Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 1170e1178

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Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Parsing the language of racism and relief: Effects of a short-term urban eld placement on teacher candidates perceptions of culturally diverse classrooms
Elizabeth Bleicher*
Department of English, Ithaca College, 953 Danby Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 14 November 2010 Received in revised form 2 June 2011 Accepted 3 June 2011 Keywords: Teacher education Multicultural education Field placements Cross-cultural Cultural immersion Field experience Urban education Student teaching Multicultural curriculum Pre-service teachers

a b s t r a c t
This three-year study combines qualitative and quantitative analyses of effects of a one-week, intensive urban eld placement on 95 suburban and rural teacher candidates self-reported perceptions of urban schools, students, teachers. Data was drawn from anonymous, open-ended, pre- and post-experience participant surveys; reections; and alumni interviews. Findings include improvement in condence in cross-cultural teaching abilities and interest in urban schools for future employment. Pre-service teachers perceptions can be meaningfully inuenced by a short-term, cross-cultural immersion program when it is situated within a mutually-reinforcing, multicultural education curriculum that offers signicant faculty scaffolding and structured reection. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction This study documents the effects of a one-week, intensive urban eld placement on 95 suburban and rural teacher candidates selfreported perceptions of urban schools and students, and of their own condence to teach a multicultural student population. Participants attended a private residential, masters university in the United States, where teacher education is conducted at undergraduate and graduate levels. Our institution faces the daunting task of preparing predominantly white, middle-class college students with limited or no experience of racial, ethnic or economic diversity, to teach students from cultures different than their own. During the three years included in this study, 2007e2009, 91% of teacher candidates in the humanities and sciences self-identied as white/ non-Hispanic. The cohorts racial demographics reect the growing racial disparity between teachers and students. As Gay et al. (2003) have noted, the public school population is growing more ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse while teachers remain predominantly monoracial, monoethnic, monocultural and monolingual (p. 8). Given the correlation between teachers skills and

* Tel.: 1 607 274 1531; fax: 1 607 274 7314. E-mail address: ebleicher@ithaca.edu. 0742-051X/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2011.06.001

dispositions and students academic achievement (Ladson-Billings, 2001; Marzano, 2003; Nieto, 2000), the need for effective multicultural teacher education has never been greater, especially those in the areas where teacher shortages most frequently occur (Rhee & Levin, 2006). As Wiggins, Follo, and Eberly (2007) note, cultural mismatch between teacher and students is not unique to the United States. Canada stakes its national identity on multiculturalism and legislates bilingual education as a matter of course, but is striving to better prepare teacher candidates concentrated in urban and suburban colleges to teach indigenous populations in rural areas. The United Kingdom has found that despite standards requiring that candidates understand how.learners are affected by a range of developmental, social, religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic inuences (Training and Development Agency for Schools, 2008), and mandating a citizenship course including diversity issues in the national curriculum, a government assessment found diversity content and instruction to be uneven at best (Ofce for Standards in Education, 2010).This is echoed by Australian scholars who assert that in a country in which over 200 languages are spoken, three of them indigenous, multicultural preparation is inconsistently and ineffectively addressed in teacher education (Santoro, 2009). So pressing are the effects of immigration on European Union schools that the European Commission (2010) has declared the urgency for

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improved multicultural teacher education, concluding that: all preservice teachers, not just second-language specialists, should receive multicultural education; the chief determinant of successful teaching in multicultural classrooms was teacher attitudes toward diversity; and teacher education should equip teachers with the skills to examine and reassess their attitudes toward other cultures (5). A carefully adapted version of the program under study here has the potential to cultivate these very skills and dispositions. As is the case for many teacher education programs, the relatively homogeneous populations in regional schools where candidates will student teach held the negative potential for merely replicating their upbringing in rural or suburban areas (Locke, 2005). Very few of our candidates have tested the validity of their perceptions of urban schools or experienced a lived context for theoretical multicultural education texts assigned throughout the curriculum. Without such tests, Kagan (1992) notes, candidates tend to use the information provided in course work to conrm rather than to confront and correct their preexisting beliefs (154). Our desire to help candidates confront and correct led to the formation of mutually benecial partnerships with two public schools in an economically-challenged, predominantly AfricaneAmerican neighborhood in New York City. In collaboration with our partner schools, we have spent the past 15 years conducting and rening the Urban Education Field Placement (UEFP), a highly structured, one-week immersion program offering advanced teacher candidates intensive professional development. During this study, 91% of participants was in the racial minority; for 42% of the candidates the UEFP was their rst experience of being in the minority. Writing about multicultural education has the potential to invite essentializing. In sharing information about a useful program, it is important to acknowledge distinctions among districts, school, pupils, and educators and the demographics and factors that shape unique school cultures. In this study, urban schools is used to mean public schools that are neither located in economically afuent areas within cities, nor designated as magnet or specialty schools for specic concentrations of study. There are many stars in the universe of urban schools, but these are not the high-needs schools likeliest to hire novice teachers. The present study is concerned with a predominantly white, middle-class cohorts perceptions of students who do not share their racial and socio-economic backgrounds, and who attend school in an economically-challenged neighborhood. Further, the term white is inadequate to express the range of identities it is being forced to represent. The fact that the majority of respondents self-identify as white, non-Hispanic is misleading because claiming mixed-race heritage or ethnicity during admissions was not an option. The candidate who proclaims himself urban, working class Italian American appears on paper to be approaching the cross-cultural eld placement from the same background as the rural candidate who refers to himself as a farm-boy intellectual. But their experiences of the placement were profoundly different. 2. Intervening in perceptions of race, class and education There is a signicant body of contemporary research afrming the benets of urban or cross-cultural eld experience in multicultural teacher education (Nieto, 2006; Nuby, 2010; ZygmuntFillwalk, 2005). Structured experiences with stigmatized groups also lead white college students to challenge and change perceptions and abandon stereotypes (Baldwin, Buchanan, & Rudisill, 2007; Cooper, 2007). However, dissenting voices assert that cross-cultural experiences do not automatically change candidates perceptions; some actually reinforce candidates stereotypes and assumptions (Erickson, 2009; Petersen, 2007). The distinction between benecial and harmful cross-cultural experiences is a combination of structure, supervision, and support

