Making a Difference: How Teachers Can Positively Affect Racial Identity and Acceptance in America

Abstract

The author examines the important role schools, teachers, and the high school social studies classroom can play in helping students develop positive racial identities. Using the Classroom-based Multicultural Democratic Education framework, the author argues that high school social studies teachers need to adapt pedagogical strategies and curricula to foster racial tolerance, understanding, and respect within the classroom and for individual students. This is necessary training to prepare students for life in a racially strained American society. Teachers can help students achieve a positive racial identity by (1) understanding students' racial and cultural backgrounds, (2) providing students with a more diverse, multicultural curriculum, and (3) generating cooperative learning between students. The author offers suggestions for achieving this goal and urges teachers and scholars to conduct further research in this area.