Multicultural Learning Communities Research Articles

다문화 학습공동체 참여가 보육교사의 다문화수용성 및 다문화교육역량에 미치는 영향

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of participation in a multicultural learning community on childcare teacher’s multicultural acceptability and multicultural education competency among childcare teachers. For this purpose, a survey was conducted targeting 41 childcare teachers working in S-si, Gyeonggi-do. ‘Multicultural Acceptability’ and ‘Multicultural Education Competency’ measurements tools were used as research tools, and paired-sample t-test was used for data analysis. As a result of the study, firstly, participation in a multicultural learning community was effective in increasing childcare teachers' multicultural acceptability, and statistically significant differences were found in all subcategories of diversity, relationship, and universality. Secondly, participation in a multicultural learning community was effective in increasing childcare teachers' multicultural education capabilities, and statistically significant differences were found in all subcategories of knowledge, awareness, and skills. Through this study, implications were obtained that continuous participation in multicultural learning communities is effective in order to increase childcare teachers' multicultural acceptability and multicultural education capabilities.

The Role Of Music Arts In Multicultural Education

Indonesia is a multicultural country, has a variety of regional cultures that spread from Sabang to Merauke, spread over thousands of islands with various cultures. This order has changed with globalization and the development of science, technology and art (IPTEKS). This has an impact on inequality and injustice in the world of education. Education in general is the provision of knowledge, experience and skills to students so that they can form positive behavior and can build noble character in an effort to shape national civilization by taking into account the values ​​of cultural diversity. Music arts education provides knowledge, experience, and competence through 5 basic components, namely: expression, appreciation, creation, harmony, and beauty which are integrated with multicultural education. This article describes the role of music in multicultural education which can raise awareness and concern in building a multicultural learning community in schools.

The implications of the non-linguistic modes of meaning for language learners in science: a review

ABSTRACT In response to the globally escalating number of language learners tasked with learning science through a foreign language, this review seeks to bring new perspectives by reframing research findings, still dominated by historical language assumptions, through a contemporary language lens. We aim to unearth, amalgamate and expose the potentials of non-linguistic modes described by the theory of multiliteracies that appear sporadic and fragmentary within studies due to their linguistic focus, as we surmise they offer language learners alternative avenues for meaning-making. 40 peer-reviewed empirical studies published between 1995 and 2019 were systematically found and examined using theoretical thematic analysis to expand our understandings. We conjectured findings that appeared contingent upon non-linguistic modes but did not prominently feature in the reported results. In doing so, we used a multimodal and translanguaging lens from which three themes and educational implications emerged. The integration of non-linguistic modes in science: (1) aided language learners’ science discourse, provided they had access to multiple modes and agency over expression; (2) facilitated multicultural learning communities validating each learner as a sense maker; and (3) promoted authentic and equitable learning experiences. Other noteworthy findings, such as the influence of the tactile mode, are discussed. Recommendations to future researchers include adopting epistemologies of language fitting to our century and developing transdisciplinary approaches to research.

Linguistic landscapes

AbstractSome of the key challenges in teaching intercultural communication (IC) are to engage learners in activities which develop their critical intercultural awareness and to prepare them for communication in superdiverse (Vertovec, 2007) contexts. This paper discusses linguistic landscapes (LL) as an innovative method for teaching intercultural competence. Undergraduate linguistics students conducted a LL project to explore linguistic diversity in their chosen suburb of Sydney and reflected on their own intercultural learning experience. Student reflections revealed that the project had a strong impact on their perceptions of diversity and their attitudes towards other languages and cultures. Students increased their critical awareness of how identity, ideology and attitudes influence language choices and intercultural interactions. The experiential learning project also made them reflect on their own identity as intercultural citizens. The findings of this study highlight the usefulness of the project in developing intercultural competence (ICC). The paper discusses methodological implications for teaching IC in the context of increasingly multilingual and multicultural learning communities.

‘Do they really do that in Korea?’: multicultural learning through Hallyu media

ABSTRACTAs new media spaces expand opportunities for engagement with geographically distant people and places, this article examines how communication practices within such spaces may construct cultural differences. The study’s data source was a website on which people posted, watched, and discussed Asian dramas. Qualitative data included writing, visual images, and interactions created within the site’s Korean dramas forum. Analyses of user-generated discussions revealed discourses about Korean distinctiveness. The forum functions as a virtual multicultural learning community where youth who lived outside of Korea imagined and negotiated an understanding of Korean culture. As these youth participated in Hallyu (the Korean Wave) through their engagements with its media, their discourses on Korean distinctiveness reinscribe Koreans as a global Other. Implications of this study include ways that online transnational engagements with Korean dramas in particular, and Hallyu media in general, shape current learning about Korea, as well as the possibilities and challenges of new media affordances for Internet-mediated multicultural learning.

Christian Administrators and School Culture

Effective strategies used by school administrators in shaping the school culture in line with the goals of Christian Education. It will be argued, as Jason (2000) has suggested, that transformational principals and administrators are needed to increase the efficacy of instruction, socialization, and other interaction processes in increasingly multicultural learning communities.