that enables candidates to process and synthesize the experience fully. New teachers frequently report feeling inadequately prepared to teach diverse students or in multicultural school settings (Futrell, Gomez, & Bedden, 2003; Valli & Rennert-Ariev, 2000). The UEFP is situated within an integrated curriculum that combines immersion experience with multicultural approaches, readings, and assignments to create the mutually-reinforcing curriculum research has found most effective in preparing teachers for culturally diverse classrooms (Paccione, 2000; Pohan, 1996). Candidates perceptions may be inuenced by a eld experience, but experience is educative only when combined with critical reection (Banks et al., 2005). The UEFP constitutes an intentional, mediated, cross-cultural experience such studies indicate is urgently needed. This study also demonstrates that an urban eld placement is still extremely relevant for a student population that should, in theory, be more culturally aware than the rst generation of teacher candidates for whom such experiences were originally devised. 3. Methods of research 3.1. Participants From 2007 to 2009 a total of 95 pre-service teacher candidates participated in the study. Their ages ranged from 21 to 42, with an average age of 24. The majority was female (66%), native speakers of English (99%) who self-identied as white, non-Hispanic. In the entire study, only four students self-identied as AfricaneAmerican, three as Asian American, and two as Latino. Participants identied the locations in which they grew up as 52% suburban, 40% rural, and 8% urban. Three students self-identied as learning disabled, all with attention decit disorders. None identied as physically handicapped. No socio-economic data was collected in this survey, however, 69% of all undergraduates receive some form of need-based nancial aid, and 81% percent of the graduate students in this studys three-year cohort received partial nancial aid. There was signicant economic diversity among the graduate candidates in the cohort; one or two graduates per year declined on ethical grounds to apply for nancial aid they did not need, and between three and ve candidates per year identied the cost of the single meal per day not covered during the UEFP as a nancial hardship. The majority had previously traveled to New York City as tourists, but two to ve per year had never been to this city before. All were pursuing graduate or undergraduate secondary education degrees in a specic subject area, or graduate degrees elementary education. The college faculty was comprised of between seven and ten professors per year, including one self-identied Latino and one French foreign national; most were female and self-identied as white, non-Hispanic. All are full-time members of the Education Department, or are the subject-area coordinators for secondary and graduate education. Five bring the experience of having lived and taught for extended periods in urban areas prior to work in this program. 3.2. Data collection and analysis The research questions that guided the study were: (1) What were teacher candidates expectations of urban schools, teachers, and students before the UEFP?; (2) Did candidates actual experience change their perceptions of urban schools, teachers and students?; and (3) Did the UEFP affect candidates perceptions of themselves as teachers of students from other cultures, or as potential teachers in urban schools? Data collected consisted of selfreported information: pre- and post-experience surveys comprised of open-ended and multiple choice questions, group interviews

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with alumni teachers, and teacher candidates written reection assignments. All participation in surveys was voluntary and anonymous; 2e8% of students per year chose not to complete the surveys. Preexperience surveys were distributed in methods classes and returned anonymously to a predetermined location; post-experience surveys were completed prior to participating in debrieng discussions with methods professors in class. The survey instruments were originally developed not to collect data for the present study, but to help faculty identify students at risk of not completing the placement, and to prepare participants to engage in deep reection upon their return. In the rst year of the study the original survey was administered. In the second year, a leading phrase in the rst question was deleted; other revisions included a clause to clarify a question about race, resequenced questions, and queries about candidates assumptions, community of origin, and community desired for employment (Appendices A and B). The resulting instruments yielded an unwieldy, rich bounty of data. Content analysis (Krippendorf & Bock, 2008) was employed for the rst round of emergent coding, which consisted of reading surveys, coding and analyzing responses to identify signicant patterns among answers and adjust categories. A graduate assistant reviewed a randomly selected subset of pre- and post-experience surveys to check for reliability in coding. Group interviews with alumni, conducted in the service of accreditation preparation, were facilitated by program chairs and transcribed by administrative staff; statements pertaining to the urban placements were extracted for this study. Reective essays on the experience of the placement (n 37) were donated by candidates after methods courses and nal grades were complete. Individual reections were used to illuminate or contrast larger trends revealed in the surveys. The resulting combination of quantitative and qualitative data was employed in a mixed-method approach to generate signicance enhancement, thus maximizing interpretations and understanding (Collins, Onwuegbuzie, & Sutton, 2006). Quantitative data indicate whether candidates perceptions of urban schools, teachers, and youth changed in a meaningful way, and qualitative data reveal how and why perceptions changed or persisted (Conner, 2010). 3.3. Locations The UEFP takes place in two schools in Harlem, a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. Since the 1920s, Harlem has been identied as major AfricaneAmerican residential and cultural center. Despite its cultural and historical wealth, the greater Harlem area suffers from higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and infant mortality than the rest of New York City (New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2006). It has long been a center of controversy over the inequalities of public education provided for AfricaneAmerican and lower-income communities in many parts of the country. The 2008 American Community Survey anticipated the as-yet unreleased 2010 U.S. Census reports for New York by recording an inux of other races into Harlem as housing in other areas grew scarce. Whereas only 41% of the population in greater Harlem is now Black, Central Harlem has maintained a population of 62% Black residents (Roberts, 2010), a majority quite evident in our partner schools. Our rst partnership was formed with a secondary school (grades 6e12) that is unique for demanding a college preparatory curriculum for every student, with a distribution of courses in math, English language arts, science, and history that matches minimum admission requirements of the state university system. During this study the population of 1520 students was 74% black, 25% Hispanic, 1% Asian/Pacic Islander, and less than 1% white. Seventy-one percent of the students came from families whose incomes qualied

