Equitable Classroom Research Articles

Disrupting gender marginalisation in undergraduate mathematics: a case of assigning competence

ABSTRACT Promoting equitable classrooms is a goal of postsecondary mathematics education, but there is still limited research on how faculty learn to teach more equitably. Despite the variety of techniques developed in primary and secondary education, there has been less use in higher education. This manuscript focuses on the ‘assigning competence’ technique from Complex Instruction, and how it can disrupt gender inequities in postsecondary mathematics. This manuscript draws on video data, coded classroom observations, recorded debrief sessions, and faculty interviews to illustrate faculty learning and the impact on student participation.

Good practices of pedagogical translanguaging: A global overview of emergence, development, and classroom applications

This paper deals with the concept of translanguaging as a powerful tool for fostering inclusive education in linguistically diverse settings. Translanguaging, unlike traditional views of languages as separate, bounded systems, recognizes the flexible, integrated nature of multilingual communication. It highlights how speakers draw from their entire linguistic repertoires to construct meaning, depending on context and need. The paper aims to provide teachers in Transcarpathia with a comprehensive understanding of translanguaging and its pedagogical applications. It explores the historical development of the concept, its key characteristics, and its differentiation from code-switching. The paper also discusses the theory and practice of pedagogical translanguaging, highlighting its benefits for both teachers and students. It presents examples from various countries, including the United States, Italy, and South Korea, to illustrate how pedagogical translanguaging has been implemented in different educational contexts. One of the core principles of translanguaging is that all languages are valuable and can be used to support learning. Teachers can create a more inclusive and equitable classroom environment where all learners feel valued and respected via accepting this principle. Translanguaging can also help students to develop a deeper understanding of the world around them by allowing them to connect their experiences across different languages and cultures. In addition to its benefits for learners, translanguaging can also be a powerful tool for teachers. By using translanguaging strategies, teachers can create more engaging and interactive lessons that are relevant to their students’ everyday lives. Translanguaging can also assist teachers to develop their own language skills and to become more culturally sensitive. While the implementation of translanguaging in the classroom may require some initial training and planning, the benefits are well worth the effort. This paper provides valuable insights and practical guidance to support teachers in harnessing the power of translanguaging to enhance language acquisition, content comprehension, and overall student success.

Becoming Linguistically and Culturally Responsive Educators: Teacher Candidates’ Perspective Shifts in an Introductory Linguistics Course

ABSTRACT Many teacher education programs aim to address the acute need for culturally and linguistically responsive educators by fostering linguistic consciousness and awareness of language learner populations. This mixed-methods study explores how elementary education teacher candidates’ perspectives shift through critical reflection and dialogue about English learners’ education and equitable classroom practices. Using a transformative learning framework, our findings illustrate that collaborative learning tasks as well as peers’ and multilingual graduate teaching assistants’ experiences play a disorienting role in challenging monolingual and bilingual teacher candidates’ beliefs about language acquisition, bilingualism, and English learners’ education. We discuss implications for teacher language awareness and instructional practices in ESL endorsement courses.

Supporting an Inclusive and Equitable Classroom: Student Perspectives on a Textbook Affordability Initiative

abstract: As academic librarians become aware of the challenges textbook expenses pose to student success, they have increased efforts to provide free access to required course materials. Librarians at Illinois State University initiated a program to license course-assigned e-books, surveying participating students and faculty regarding their perspectives on textbook affordability and their experiences with the provided e-books. Student responses were overwhelmingly positive, and they identified several ways the e-books enhanced their experience in the course. The findings suggest that library-provided course materials contribute to students’ engagement as learners and their academic success within courses.

