other writers in this genre of social justice literature. (Hytten 2011, pg. 20)
  - - - According to Madeline, “kindergarten children don’t even understand the concept of money yet, or taxes.” It would be more appropriate, she said, to lead students in a discussion of “what kind of books” the library should buy. Ruth said she would encourage discussion of political issues, particularly if they related to students’ personal experiences (e.g., immigration). But she felt it would be “condescending,” “unreal,” and “too daunting” to present and discuss political platforms and ask students to discuss who they might vote for and why. She also worried about how they might construe her political views to their parents: “When it comes out of the mouth of a kid, with their ideas of what you said, it can be very misunderstood, and I’d rather take that chance on topics that are more important to me.” (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 2012)
    - - Judging on how they explained their answers, many appeared to be building upon largely unexamined assumptions about cognitive development gradually shifting from concrete and egocentric to abstract and other-oriented thinking and also upon messages implicitly conveyed by government-mandated, grade-specific curriculum guidelines rather than upon any studies of age-related responses from students. (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 2013)
    - - “In a manner similar to that described by Hollway and Jefferson (2000), we encouraged participants to tell stories about teaching experiences during the practicum that made them think about the social justice discussions they had had in their teacher education classes.” (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 205)
    - - “At the same time as participants anticipated differences by grade level, a few also said they did not want to make any assumptions in advance about developmental appropriateness that would unnecessarily limit their efforts to teach for social justice."
      - “Teaching for social justice often involves the incitement to and cultivation of political judgment-making… Half of those asked were open to the idea, while half thought it unworkable with children that young.” (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 211)
      - We have seen that the concept of childhood innocence helped to mediate the topics and approach to topics that teachers considered when addressing social justice issues with elementary school-aged children. Related to this concept, but analytically distinct from it, is the concept of developmental appropriateness. For the purpose of the discussion to follow, we examine three distinct yet intertwined aspects of developmental appropriateness: children’s cognitive, emotional, and political-evaluative capacities.(Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 209)
    - - The phrase “childhood innocence” is common and one that arose spontaneously in a number of first-round interviews. In general, when the participants talked about childhood innocence, they seemed to be invoking the notion of children as blank slates, occasionally expressing fear of disrupting children’s “natural” innocence (see Gittins, 1998). As Jackson (2006) argues, however, “The rhetoric of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘protection’ [associated with innocence] is not necessarily helpful to children or young people” (p. 251), as these concepts do not increase children’s abilities to know and understand the world. (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 207)
        
        The greater the belief in childhood innocence, the more likely teachers were to intimate or state that they would avoid “iffy,” “scary,” or “heavy” topics unless their early primary students raised them first. (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 207)
    - - First Element: The first element involves teachers in a critical analysis of social and institutional inequities and oppression based on gender, race, culture, sexuality, social class, ability, age, and so on. Anti-oppressive educators must assess who benefits and who loses in prevailing economic, political, and social arrangements. They must take into account the power of dominant institutions to perpetuate the status quo and shape what gets taken up as “common sense” and attempt to counter or interrupt oppressive power relations. They recognize that teaching is inevitably political because it involves decisions that affect both the distribution of power, status, resources, and opportunities as well as whose knowledge is recognized and validated. When teachers facilitate classroom discussions, for example, they must decide which issues to recognize as worthy of class time, or in using a particular textbook, teachers can elect to draw students’ attention to the omission or sidelining of subordinated groups—or not. In other words, teachers cannot be value neutral, even though the discourse of teacher neutrality currently circulates as common sense (see Kelly & Brandes, 2001). (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 203)
        
        The second element is a commitment to principled action to achieve social justice. Anti- oppression educators work to create classrooms where their students can think about where they stand on social issues and what they might do to ameliorate suffering and inequities among groups of people with whom they are familiar as well as those with whom they have had little or no contact (Greene, 1998). (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 203)
        
        The third element is the understanding that teaching and learning are social practices medi- ated by language and shifting social and historical contexts. Allied to this is a view of people’s identities as culturally produced within relations of power. The identities of children and youth, for example, have been historically constructed in dominant culture as opposite to that of adults (irrational, emotional, ignorant, carefree, etc.), and this construction has then been used to legit- imate curtailing their self-determination (e.g., power over what and how they learn in school). To say that children’s identities are culturally produced also emphasizes that they are active in this process, not just passively taught ideas and values by adults, as they are conceived in socialization theory. Children enter preschool not “as empty slates but rather bring with them a myriad of perceptions of difference that they have taken up from their families, peers, the media and other social sources and negotiated in the representations of their own identities” (Kelly, Brooks, 2009, p. 204)
- - - - White Disadvantage: The Effects of Racial Isolation on White Pre-Service Teachers
        
        “Fifty years after school desegregation, white middle class students are still being raised in racially segregated schools (Orfield, & Lee 2007), attending segregated social and religious institutions and having little or no experience with members of other racial groups.” (Abdullah, S. A., Llanes, J. R. & Henry, D. p.34).
        