students for free or discounted government-subsidized meals, compared with the state average of 44%. The graduation rate of all students was 80%, slightly higher than the state average of 76%. However, the graduation rates for students dened as economically disadvantaged was 81%, and the rate for AfricaneAmerican students was 77% compared to 55% across the state in both of these categories (New York State Education Department, 2009a). A second partnership was established with an elementary school (grades K-5) comprising 677 students: 90% Black, 8% Hispanic, 1% Asian/Pacic Islander, and less than 1% white. Sixtyve percent of the students qualied for free or discounted meals. Academic achievement is high: 93% of third graders met learning standards in English language arts and 100% met learning standards in math (New York State Education Department, 2009b). Teacher candidates most frequent complaint about participating in the UEFP is that the partner schools do not constitute typical urban schools. This is absolutely true. Our partner schools are exceptionally student-centered, well run, and good at developing partnerships that garner unique opportunities for students and sustaining grants for programs. Our partner schools are excellent examples of what economically-challenged public schools can be with clear missions, strong leadership and good teachers. Zeichner (1996) has stressed the importance of conducting eld experiences in settings where diverse students are successful. Our objective to enable candidates to consider teaching in urban schools will not be served by taking them into places that conrm negative stereotypes with which many arrive. However, our choice to bring students to atypical schools entails increased responsibility to make sure they interact with mentor teachers and students who can give realistic assessments of life in urban schools. It takes signicant advance planning to make these conversations possible, but it would be irresponsible not to include them. Further, we do not dismiss concerns candidates bring to the methods classes at the end of each day during the UEFP. They see some teaching that does not constitute best practices, and may witness or even experience discrimination or injustice. These are all teachable moments and catalysts for personal and professional development, so we do not seek to sanitize our candidates experience or to explain away the real problems in our partner schools from which future teachers can learn so much. 3.4. Structure of the urban education eld placement The teacher education curriculum of which the UEFP is a component is built on the tenets of social justice, reective practice, and culturally responsive teaching. In addition to explicit courses in social foundations of education, special needs education, and second-language acquisition, multiculturalism is infused throughout the curriculum. Mutually-reinforcing readings and lessons create a spiral curriculum that requires candidates to study differences in culture and learning styles while simultaneously examining their own racial attitudes and identity, and the effects of race and discrimination on students of color. Preparation for the UEFP includes substantial course work in literacy and linguistic learning differences across cultures, and early eld experience tutoring in a school with a signicant minority of international students. Before, during and after the UEFP candidates are guided to reect and question their assumptions about educational inequalities, acknowledge their privileges, and consider the human results of the economics, politics and ideologies in operation. Results have ranged from realizing the percentage of students qualifying for free meals in partner schools matches the percentage in some of the rural schools where candidates will student teach in the following semester, to a reality check on the assumption that rst-generation high school students are universally encouraged to

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pursue education by their families. The UEFP is deliberately positioned in the middle of the semester immediately prior to student teaching. In interviews, alumni of the program assert that the UEFP was well-timed in the curriculum to be very motivating and empowering as they prepared for their professional semester. Candidates are enrolled in at least one methods course at the time, and they prepare for the placement by: conducting lessons for classmates; analyzing videos of their performances; attending an orientation on logistics, professionalism standards, and host-school culture; studying the host-schools web site, and preparing a lesson to teach at the partner school. The current conguration consists of a ve-day model. On Monday, candidates and faculty travel to the city by bus, obtain subway tickets and establish routines. The UEFP includes carefully structured student encounters prior to the day(s) on which candidates teach: on Tuesday, candidates interview and shadow an assigned student for a day, including lunch with her or his friends, and complete guided observations in each class. On Wednesday, candidates provide service to the school, such as a workshop on the college experience for seniors or serving meals in the elementary school. This sequence positions partner-school students as the experts on their school, but casts candidates as knowledgeable guides about life beyond school. This helps to redene education as bi-directional and dialogic (Donnell, 2007), which redistributes power and transforms days three through ve into a mutual endeavor. The candidates see students as collaborators with important things to teach them and contribute, and themselves less as saviors than as catalytic agents who spark students abilities to transform their own lives. Within the rst two days, candidates meet with mentor teachers and conrm what they will teach, conduct observations in their own and other disciplines, and interact with students informally. On Thursday, candidates observe, assist, and collaborate with mentor teachers to prepare or revise a lesson plan. On Friday they teach one or more of the mentor teachers classes. Candidates obtain feedback from mentors, peers, faculty and sometimes even the students. Cohort and faculty return to campus on Friday after the nal bell. A number of factors contribute to the success of the program, but the crucial piece is the practice of holding the pedagogy courses directly after school. On-site instruction offers undeniable immediacy and structure for reective practice. Whether we gather in the school or back at the hotel, faculty begin discussions with questions that invite reection and synthesis. What did you learn about: how students learn; the students lives; best teaching practices; your own teaching practice? What did you see that you dont understand? What did you see that surprised or excited you? What will be most challenging when you teach on Friday? What makes you curious to learn more? Answers range from skill swapping to expressions of dismay, from an undergraduates anxiety over how to pronounce students names to a graduates excitement at discovering an action research topic. As Causey, Thomas, and Armento (2000) note, it is not uncommon for idealistic candidates to criticize the teachers, practices, and disciplinary measures they have observed. But it is important for the professors to turn the analysis toward why such a climate might have been created and to place the focus. on how the prospective teachers might facilitate childrens learning (36). The concentrated exchange that occurs in these sessions turns all encounters among candidates, students, mentors, and faculty into teachable moments. After the placement, candidates are required to write up guided observations and generate reection essays that tie their experiences in the urban placement to their achievement of our programs standards. They also participate in a debrieng session during the rst methods class after their return, to discuss how, if at all, the experience has inuenced their perceptions.

