Multicultural Teacher Education

Multicultural teacher education is an aspect of teacher education that focuses on the preparation of teachers to work with culturally, racially, and socio-economically diverse groups of students in a multicultural society. Rooted in principles of social justice and cultural pluralism, multicultural teacher education exists within the broader context of diverse teacher education programs across the country. Like multicultural education itself, it is a multidisciplinary project that draws on history and the social sciences, ethics, literature, and the arts, as well as theory, research, and practice in education. This entry provides an overview of multicultural teacher education in the United States, followed by societal complexities and persistent challenges related to demographics and the student–teacher “profile gap,” the “opportunity (achievement) gap,” and multicultural teacher education standards. It ...