Diversity in education: a dialogue or monologue?

Abstract

Classrooms grow increasingly diverse yearly and encouraging an inclusive environment may be difficult as time is rapidly changing. When mirroring the pedagogies teacher candidates are learning, it is important for them to continuously encourage diverse perspectives in their own classrooms. Learning should be done through many collective lenses of multicultural education to allow debate and differential opinions to enhance learning beyond the classroom. Addressing hard topics and stereotypes to learners in an appropriate way can be difficult. It is important for teacher candidates to lead by example when it comes to diverse thinking and promoting self-discovery. Comparing materials that teacher candidates have to read and looking at many educational leaders’ work like Wayne Au and Lisa Delpit, can help in understanding different aspects of multicultural education and raises the question of how can teacher candidates accurately and effectively address diversity in their classroom.