The role of equitable classroom cultures for supporting interest in science

AbstractSupporting student interest in science is critical for broadening participation in the field because interest, even more than achievement, is associated with pursuing future science education and careers. In this study, we explore the conjecture that equitable classroom cultures can support interest in science. Specifically, we examine the idea that science classroom cultures that equitably reflect collective enterprise (where students engage collaboratively in scientific sensemaking) and care (where students believe that they are valued and respected members of the classroom community) support students, particularly those from historically marginalized populations, to develop interest in science. The study is part of a field test of a new middle school science curriculum called OpenSciEd. Data consist of survey responses from 847 students across 34 teachers located in nine states. Our analysis employed mixed‐effects models to accommodate the nested structure of the data. We found that classrooms vary substantially in the degree to which they reflect collective enterprise and care, indicating that classroom culture is a perceptible and consequential feature of the shared classroom environment. Student background did not predict reports of collective enterprise or care, providing evidence that classrooms in our sample were equitable along these dimensions. Critically, collective enterprise and care are both strongly associated with student‐reported interest in science. These findings underscore the importance of attending to classroom culture and the relational aspects of science learning as we seek to expand interest in science, particularly for students from historically marginalized populations.

Students as Partners: Using an Equity‐Oriented Critical Assessment Practices (CAPS) Approach in Reading to Empower Students and Inform Instruction

AbstractThis article offers a framework for more equitable classroom reading assessment known as a Critical Assessment Practices (CAPS) approach. CAPS includes a set of four principles that teachers can use to partner with, and to empower, students to support more equitable and informative classroom‐based reading assessment. Teachers can apply the CAPS approach to examine and adjust existing classroom reading assessment to make it more equitable and productive for students. The authors first describe a CAPS approach, then outline five stages teachers can use as they partner with students throughout assessment. Finally, the authors offer an example of how one first grade teacher applied a CAPS approach to adjust her existing assessment.

Pedagogical strategies to inspire teachers to teach all: How to change teachers’ perceptions about students from being a problem to having a problem

This study juxtaposes W. E. B. Du Bois’s question raised in 1903, “How does it feel to be a problem?” to students who are deemed as a “problem” in classrooms today, using a Disability Studies in Education (DSE) lens incorporating social justice and equity awareness into perspectives on disability in particular and on education in general. Two separate but mutually enhancing research projects (one project with pre-service teachers and the other with in-service teachers) share pedagogical approaches to assist the participants in learning to perceive their students not as being a problem but as (sometimes) having a problem. Project 1 applies a DSE approach to teacher candidate coursework in (special) education, and Project 2 engages practicing teachers in professional development activities designing classroom Calming Corners. Results indicate that teachers can be empowered to create inclusive and equitable classrooms by providing them with a DSE lens and with tools such as the Calming Corners.

Developing Mental Models for Examining Diversity in Children’s Literature

ABSTRACT Teachers need tools to build mental models of what makes a book diverse, how a book impacts the classroom community, and what contribution it makes within a classroom library. Beyond this, teachers need a resource that will offer cogent arguments and support for their book choices to administrators, parents, and colleagues. This article includes a rubric that can help guide and inform diverse literature selections. We share how we taught preservice teachers to use the rubric in their literature choices. We also provide a discussion of the rubric’s potential in empowering teachers to make purposeful, informed literature selections that reflect and embrace diversity for equitable classroom communities. To examine how the rubric might support the expansion of cultural models and multimodal interpretations of diverse texts, we used the rubric with 20 preservice teachers from one section of an undergraduate children’s literature course. The use of the rubric facilitated the development of mental models of diverse literature in preservice teachers. As these preservice teachers transition into their roles as classroom teachers, these mental models have the potential to actively transform the typical literature selections found in today’s classrooms, leading to more equitable classroom contexts inclusive of all children.

A Critical Examination of the Relationship Between Social and Personal Constructions of Gender and Race and their Impact on Mathematical Identity

ABSTRACT Matters of identity are personally and socially constructed and do not always align with teacher perceptions. When this occurs, it can cause internal tensions in ways students navigate their sense of being in schooling and in society as a whole. These tensions can also impact students’ mathematical identity and their motivations within mathematics education. In this multiple case study, the authors explored how two high school students negotiated the tensions between their racial, gendered, and mathematical identities. Their mathematical identity and their intrinsic motivation. We considered how student intersectional cultural identities, funds of knowledge, and stereotype threat informed these factors. Results indicate that mathematical identity was impacted by students’ sense of belonging in their learning environment, the level of stereotype threat they experienced, and the extent to which teachers consider and value diverse ways of learning and knowing. We also noted that, due to a variety of factors, the participants in this study foregrounded their racial identities over their gendered identities. The findings have important implications for teachers and teacher educators working toward creating and fostering equitable classroom environments.