4. Findings 4.1. Troubling assumptions When asked on the pre-survey what images come to mind when thinking of an urban school in a major city, respondents gave overwhelmingly negative answers that focused on expectations about facilities, atmosphere, and to a much lesser extent on students, and teachers: 50% Evidence of underfunding, including lack of or dated resources 32% Evidence of economic disparity or poverty 32% Overcrowded halls and small classrooms 28% Large student-to-teacher ratios 24% Violence 24% Metal detectors, barred windows and fences, police 22% An oversized building with large total enrollment 18% Disorganization and lack of structure 16% Old, run-down, dirty, broken or drab facilities 11% Confrontations and disrespect among students and between faculty and students 10% Crime and drugs 10% Gangs 5% Race-based cliques It is signicant that four of the ve most common expectations correlate more directly to poverty than to race or ethnicity. Yet 72% of the respondents explicitly mentioned race or ethnicity, employing a variety of words such as: diverse population; cultural and ethnic diversity; minorities; AfricaneAmerican students; Latino students; and students of color. Only two candidates openly stated their expectation that white students are the minority. The largest component of responses related to the facilities and atmosphere anticipated in an urban school. The negative language used to describe disorganization and lack of structure conveyed the most candidate distress, including the words noisy, loud, hectic, and most frequently chaos or chaotic. Within the halls of these facilities, candidates expected to nd a frightening atmosphere that prevents learning or positive identication with school. Though fewer, the responses about urban students and teachers posed the greatest concern. Despite the curricular and instructional preparation leading up to the UEFP, a small but important subset expected urban schools to be populated by students who are academically underperforming (8%), apathetic (8%), disrespectful (7%), undisciplined (7%), and truant (6%). As for the educators, candidates expected either stressed, overworked, unsupported teachers or hardworking, motivated and motivating teachers. Of the remaining responses, many painted a bleak picture, envisioning urban teachers as: young, new or less-qualied (7%); tired or apathetic (6%); and prone to attrition (6%). Out of 417 discrete answers to the original question, only 22 items were unambiguously positive. A mere 7% of the students described the energy they expected to encounter with positive words such as busy, bustling, and vibrant, and expected to nd excitement, energy, untapped potential, creative students, or opportunity. This contrast alone gives a clear sense of the cohorts pre-experience approach to urban schools. 4.2. Naming the fears When asked if they had any concerns about participating in the urban placement, candidates most frequently cited lack of teaching experience, under-preparation, and insufcient knowledge of the school culture. Fifty-three percent of the respondents read this

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question not as a means of identifying perceptions about urban schools, but rather feelings about teaching, including fears about writing a bad lesson and whether students would participate, pay attention, or take me seriously as a teacher. By contrast, some candidates had the courage to name and thus begin to confront their fears. Thirty percent stated explicitly that their anxiety was not solely about teaching strangers, but rather trying to relate to people who are not like me or who come from a different background. A small number of concerns was expressed in vague or coded language, such as worries over diversity issues. Another subset indicated concerns about personal safety, navigating a metropolitan area or public transportation, and being a racial minority. Some wrote that they were nervous about being in a big city or being in an urban school, responses consistent with Garmons (2004) and Nubys (2010) ndings that pre-service teachers who lack experience are fearful about urban places in general. Signicantly, there was no correlation between this concern and the candidates self-identication as rural or suburban, despite the easy but erroneous assumption that rural candidates might be likelier to fear a city. Respondents cite family, friends, and even colleagues as factors contributing to fears. One recalled in a reection: Some of my friends (who are mostly white with upper middle-class backgrounds) expressed these stereotypes through their reactions [that] Id be in some sort of danger, or even that the students would be out to get me. Similarly, a respondent wrote of disgust at hearing other candidates manage their anxieties by joking that were going to Harlem. were going to get shot. 4.3. Assumptions troubled When asked in retrospect about original concerns, post-experience survey responses are generally consistent with prior studies nding that pre-placement fears about inner-city schools prove to be unfounded (Levine, 2003). Respondents wrote, My reservations bore no resemblance to my experience, and I am embarrassed that I didnt want to go. One reected: I think that, in some ways, my white privilege contributed to the anxieties I experienced leading up to our trip. My experience. made me feel really stupid for being afraid. 4.3.1. Experiencing urban schools The most compelling nding was the difculty of correlating pre- and post-experience results due to inverted priorities in candidates responses to open-ended questions about their image of urban schools. Prior to participation, the majority of candidates wrote about the negative environment and characteristics of a monolithic, imaginary school. After the UEFP, the majority of their responses concerned the real individuals who make up urban schools: students and teachers. In aggregate, 89 of the 95 postexperience survey respondents described changes in at least one specic perception about schools, students, or teachers, 91% of which were positive. In post-survey results, 27% of candidates explicitly stated the placement had improved their perception of urban schools. The sharp decline in negative descriptions of physical surroundings and safety concerns between the pre- and post-experience surveys suggests not that such problems do not exist, but rather that candidates came to view them as a form of wallpaper: always present, but no longer constituting the terrifying, relentless misery sensationalized in media depictions of urban schools. One candidate expressed surprise at feeling safe in the urban environment: I realized am more comfortable here than in the [regional] schools. Another noted signicant similarities to non-urban schools in a reection essay: It was like my rural school: free lunches, not always enough books, working parents [and] multitasking teachers.

When asked to what extent their image of urban schools matched their experience, the most frequently cited gaps between expectation and reality were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Urban schools can be very organized and structured. The school has more resources than expected. There is less racial or ethnic diversity than expected. The building was not run-down, dirty or drab. There were no metal detectors or police.

