This increased racial diversity is coupled with an increase in linguistic diversity, with nearly 5 million emergent bilingual (and multilingual) students learning English in public schools (de Brey et al., 2019). Dept. of Ed
Students in U.S. public schools are also diverse by ethnicity culture gender sexual orientation and family structure among a myriad of other factors (Herman, Flores, Brown, Wilson, & Conron, 2017; “Get to Know,” 2018).
Student Learning—A teacher capable of fostering student learning makes a careful assessment of what knowledge and skills students build with and builds from there.
Cultural competence, which “refers to helping students to recognize and honor their own cultural beliefs and practices while acquiring access to the wider culture, where they are likely to have a chance of improving their socioeconomic status and making informed decisions about the lives they wish to lead.”
Critical Consciousness allows students to question the veracity of what they read in the classroom and pose powerful questions about social, cultural, economic, political, and other problems of living in a democracy that attempts to serve a diverse populace.
Without this space for dialogue and questions, or this reassurance that we will listen, we send the message to kids they must keep carrying on. --Sara K. Ahmed, 2018