Making Waves: Early Childhood Teachers’ Experiences with Multicultural Picturebooks to Promote Equitable Classrooms

Making Waves: Early Childhood Teachers’ Experiences with Multicultural Picturebooks to Promote Equitable Classrooms

Promoting equity in the writing classroom through critical self-reflection

This study presents findings and strategies found to be successful through encouraging reflective thinking about classroom practices related to access, equity, and diversity. We asked, ‘How does classroom practice change when teachers reflect on equitable instruction? Do teachers recognize biased practices in their classroom? How might a teacher’s instruction unknowingly create barriers for students, thus limiting student learning?’ Over the course of one semester, participants worked collaboratively to reflect on equitable classroom practices to affect student voices. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the study was conducted through virtual discussions and online platforms. Here, we share reflections that surfaced during the online discussions.

Balancing being a ‘good teacher’ and a ‘motivating teacher of English’: Analysing the sense of professional responsibility of pre-service EFL teachers

The professional responsibility of teachers has been primarily understood in international literature in terms of external obligations, primarily from an accountability perspective. Alternatively, more recent approaches have begun to propose that teacher responsibility is more appropriately understood as an internal drive toward their work and its contribution to broader social development, which is seen as crucial to the design of effective pedagogical practices. However, within this continuing dialogue, limited attention has been given to how professional responsibility develops and is nurtured within the unique contexts of English language teacher education. This mixed-method study investigated the sense of professional responsibility held by pre-service teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) context, framed by an online survey ( n = 611) based on a teacher responsibility scale and a series of semi-structured interviews ( n = 17). Results demonstrated that there was a comparatively higher sense of responsibility felt in two critical areas: building positive student relationships and ensuring an equitable classroom and society. However, lower levels of responsibility were demonstrated toward the discipline-specific issues of encouraging student engagement, student motivation or success in learning English. This suggests a critical tension that develops in the sense of pre-service teacher responsibility between the abstract and affective notion of being the ‘good teacher’ and the more concrete objectives of building learning environments for language development.

Review of Expanding Literacy: Bringing Digital Storytelling into Your Classroom

Brett Pierce's recent book Expanding Literacy: Bringing Digital Storytelling into Your Classroom (Heinemann, 2022) provides accessible, research-based instructional strategies and assessment for integrating digital literacy practices in classrooms, while honoring students' existing literacy expertise and creating more equitable classroom spaces.

Sustaining Critical Approaches to Translanguaging in Education: A Contextual Framework

AbstractTranslanguaging remains a timely and important topic in bi/multilingual education. The most recent turn in translanguaging scholarship involves attention to translanguaging in context in response to critiques of translanguaging as a universally empowering educational practice. In this paper, seven early career translanguaging scholars propose a framework for researching translanguaging “in context,” drawing on the Douglas Fir Group's (2016) transdisciplinary framework for language acquisition. Examining translanguaging in context entails paying attention to who in a classroom wields power, as a result of their greater proficiency in societally valued languages, their more “standard” ways of speaking these languages, their greater familiarity with academic literacies valued at school, and/or their more “legitimate” forms of translanguaging. In our framework for researching translanguaging in context, we propose three principles. The first principle is obvious: (1) not to do so apolitically. The other two principles describe a synergy between ethnographic research and teacher‐researcher collaborative research: (2) ethnographic research can assess macro‐level language ideologies and enacted language hegemonies at the micro‐ and meso levels, and (3) teacher‐researcher collaborations must create and sustain inclusive, equitable classroom social orders and alternative academic norms different from the ones documented to occur in context if left by chance.