The top two responses correlate to the top two expectations in the pre-experience survey with an important distinction: they were previously in reverse order. Given the emotional language used to express fears of disorganization and chaos before the placement, it makes sense that relief at nding such fears unfounded would take precedence. 4.3.2. Experiencing whiteness Attempts to encourage honest descriptions of candidates experiences of difference during the UEFP were met with multiple forms of resistance. Candidates were most critical of the program, and of attempts to assess its effectiveness, when they were asked questions directly related to race. While they conceded, in theory, that race can have an impact on the educational enterprise, some candidates are highly sensitive to implications that they are affected by it, that they may harbor racist assumptions about students learning abilities, or that their feelings about race may not have been fully explored in color-consciousness assignments prior to the placement. When asked directly about perceptions of urban schools and youth, many respondents in the rst year of the study claimed, justiably, that the survey was biased and offensive. Some refused to complete the survey or boycotted specic questions that were eventually reworded. In subsequent years, revisions elicited rich descriptions of participants experiences. One respondent completed the revised post-experience survey without protest, but pointed out in an essay the contrast between reecting upon being in an urban school and being in an urban school, where he never heard the words black or white all week. When asked what it was like to be a minority in a host culture, respondents most frequently replied: 19% I felt welcomed. 18% I didnt notice that I was a minority. 13% It was awkward at rst, then o.k./irrelevant. 11% Not as bad as I expected. 11% I enjoyed it. 8% It allowed me to experience the minority perspective. 6% I felt accepted. One respondent wrote that s/he chose not to notice, which rendered tension a self-controlled act of will (emphasis added). It is also interesting that when asked to describe thoughts and feelings, 8% simply reported the placement had given them an unusual opportunity; only one candidate explained, I loved nally having the experience of being a minority because I was able to empathize with my friends who are minorities in this culture. The next level of responses described candidates heightened awareness of race. As discussed below in Section 4.3.4, though these numbers may seem small, they have exponentially larger implications, as do the 3e7% of candidates per year who claim that program requirements to acknowledge difference and examine attitudes toward race and ethnicity are harmful and actually reinscribe racism. 6% I was very aware of being a minority. 6% I thought about my whiteness more than usual.

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6% Students didnt make me feel different: some teachers did. 5% I did not feel like a minority. 5% I felt different, but not in a bad way. A few respondents described their experience in terms of selfknowledge gained: The only time I noticed was the rare class in which there was a white kid. That made me realize how much I probably do stick out. But one candidate was self-conscious throughout the placement: I felt that the students could tell I was a visitor because of my ethnicity [sic] rather than my visitors pass. This is in keeping with Causey, Thomas, and Armentos (2000) ndings that conict over the awareness of being inside but not part of the culture is a common response among white participants in urban eld experiences (37). In each of the three years of the survey, at least one candidate described a completely negative experience. One plainly stated, I felt I had no right to be there. Though only 12% of survey respondents explicitly acknowledged discomfort during the UEFP, faculty strove to identify teachable moments when candidates seemed less secure than they claimed. During the second year of the survey, a partner-school teacher asked a class if the students had noticed that all our candidates were white, then suggested that the students and school were being exploited. This event correlates to responses cited above in which candidates within the same years cohort asserted, Students didnt make me feel different: some teachers did. Though it was distressing for the candidates, the faculty found this to be one of the most realistic and intense teaching experiences of the year. It is as close to the unmediated experience of overt racism as most of our candidates will ever get, and it gave them the opportunity to process and explore the injustice and prejudice students of diverse races and ethnicities may experience on a regular basis. 4.3.3. Perceptions of students By far the greatest changes in candidate perceptions of urban education were generated by encounters with urban students. Where candidates anticipated a school culture of violence (24%), disorganization (18%), and disrespect (11%), they instead found students well-behaved and disciplined (19%); highly motivated, goal oriented, and committed to learning (21%). Assessing the effects of the UEFP on candidates perceptions of urban students is complicated by the fact that how they see students is deeply enmeshed in their views on race and themselves as future teachers. For instance, in reection essays three candidates described students as being more articulate than expected, a term historically linked to the well-spoken Negro stereotype promulgated to diminish the accomplishments of educated AfricaneAmericans during and after the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. However, studying the full spectrum of responses concerning students communication skills adds clarity. One candidate conded on the pre-experience survey, I am worried I will not be able to understand black dialect. S/he feared literally being unable to interact with urban students, much less to teach them. Framing articulate speech as a positive attribute of the student, instead of a negative attribute of the candidate, could be read as the development of a more student-centered, respectful teacher consciousness. In contrast to the politically-loaded term articulate, three respondents described the urban students eloquence, a term more readily associated with intellectual sophistication and social skills than racial stereotypes. The choice of eloquent over articulate may be attributable to lessons by college faculty in an English Language Arts graduate course on the oral tradition in AfricanAmerican culture, or by mentor teachers assertions during the placement that their students have more developed verbal skills than

writing skills. Eloquence is also in keeping with the level of instructional rigor that deed the expectations of 8% of survey respondents. The high standards of academic achievement expected of and demonstrated by students in the partner schools were impressive for some candidates, and humbling for others; 7% of the candidates remarked that urban students were more intelligent, engaged, and insightful than expected. As one confessed: I underestimated the intelligence of the students. and now I feel guilty about it. Conners (2010) subjects experienced a similar shock: The realization.that urban youth are intelligent or insightful bespeaks a prior assumption or expectation that they would not be. The recurring nature of this theme.highlights the critical importance of disrupting pre-service educators beliefs about the students with whom they may one day work by creating opportunities for them . to recognize and then reconsider how they see these young people. (1174) As noted above in Section 4.3.2, though small compared to the rest of the cohort, the beliefs of a 7% subset must be examined because studies have rmly established that teachers unconscious racial biases and low expectations for minority students can be devastating for academic achievement (Atwater, 2008; Banks et al., 2005; Ukpokodu, 2007). Given that elementary public school teachers in the United States average 22 students per class and secondary teachers average 87 students per day (National Education Association, 2010), a mere 7% of our graduates could limit the academic potential of a substantial number of culturally diverse students under their tutelage each year. The single most frequent response (27%) to the direct question of how, if at all, the UEFP affected candidates perceptions of urban youth was some form of the refrain that it made them realize kids are kids. Scholars of race and culture have objected to this phrase as an easy dismissal of the lived experience of people of color, and of the social and economic factors that can impact urban or minority students learning and relationship to school. It bespeaks a color-blindness ideology that confuses race should not matter in how individuals are treated with race does not matter (Neville, 2000). The majority surveyed desire to be fair and just teachers who see their students as individuals, even if some are unwilling to admit or unable to understand that treating students with equality does not guarantee educational equity. Faculty across our curriculum teach that the denitions of these words are crucial to our endeavors: equality means everyone gets the same; equity means everyone gets what they need. While the majority of our candidates believe that injustices inherent in the U.S. education system will require them to create an equity-based teaching practice and classroom, a small faction maintain that color-blindness and equality are the most ethical approaches to ensuring student achievement: race does not matter, if nowhere else then at least in my classroom. A variety of negative terms has been developed to describe the psychological and social effects operating within color-blind ideology, and in which kids are kids can justiably be claimed to operate. Unrealistic optimism and naive egalitarianism have been applied to candidates who assume that all students are equal and will respond to a teachers efforts to teach them equally (Ross & Smith, 1992). This is consistent with the ideology of optimistic individualism or the inevitability of triumph over any obstacle through hard work and individual efforts (Finney & Orr, 1995). Both translate to an approach characterized as absolute democracy: the assumption that kids are kids regardless of cultural background, or that good teaching is good teaching, and thus equally effective for all students (Nieto, 1998; OGrady, 1998). Such beliefs are potentially detrimental to students insofar as they negate the inuences of past and present discrimination, and they blind

