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Teacher Educator Preparation for Diversity

Preparing teachers to work effectively with increasingly diverse school populations is a challenge that has received a great deal of attention worldwide. Much less attention has been devoted to the preparation of teacher educators themselves. There has been little systematic consideration of the knowledge, expertise, and experiential backgrounds needed to enable the teachers of teachers to work for diversity. This entry describes the problem of preparing teacher educators for diversity and provides an overview of the major approaches to studying and enhancing the education of teacher educators.

Overview of the Problem

It is now widely acknowledged that teachers are a key influence, if not the determining factor, in meeting the needs of the increasingly diverse school populations. The premise is that teachers must teach all students to world-class standards, thus producing a well-qualified labor force to compete in the global economy. At the same time, teachers are also expected to play a critical role in meeting rising social expectations about equality of opportunity and outcomes. However, there is a striking difference in the demographic and experiential profiles of the increasingly diverse student population in the United States and the relatively homogeneous teaching force. There is also continuing disparity between the educational opportunities and outcomes of majority and minority students. It is widely assumed that part of the task of teacher preparation is to equip teacher candidates to work effectively with students who differ from them in race, ethnicity, culture, language, socioeconomic level, and experience. Part of this preparation is “un-learning” taken-for-granted assumptions about difference, diversity, merit, content knowledge, culture, and language while simultaneously developing new instructional, curricular, and assessment strategies that are not only culturally appropriate but also effective.

The major question of this entry is how teacher educators themselves develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need, given that the demographic and experiential profiles of teacher educators are generally more similar to the homogeneous profiles of teacher candidates than they are to the profiles of the diverse student population. In short, the question is who educates the educators and how do they learn what they need to know? This is a largely neglected area about which there has been little systematic research and development. There are few specific programs or curricula for teacher educators, just as there are few models of curriculum reform or professional development for higher education.

Studying and Preparing Teacher Educators for Diversity

Educating teacher educators for diversity is complex. It is not always clear who should be regarded as a teacher educator—anybody who teaches education courses? those who teach arts and sciences courses to prospective teachers? those who supervise student-teaching experiences? In addition, two assumptions are often operating with regard to the selection and evaluation of teacher educators: the assumption that those who know subject matter or have specialized knowledge that teachers need (e.g., knowledge of the learning sciences, or knowledge of culture and language) also know how to be teacher educators; and that those who have been excellent teachers of students in K–12 schools automatically know how to be excellent teacher educators. Both of these assumptions are problematic.

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