Plurilingual Chinese learners of French Lx: agentic assembling of semiotic resources for learning

Abstract This paper reports an interview study with Chinese international students in an Anglophone university in Quebec, Canada, exploring their use of language and cross-language learning strategies to support their learning of French Lx (third language and beyond). Drawing on plurilingualism, Dynamic Model of Multilingualism, and language learning strategies, this article examines how Chinese learners made dynamic, creative, and, at times, unexpected links among Chinese and other additional languages and mobilized previous learning and professional experience to strategically enhance their French language learning. As a logographic language, Chinese is typologically distant from Latin-based languages. The focal participants, however, generated multilingual, multidirectional, and multimodal connections among the languages they knew. Their agentic assemblage of communicative repertoires for language learning contests the abyssal thinking behind the deficit-oriented label of “allophones” (those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English) that is used widely in the country. The study urges teachers and researchers to rethink language pedagogies that respond to and take full advantage of these student-directed strategies for better learning. Particularly, the paper argues for greater attention to students of non-alphabetic language backgrounds to recognize and co-learn with them about these self-initiated plurilingual strategies in order to build on their metalinguistic resources and create equitable classroom spaces for more effective teaching and learning.

(Re)Active Praxis: Reading Community in a Reading Community: Working toward Social Imagination in English Teacher Education

In this essay, two English teacher educators detail a two-year inquiry process in which they worked to frame curriculum and instruction in secondary reading methods around the development of social imagination: the ability to engage imaginatively with the perspectives of others and to envision more just ways of being in the world. In the curricular approach detailed here, preservice teachers developed social imagination by reading not only the words on the page but also the world around them, attending to the ways in which other readers make meaning within their reading community. In this way, classroom communities and intellectual partnerships become central to the teaching of reading and literature in English classrooms and serve as starting points for envisioning new ways of being in schools. The authors describe one particular classroom lesson in depth and discuss the connection between reading pedagogy in English and the imagination of more democratic and equitable classroom spaces.

How Teachers Do and Don’t Address Issues of Diversity in Literacy Instruction

Discussions regarding how to embed culturally relevant and responsive literacy learning towards more socially just and equitable classrooms have prompted the need for additional research. This sequential exploratory mixed-methods study explores (a) 288 literacy teachers’ perceptions of their abilities to address issues of bias, equity, and diversity in their classrooms, (b) literacy teacher beliefs on their practices and material resources reflecting intentionality towards diversity and equity, and (c) 12 literacy coaches’ reflections and reactions to teacher perspectives concerning their ability to address issues of diversity in their classrooms. Findings reflect strong correlations between those who can identify bias and bring issues of diversity into their instruction; number of years of teaching experience as well as advanced degrees to diversity being recognized as an asset to educational systems; how effective communication fosters pluralistic classroom spaces; and the need for ongoing professional development for all teachers.

Disability, Inclusion and Language-in-Education Policy in the Global South: The Colombian Context

This paper calls for a shift related to English language-in-education policy and inclusive education initiatives in Colombia to ensure that English language learners with disabilities receive equitable and inclusive classroom instruction that is context-appropriate. We call for English language initiatives and policies to draw from theories and practices from both the Global South and the Global North in order to teach towards inclusive education. Trends in both English language teaching and inclusive education have drawn upon the Global North for solutions, which cannot be systemised to fit one international standard. Instead, using the Colombian context as an example, the present paper suggests a localised approach to meeting the educational needs of English language learners that incorporates inclusive education at the institutional level. This model would favour the work of scholars within the region to ensure that all students receive equitable classroom instruction that builds in Global South epistemologies and localised ways of knowing.

A Validation Study of the Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES) in Pre-Kindergarten to Third Grade Classrooms

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Despite widespread calls to advance equity in early childhood classrooms, there are few observational measures of equitable classroom processes that can be used for academic research or professional development for teachers. In this study, we investigate the psychometric properties of an observational measure of equitable sociocultural interactions, the Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES 2.0). Videos (n = 348) were coded from Pre-Kindergarten to third-grade classrooms in an urban city in the Midwest. Descriptive results indicated that teachers rarely engaged in instructional activities focused on racial equity or fairness and infrequently connected lessons to children’s home lives. ACSES showed convergent validity with a widely used measure of teacher–child interactions, the CLASS. Specifically, higher levels of Inequitable Discipline predicted higher levels of CLASS Negative Climate (r(138)=.359, p < .01), and higher levels of Inequitable Discipline predicted lower scores across all other CLASS dimensions. Exploratory factor analysis supported a seven-factor solution for ACSES. Practice or Policy: The results support the usage of ACSES in Pre-Kindergarten and early elementary settings. The implications of ACSES for both research and practice are discussed.