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candidates less to color than to the race- and class-based privileges candidates themselves take for granted (Cochran-Smith, 2004; Haviland, 2008). Identifying teacher candidates world views with negative terms such as unrealistic and nave is benecial for teacher educators in planning multicultural education curricula because they are forceful expressions of what is at stake. But we must take care not to extinguish the positive energy and ambition candidates bring into our profession even as we temper it with reality and strive to help them develop theoretically grounded practices. By scaffolding and supporting candidates during a cross-cultural eld placement, and viewing such a placement as a dynamic event or phenomenon rather than a static method with predictable outcomes, faculty have a better chance of creating the conditions for experiencing, analyzing, and growing from the conicts inherent in intersections of race, culture, economics, teaching, and learning. Reading the kids are kids response in the context of the rest of a candidates survey often renders the phrase more legible and helps to shape faculty response to its uncritical use. Yet, some respondents are indisputably and consciously using kids are kids not to discount urban students cultural reality, but rather as an expression of profound personal relief. Recall that prior to the UEFP, candidates described urban schools as dangerous places (see Section 4.1 above). Some candidates explicitly stated in the postsurvey that the students were personally responsible for defying expectations of chaos in urban schools; these assertions reveal a previously unacknowledged fear of students as agents of the disorganization or danger that urban schools represent. It is no wonder that 9% of respondents noted students were friendlier than expected. Recall as well that the single most frequent change in perceptions of urban students was that they are motivated, goal oriented, and committed to learning. The preponderance of this result, in light of the kids are kids claim, clearly reects the concerns of people who are young in the profession, and struggling to dene themselves by creating effective teaching personae. They do not expect to garner full student participation instantly or easily, but the fear of apathetic (8%) or openly hostile (11%) students is especially vivid. Pre-experience concerns about students not listening, paying attention, or taking me seriously as a teacher (8%) gave way to pleasure at nding engaged students whom some described as opinionated and eager to be heard. 4.3.4. Acknowledging urban realities Post-experience surveys reveal that respondents were seeing and acknowledging the abilities of students who are not like them. When asked directly, To what extent has your image of urban youth been inuenced by this experience? respondents indicated that interacting with the students, more so than any other aspect of the placement, made them feel hopeful and useful. One asserted that the students encountered during the UEFP made me realize how much we need good teachers. Though possibly optimistic and nave, these responses also bear the traces of contact with real individuals. Instead of frightening strangers, candidates discovered e where they least expected to nd them e the children and adolescents they sought to learn to teach. It is only possible to make these claims because even though candidates sometimes resist discussing race directly, 7% openly acknowledged an increased awareness that urban students have more to deal with than do rural and suburban [ones]. An additional 38% cited factors they consider to be inuences on teaching and learning in urban schools. Some noted students long or elaborate commutes to school on public transportation; others cited more class-specic forces revealed during interactions with students and mentors, such as lack of access to technology, a parent

or guardian to serve as advocate, or a quiet space in which to complete homework.  Outside pressures make inside school a safe place to be.  I realized the students need structure, motivation and a safe environment.  In an urban setting teaching can be a more challenging job, where schools are more than just places of academic learning. Such responses correlate to research documenting the effectiveness of color- and class-conscious multicultural education in shaping candidates attitudes, and helping teachers understand and confront social inequality (Cooney & Akintunde, 1999). These candidates recognize that kids may be kids, but that some have more complex relationships to school, teachers and learning than others. 4.3.5. The denial of difference One of the most interesting ndings was a small percentage of candidates who were unable to recognize difference within the student body. Though 32% of pre-experience respondents expected to nd a diverse population in an urban school, 5% of post-survey participants expressed surprise that there was less diversity than expected. What the majority of the partner-schools students has in common, aside from a desire to learn and succeed, is a range of skin colors that a white, non-Hispanic culturally unconscious candidate could identify simply as Black. Our partner schools populations are comprised of students not only indentied by U.S. Government racial criteria as AfricaneAmerican, but also self-identied with distinct ethnicities. Fifteen percent of Harlems population is foreign-born; most are from the Caribbean, but an increasing number are coming from Africa (Roberts, 2010). This means that despite cues such as students names or accented speech, for 5% of our candidates, diversity still means nothing more than race. Cook-Sather (2006) found that listening to students can help candidates uncover assumptions. The erasure of ethnicity in our cohort suggests candidates need to be taught not only that they should be listening for and learning to recognize difference, but also how to listen. 4.4. Goals achieved: reshaping the professional landscape As noted above, in the second and third years of the survey, questions were added to measure changes in desire and willingness to teach in urban schools, a revision that revealed a modest 4% increase in urban schools as a rst choice for future employment. This gure provided a check on the accuracy of the program: a higher level of conversion from skeptic to champion might be grounds for reection on the authenticity of the UEFP experience. More surprising was the consistent 20% increase in candidates willingness to consider teaching in urban schools, and 23% greater condence in teaching students across cultures. These gures are corroborated by reection essays and responses to indirect survey questions in which 61 out of 95 candidates included references either to a fresh awareness that urban schools might constitute a previously unknown professional option, or afrmation of the candidates perception of her or himself as a potentially eligible candidate to become an urban educator. As one wrote, the UEFP denitely made me realize that I am capable of it, but have a lot to learn about other cultures. These results correlate strongly to an increase in the appeal of social justice work and urban education in the wake of successful urban eld experiences reported in prior scholarship (Conner, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2005; Proctor, Rentz, & Jackson, 2001), and they contradict studies concluding that urban eld experiences increase candidates abilities to teach in diverse settings, but not the desire or commitment to do so (Weiner, 1990; Wiggins & Follo,

