Diversity Pedagogy

Inspired by the civil rights movement in the 1960s, diversity pedagogy emerged in response to the controversial early works that viewed ethnic minority and poor children as deficient due to cultural, language, ethnic, and economic differences. A diversity ideology in education can be defined as structures of visionary thinking or sets of beliefs, attitudes, ideas, opinions, assumptions, and theories that (a) address cultural, social, economic, and political context and curricular content of schooling and (b) examine human developmental issues, social and cognitive growth affecting individual, and group differences in the teachinglearning process. Theoretically, diversity ideologies improve the learning experiences of all children. They are especially concerned with a curriculum that includes relevant content and ensures access to equitable (fair and impartial) schooling opportunities for underserved students. Underserved children include students from ethnic minority groups, immigrant children, students whose home language is not U.S. English, and most children who attend high-poverty, underper-forming schools. Diversity pedagogy is a diversity ideology developed by Rosa Hernández Sheets that focuses on the natural and inseparable connection between culture and cognition in the teachinglearning process. It can be considered one of five major diversity ideologies. The other four major diversity ideologies—multicultural, antiracism, critical pedagogy, and critical race theory—primarily use a sociological foundation to address on the social, political, economic, and legal context of schooling. This entry introduces diversity pedagogy theory (DPT) and describes its structural aspects.

DPT provides educators with an organized set of pedagogical tools to help develop open-minded dispositions, gain a culturally inclusive knowledge base, and learn culturally responsive teaching strategies. It links culture, cognition, and schooling in a single unit. It unites classroom practice with a deep understanding of the role culture plays in the social and cognitive development of children. DPT views the natural connectedness of culture and cognition as key to incorporating multiple factors of diversity in the teachinglearning process. It acknowledges the indissoluble, joint role of culture and cognition in the human developmental process. Diversity pedagogy also recognizes the powerful, active role students play in their learning.

Structurally, DPT has eight dimensional elements. Each dimension has two interrelated parts: teacher pedagogical behaviors (TPB), which describe how teachers think and act in the classroom, and student cultural displays (SCD), which show the ways children express who they are and what they know. These two paired, side-by-side, tightly interconnected dimensional elements in eight dimensions serve to guide teacher and student behaviors. The eight dimensions are diversity consciouness of differences, identityethnic identity development, social interactioninterpersonal relationships, culturally safe classroom contextself-regulated learning, languagelanguage learning, culturally inclusive contentknowledge acquisition, instructionreasoning skill, and assessment self-evaluation

The eight dimensions are not hierarchal, do not take place in isolation, or occur in a given order. One dimension is not more important than another and one does not have to be mastered before another. In the classroom, the eight dimensions naturally intersect with each other. Teachers rarely behave in only one dimension and children will not demonstrate a single dimension. DPT theorizes that teachers who consistently recognize, interpret, and respond to student cultural displays have more opportunities to respond to students' [Page 299]academic, language, social, ethnic, and cultural needs. These teachers are more likely to consider the diverse characteristics, strengths, and competencies of their students. Awareness of student cultural displays increases the probability of teacher potential to support social growth, enhance ethnic identity development, maintain heritage language, and promote self-regulated behavior. This type of teacher behavior also makes meaningful connections between students' prior cultural patterns of knowledge to the intended acquisition of new knowledge.

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