Diversifying the Teacher Workforce

Arguments for Diversifying the Ranks of Teachers

Various arguments have been offered for increasing the racial/ethnic diversity of the teacher workforce. The most frequently mentioned explanation—in both the education literature and the popular media—is that teachers of color can serve as role models for all students, but especially for students of color. The role model argument builds on an understanding that schools are not just places where academic knowledge is transmitted to students, but also places that help shape children's values in subtle yet powerful ways. When children encounter few teachers of color and instead see people of color overrepresented in nonprofessional roles in schools, they implicitly learn that people of color are considered less capable of holding responsible positions in society than their White peers. Some who subscribe to this role model argument further contend that to expose children to an overwhelmingly White teaching force silently teaches racism and ethnocentrism.

Because many children of color—particularly those from economically impoverished backgrounds—have limited access to successful professionals in their communities who are racially/ethnically similar to them, they are thought to derive considerable benefit from a diverse teaching force. As role models, minority teachers are said to inspire minority students to believe they too can grow up to occupy professional positions in society. White children are also thought to benefit from exposure to a racially/ethnically diverse teaching force. According to this line of thinking, daily contact with teachers of color challenges myths of racial/ethnic incompetence many White students have internalized from their socialization outside school.

A second major argument for diversifying the teaching force is that people of minority backgrounds have insight into the background experiences of racially/ethnically similar students. This familiarity enables minority teachers to design instruction that engages the students productively in learning. For example, a Hispanic teacher who is knowledgeable about the immigrant experience many of her Hispanic students have undergone is well positioned to use the learners' personal insight into this topic when teaching an instructional unit on immigration in social studies. Instead of teaching abstractly about reasons for immigrating to the United States and having students memorize these, that teacher could ask her immigrant students to interview their parents about why they came to the United States, thereby engaging both the children and their parents in the learning process and bringing the issues to life for nonimmigrant students in the class. The importance of helping students establish connections between their lives inside and outside school is stressed by current views of learning, which suggest that learners continuously use their background knowledge and experiences—both individual and cultural—to make sense of new ideas they are expected to learn in school.

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