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1999). Our objective is not to prepare every candidate to teach in an urban setting, but to broaden an individuals horizons to the extent that s/he can envision multiple professional possibilities. We seek to equip all candidates to teach well in any environment chosen, and for the choice to be an informed one. In this respect, the program has been enormously effective. Some alumni now teach in cities, but the fact that graduates also teach in schools quite far or different from the ones in which they originally envisioned themselves, including Spain, Thailand, China and Nicaragua, is another mark of the programs success. After the UEFP, rural candidates are more willing to apply for suburban jobs, and suburban candidates are more willing to apply for rural positions. To these ends, we do not apologize for requiring all candidates to participate in a shortterm program that may seem irrelevant to their original plans, and that some candidates nd stressful or occasionally uncomfortable. Individuals cannot accomplish something they cannot imagine themselves doing; the ability to imagine teaching in an urban school is best sparked and reinforced by experience with urban schools, teachers, and students. 5. International and domestic applications The decision to implement a structured, cross-cultural immersion should not be undertaken lightly; success rests heavily on the quality of the partnership between the teacher education program and the partner school. With both personal and institutional commitments to form trusting, bi-directional relationships with administrators and teachers to develop mutually benecial partnerships with diverse schools, a short-term cross-cultural immersion such as the UEFP can be adapted to t teacher education programs in countries where candidates do not share cultural, racial, ethnic or socio-economic knowledge bases with their prospective students. This entails signicant advance preparation by faculty to educate themselves about the target culture(s); the historic and sociopolitical relationship between the target culture and the dominant culture; the status of education and teachers; and culturally-specic learning styles within the target population. While a short-term, domestic, cross-cultural immersion such as the UEFP is both more economical and more practical for providing structured contact with student populations of races and ethnicities candidates are likelier to teach in the future, scholars have reported positive results from using short- and long-term international eld placements. Transferable skills and dispositions cited include improved performance in student teaching, integrating theory and practice, propensity toward global education, broadened perspective and condence in abilities to teach diverse student and cultural consciousness as benets of required and optional international placements (Pencea & Macgillivray, 2008; Sahin, 2008; Willard-Holt, 2001). For this reason, teacher educators should not rule out partnering with domestic schools comprised predominantly of non-native or alternate language speakers. Though such a placement would entail preparation to address language barriers, it has the potential to offer candidates many of the same benets of an international cross-cultural immersion, without a passport. Candidates can observe and identify student engagement and cultural norms, as well as teacher management and presentation methods, personae and styles, even if they do not speak the language. The structure of the UEFP is useful as a starting point to build on or adapt: partner-school students can serve as guides; candidates can provide some form of service; candidates can interact informally with students; faculty can help process candidates experiences in intensive after-school classes; and writing and reection can follow. The apparent sticking point e the lessons candidates teach at placements end e has the potential to be the best kind of

challenge and can help candidates cultivate differentiation skills. While demonstrable lessons in mathematics, art and science are most obviously accessible, creative approaches to lessons in language-dependent disciplines can be successful if taught via atypical modes, such as movable objects or magnets for studying war or demographics in history. Further, the content can include study of language or cultural diversity itself. Treating the placement itself as an event to be studied can benet partner schools by infusing diversity within the curriculum, and can transform a cross-cultural experience to an intercultural one. 6. Conclusion This study demonstrates that a short-term placement like the UEFP can simultaneously cultivate culturally responsible candidates while preserving and even heightening the enthusiasm we want them to bring to the multicultural students and classrooms they are preparing to lead. Teacher candidates constitute pressure points where competing discourses collide; a brief cultural immersion like the UEFP offers candidates the opportunity to attempt to meet competing demands in a scaffolded, safe environment, supported by their facultys strength, experience, and commitment to multicultural education. When urban eld placements were rst introduced into teacher education, faculty envisioned their planned obsolescence; we hoped the next generation would strive for social justice as a matter of course. Alas, that day has not come. Given the disparities that persist in industrialized nations educational systems, dominant-culture candidates still need the challenges and growth a cross-cultural placement can provide. Appendix A. Revised pre-experience survey 1. When you think of a public school in a large urban city, what words, images or ideas come to mind? 2. Where do you think the words and images noted above came from? How did they come to be associated in your mind with urban students and schools? 3. Please list three things you hope to get out of the Urban Education Experience. 4. Will this workshop be your rst experience being a minority in a culture other than your own? 5. If you had to describe the environment in which you grew up, which term most closely matches the place where you spent the majority of your life? suburban rural urban international 6. After graduation, I see myself teaching in a school setting best described as: suburban rural urban international 7. Though the answer above would be my rst choice at this point, I am willing to consider teaching in schools best be described as: suburban rural urban international 8. Can you identify any hesitations or reservations you have about participating in this experience?