        “Pre-service teachers most naturally bring their life experiences and prior classroom experiences as students into their initial teaching practice.” (Abdullah, S. A., Llanes, J. R. & Henry, D. p.34).
      - Literature Review
        
        Sirin, Brabeck, Satiani and Rogers Serin (2003) also point out that negative perspectives of certain cultures can prevent teachers from respecting their students. Abdullah et al. 2015, p. 35)
        
        Early national studies of Federal Programs observed cross-cultural classroom behavior and noted that white children were given more access by white teachers while children of color were kept away (Stallings, 1980),
        
        Ladson-Billings (1992) encourages white pre-service teachers to develop self concepts and understandings of their students that are based on historical facts and current events and avoid thinking of their students of color as victims of slavery and other forms of discrimination.
      - Methodology
        
        “The course described in this study was both classroom-based and field-based. Students were placed in schools and school-like environments where students performed a service learning activity.” (Abdullah, S. A., Llanes, J. R. & Henry, D. p.36).
        
        Analyzed 218 student essays from Foundation of Education school
        
        The sample that was observed consisted of all students who identified as and presented themselves as White, consisting of 218 students. The Spring cohort also contained 17 non-white students who are not part of the sample.
        
        A great majority of the students (83 per cent) in the course were women. The diversity in the class consisted of some regional diversity, but most of the students were from the Southeast United States, specifically, Alabama and Georgia, coming from mostly homogeneous primarily white middle to upper class communities according to their essays.
      - Results
        
        Values and morals are connected with race and economic status.
        
        One student discussed how grateful they were for their upbringing because it seems to have helped them avoid the phenomenon of white disadvantage. “From kindergarten through eighth grade I attended a Catholic school, where the majority of students were white. I am so grateful that my parents decided to send me to a public high school because it opened my eyes to so many different views and cultures.” (Abdullah et al. 2015, p. 39)
      - Recommendations
        
        If pre-service teachers have white disadvantage, it can be argued they shouldn't be able to teach.
        
        Pre-service teachers should also be exposed to multiple diverse populations in their practice and service learning experiences. Educations programs should facilitate more developmentally appropriate service learning, and require professionally relevant service learning with observation components before students can earn their license. (Abdullah et al. 2015, p. 40)
    - - Data and Methods
        
        “Recent research has found that teachers’ classroom-aggregate ratings on the Tripod predict students learning gains not only for the students who provided the rating but also for students in other classrooms of students taught by the same teacher” (Cherng, H. S., & Halpin, P. F. p.3).
        
        “The MET study only tracked teachers over year, not students. While many students contributed data in both years of the study, it is not possible to link student data over years, and hence it is not possible to use both years for multilevel modeling.” (Cherng,2016, pg 3)
      - Implications
        
        “ In the end, minority teachers, who likely possess tools to form strong ties with students, can help empower youth of all racial/ethnic identities.” (Cherng, H. S., & Halpin, P. F. p.11).
      - Discussion Summary
        
        “We also find mixed evidence that perceptions of minority students depend on the race/ethnicity of their teacher: Black students have particularly favorable perceptions of Black teachers, but the same is not true for Latino students and Latino teachers” (Cherng, H. S., & Halpin, P. F. p.6).
      - A Demographic Divide: The Importance of Racial/ Ethnic Mismatch in Teacher and Student Populations
        
        “Scholars have argued that positive student-teacher race matching effects may be explained in part by students having more favorable perceptions of minority teachers” (Cherng, H. S., & Halpin, P. F. p.2).
        
        “Although previous research has addressed teachers’ perceptions of students and explored questions of race matching, relatively little work has explicitly addressed whether students, and especially minority students, have more favorable perceptions of minority versus non-minority teachers.” (Cherng,2016, pg 2)
        
        “Teachers have higher expectations of White and Asian American students and lower expectations of Latino and Black students” (Cherng, H. S., & Halpin, P. F. p.2).
      - Analytical Strategy
        
        “This approach also allowed for examination of whether students have more favorable perceptions of co-racial/ethnic teachers by the inclusion of interactions terms between student and teacher race/ethnicity” (Cherng,2016, pg 5)
      - Results
        
        “ female students also have more favorable perceptions of teachers across six of the seven outcome measures (the exception is control, for which girls are similar in their perceptions to boys)” (Cherng, H. S., & Halpin, P. F. p.5).
        
        All Students respond better to minority teachers
        
        “In general, minority students have more positive perceptions of their teachers than White students” (Cherng,2016, pg 5)
- - - - “The course is designed to provide an equivalent of two units of classroom discussion and a one-unit internship, to deal with the topic of “diversity in students and settings.” (Abdullah, 36)
      - “Students were placed in schools and school-like environments where students performed a service learning activity. This was a required course for certification as a teacher in this state.” (Abdullah, 36)
  - - - “We address this question using a secondary analysis of the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) longitudinal database … An important feature of the study is that students were specifically asked to report on individual classroom teachers rather than the overall workforce of their schools.” (Cherng, 2016, p. 1)
        
        Students were giving surveys to rate their teachers
        
        Meant to measure the students perception and effectiveness of a teacher in relation to race.
    - - Challenge (8 items; alpha = 0.85): How well does the teacher motivate students to high academic standards?
      - Classroom Management (7 items; alpha = 0.85): How well does the teacher manage the behavior of students in the classroom
      - Care (3 items; alpha = 0.78): How well does the teacher build supportive relationships with students?
      - Confer (5 items; alpha = 0.78): How well does the teacher welcome the opinions of students?
      - Captivate (4 items; alpha = 0.83): How well does the teacher stimulate students’ interest in course material?
      - Clarify (5 items; alpha = 0.80): How well does the teacher use multiple strategies to explain course material to students?
      - Consolidate (4 items; alpha = 0.81): How well does the teacher make connections among the concepts taught?
    - - In general white teachers did not have as positive reviews or results as minority teachers.