Teaching to Respect Intersectional Neurodiversity in LIS Classrooms and Practice

&#x0D; “Being a librarian is a people-person job….” – Xavier Ateneo Senior High Library, Facebook, 2020&#x0D; “…libraries are actively trying NOT to recruit people who don't enjoy working with the public…” – iBrarian, r/librarians, 2020&#x0D; “All I know is that if the jobs of the future depend on "likability," (and the corollary of being a "people person") I may as well give up now. That's the one skill I neither I or people like me cannot learn.” – pigbitinmad, Library Journal comments, 2017&#x0D; &#x0D; The LIS profession, and in many cases, our textbooks, instructors, and professional guidelines, tend to frame librarianship as an exclusively social profession. For instance, a reference librarian has to be a good “people person” who can intuit patrons’ verbal and nonverbal communication and make others feel welcome. This devalues the skills and strengths that those for whom this is not a default bring to the LIS profession and is exclusionary or traumatizing to neurodiverse students (McCulloch, 2021). In this panel, we propose strategies for reframing instructional practices to allow all students to demonstrate their strengths and find apath in the LIS professions. Even as our profession aspires to adopt a growing definition of diversity and equity and recognition of intersectionality, invisible disabilities are often overlooked. This panel addresses issues of invisible diversity, social interaction, and ways to create an equitable classroom and work environment in which all voices, perspectives, and selves are valued.&#x0D; Previous works have presented the lived-in experiences of neurodiverse information professionals (Bonanno et al., 2018), and explored the potential for autistic university student inclusion in academic libraries through the development of guidelines for librarians (Anderson et al., 2018). Our panel delves into both the lived-in experiences of neurodiverse individuals in ALA-accredited master’s programs and the workplace, how best to support neurodiverse students, and preparing neurodiverse individuals for the information workforce in the face of employers averse to hiring “non-people persons1.” We do this through a moderated discussion revolving around the following critical topics in relation to neurodiversity and invisibledisabilities:1. Reframing deficit thinking to asset-based thinking, grounded in ALA policy2. Modification of teaching practices and policies in LIS classrooms, wording of policies, and acknowledging the “neurotypical professor1” perspective3. Modeling productive and positive interactions for neurotypical LIS students to build and strengthen the ability to interact with neurodiverse classmates, coworkers, and patrons and for neurodiverse LIS students to do the same in the opposite direction4. A discussion of potential holistic accommodations, strengths-based capacity building, and teaching to articulate translatable skills in professional library and information workplaces&#x0D; Our panel opens with a discussion of ALA “behavioral guidelines” and the impossible precedents they set for neurodiverse employees of information organizations. Takeaways for the audience, in addition to the outlined discussion points, include curated documents for the audience related to the panel to discuss with their institutional peers and management, available at https://bit.ly/3QBNaWZ; lived-in experiences of neurodiverse individuals in ALA-accredited masters programs who have gone on to information professions; and examples of how to 1) modify course documents to clarify expectations for neurodiverse students, 2) create an atmosphere of trust with students, 3) normalize asking for help and using resources (for students and faculty) and 4) how to respond appropriately to a private disclosure.&#x0D; We strive to impress upon attendees the importance of recognizing and honoring invisible differences, but recognize that as white, Jewish, and Hispanic women we can only acknowledge that the experience and reality of disability is different for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ members of society. Intersectional identities play an important role in neurodiverse communities, and theracist origins of autism and Asperger’s diagnoses still influence what we know of neurodiversity today (Botha &amp; Gillespie-Lynch, 2022). This panel serves as a starting point in LIS education, and through informing our teaching with empathy, compassion, and acceptance for neurodiverse students, we hope to also improve teaching in LIS education for all students.