Appendix B. Revised post-experience survey 1. To what extent did your urban education experience match the image you previously held of a public school in a large urban city? 2. If applicable, what was it like for you to be a minority in a culture other than your own on this trip? 3. To what extent has your sense of what it is like to teach in an urban public school been inuenced by this experience? 4. To what extent has your image of urban youth been inuenced by this experience?

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E. Bleicher / Teaching and Teacher Education 27 (2011) 1170e1178 Locke, S. (2005). Institutional social and cultural inuences on the multicultural experiences of preservice teachers. Multicultural Perspectives, 7(2), 257e270. Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria. National Education Association. (2010). Student load. Status of the American public school teacher. pp. 41e44. http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/20056StatusTextand Appendix A.pdf. Neville, H. (2000). Construction and validation of the color-blind racial attitudes scale (CoBRAS). Journal of Counseling Psychology, 47(1), 59e70. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. (2006). Central Harlem, Manhattan. Community Health Proles. Accessed June 2011 at: http://www. nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/data/2006chp-302.pdf. New York State Education Department. (2009a). New York State school report card 31-05-00-01-14XX. Accountability and overview report 2008e09. Accessed June 2011 at: https://www.nystart.gov/publicweb-rc/2009/ab/AOR2009-3105000114XX.pdf. New York State Education Department. (2009b). New York State school report card 31-05-00-08-608XX. Accountability and overview report 2008e09. Accessed June 2011 at: https://www.nystart.gov/publicweb-rc/2009/1a/AOR2009-3105008608XX.pdf. Nieto, S. (1998). From claiming hegemony to sharing space: creating community in a multicultural education course. In R. Chavez Chavez, & J. ODonnell (Eds.), Speaking the unpleasant: The politics of (non) engagement in the multicultural education terrain (pp. 16e31). Albany: State University of New York Press. Nieto, S. (2000). Placing equity front and center: some thoughts on transforming teacher education for a new century. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 180e187. Nieto, J. (2006). The cultural plunge: cultural immersion as a means of promoting self-awareness and cultural sensitivity among student teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 33(1), 75e84. Nuby, J. (2010). An awakening through an inner-city immersion experience. Multicultural Perspectives, 12(1), 42e49. OGrady, C. (1998). Moving off center: engaging white education students in multicultural eld experiences. In R. Chavez Chavez, & J. ODonnell (Eds.), Speaking the unpleasant: The politics of (non) engagement in the multicultural education terrain (pp. 211e228). Albany: State University of New York Press. Ofce for Standards in Education. (2010). Citizenship established? Citizenship in schools 2006/09. Manchester, U.K. Accessed June 2011 at: http://www.ofsted. gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-bytype/Thematic-reports/Citizenship-established-Citizenship-in-schools-200609/%28language%29/eng-GB. Paccione, A. (2000). Developing a commitment to multicultural education. Teachers College Record, 102(6), 980e1005. Pencea, H., & Macgillivray, K. (2008). The impact of an international eld experience on preservice teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 14e25. Petersen, N. (2007). Pre-service teacher education students engagement with care and social justice in a service learning module. Education as Change, 11, 169e181. Pohan, C. (1996). Preservice teachers beliefs about diversity: uncovering factors leading to multicultural responsiveness. Equity and Excellence in Education, 29(3), 62e69. Proctor, T., Rentz, N., & Jackson, M. (2001). Preparing teachers for urban schools: the role of eld experiences. Western Journal of Black Studies, 25(4), 219e228. Rhee, M., & Levin, J. (2006). Stafng urban schools: hurdles in the hunt for Americas best teachers. Education Week, 25(16), 52e53. Roberts, S. (2010, January 5). In Harlem, blacks are no longer a majority. New York Times, 16A. Ross, D., & Smith, W. (1992). Understanding preservice teachers perspectives on diversity. Journal of Teacher Education, 3, 94e103. Sahin, M. (2008). Cross-cultural experience in preservice teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(7), 1777e1790. Santoro, N. (2009). Teaching in culturally diverse contexts: what knowledge about self and others do teachers need? Journal of Education for Teaching, 35(1), 33e45. Training and Development Agency for Schools. (2008). Professional standards for qualied teacher status and requirements for initial teacher training. Accessed June 2011 at: http://www.tda.gov.uk/about/publications/basket/tda0600.aspx. Ukpokodu, O. (2007). Preparing socially conscious teachers: a social justiceoriented teacher education. Multicultural Education, 15(1), 8e16. Valli, L., & Rennert-Ariev, P. L. (2000). Identifying consensus in teacher education reform documents: a proposed framework and action implications. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(1), 5e17. Weiner, L. (1990). Preparing the brightest for urban schools. Urban Education, 25(3), 258e273. Wiggins, R., & Follo, E. (1999). Development of knowledge, attitudes, and commitment to teach diverse student populations. Journal of Teacher Education, 50(2), 94e105. Wiggins, R., Follo, E., & Eberly, M. (2007). The impact of a eld immersion program on pre-service teachers attitudes toward teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 653e663. Willard-Holt, C. (2001). The impact of a short-term international experience for preservice teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(4), 505e517. Zeichner, K. (1996). Educating teachers for cultural diversity. In K. Zeichner, S. Melnick, & M. Gomez (Eds.), Currents of reform in preservice education (pp. 133e175). New York: Teachers College Press. Zygmunt-Fillwalk, E. (2005). Disequilibrium and reconstruction: the urban encounter as catalyst for preservice educators cultural transformation. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 26(2), 133e147.

5. Has this experience had any effect on your image of yourself as a potential teacher of students from cultures other than your own? If so, in what ways? 6. If you had hesitations or reservations before the trip about participating, how do you feel about those issues in retrospect? 7. Consider the three things you wanted to get out of this experience: How successful were you in reaching your three goals? 8. If you had to describe the environment in which you grew up, which term most closely matches the place where you spent the majority of your life? suburban rural urban international 9. After graduation, I see myself teaching in a school setting best described as: suburban rural urban international 10. Though the answer above would be my rst choice at this point, I am willing to consider teaching in schools best described as: suburban rural urban international

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