Taking a MOOC: Socio-cultural Aspects of Virtual Interaction In a Multicultural Learning Community

Featuring different approaches to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) among education policy makers, theorists and practitioners in the field and highlighting an increasing popularity of this educational phenomenon worldwide, the article provides a brief record of MOOCs’ success at Harvard University and the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) making the authors move gradually towards the main focus of this paper – socio-cultural problems, that Russian students frequently face while taking a MOOC in English. The survey described in the article revealed that HSE students establishing online communication with their peers from other countries often complain about sudden, unexpected communication breakdowns that they find difficult to explain and that are likely to occur due to the socio-cultural differences existing between communication partners in a multicultural learning community. The results of the survey presented in the article indicate that there is an urgent need to find effective ways to increase the students’ level of socio-cultural competence that would allow them to communicate successfully in a new virtual learning environment.

The Influence of Multicultural Learning Communities on the Intrapersonal Development of First-Generation College Students

This longitudinal study of first-generation, low-income students considers the impact of their participation in a multicultural learning community designed to combat the isolation and marginalization they experience at a large Midwestern research university. The study explores the extent to which multicultural curriculum and critical pedagogy create avenues for intrapersonal self-authorship for historically marginalized students in a TRiO program. Findings indicate that intentionally drawing students’ lived experiences into the learning process and scaffolding opportunities to reflect on one’s multiple identities positively impacts development of the intrapersonal dimension of self-authorship.

<i>Teachers Act Up!: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities Through Theatre</i> by M. Cahnmann-Taylor and M. Souto-Manning

<i>Teachers Act Up!: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities Through Theatre</i> by M. Cahnmann-Taylor and M. Souto-Manning

Teachers Act Up! Creating Multicultural Learning Communities through Theatre - By Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor and Marianna Souto-Manning

Teachers Act Up! Creating Multicultural Learning Communities through Theatre - By Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor and Marianna Souto-Manning

Stories as Knowledge: Bringing the Lived Experience of First-Generation College Students Into the Academy

This longitudinal study of first-generation, low-income students examines the impact of their participation in a multicultural learning community (MLC) designed to challenge the isolation and marginalization they experience at a large, predominantly White research university. The MLC employed multicultural curriculum and critical pedagogy to bring students’ lived experience and narrative to the center of their learning experience. Qualitative data in the form of reflective writings and retrospective interviews showcase how first-generation students are validated as knowers and can cultivate a sense of belonging at the academy when their cultural wealth is incorporated into the classroom space.

Cultivating Voice: First-Generation Students Seek Full Academic Citizenship in Multicultural Learning Communities

Research has shown that first-generation, low-income college students experience both isolation and marginalization, especially during their first-year of college, which impacts their long-term persistence in higher education. In this article, I argue that learning community pedagogy designed with attention to multicultural curricula is one vehicle to address the challenges faced by these college students. Organized around the themes of identity, community, and agency, an interdisciplinary Multicultural Learning Voices Community (MLVC) was created at a large, public midwestern research university to provide TRiO students with challenging academic coursework that would connect with their lived experience and help them build bridges of social and academic integration during their critical first-year of college. This article presents qualitative data from a multiple case study of seven cohorts of the MLVC, which captures students’ perceptions of their experience.

Converging instructional technology and critical intercultural pedagogy in teacher education

PurposeThis paper aims to postulate an emerging unified cultural‐convergence framework to converge the delivery of instructional technology and intercultural education (ICE) that extends beyond web‐learning technologies to inculcate inclusive pedagogy in teacher education.Design/methodology/approachThe paper explores the literature and a tech‐infused multicultural learning community to identify what a unified cultural‐convergence theory might consist of and how it could be shaped to align instructional technology and critical ICE in teacher education. Four questions are asked: What key learning do these two disciplines make available to teachers and educators that are essential for today's highly diverse, complex classrooms? What can we draw from a convergence of multiculturalism and global education that will help us derive a new theoretical understanding of a unified cultural‐convergence theory to connect IT and ICE education? What knowledge, skills and dispositions comprise three essential components of this literature synthesis? How can this new unified cultural‐convergence theory and relevant components be taught, practiced, and measured? The paper contains several tables, figures and over 50 sources in the research bibliography that were selected from a review and analysis of 100 documents.FindingsThe paper discovered instructional technology and intercultural educators employed web‐learning technologies in very similar ways to position critical ICE strategies into programs or courses in teacher education. The learning technologies models that were attempting to support multicultural education (MCE)/ICE and IT education included corporate, universities, research centers, schools, and government partners. Reportedly, according to the research, teacher educators in IT education do not employ instructional technology practices that differ from practices that are needed or valued by MCE educators to merge critical intercultural structures into teacher education through web‐learning technologies. This was good news as the researcher moves toward a recommendation for a research agenda that could be shared by educators from the two groups.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is limited to literature reviews, reports, and evaluation documents.Originality/valueThe paper offers implications for curriculum development in educational technology and MCE using ICTs

A Multicultural learning community seminar as a site of Praxis

The Multicultural Learning Community (MLC) Seminar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison operates under the direction of the authors as faculty director and teaching assistant. The seminar offers the students and faculty the opportunity to act on Freire’s and Leistyna’s conceptions of praxis. A culturally relevant approach to assessment is employed to discuss the progress of the students and the seminar as a site of praxis. Praxis is the relationship between theoretical understanding and critique of society (that is, its historical, ideological, sociopolitical, and economic influences and structures) and action that seeks to transform individuals and their environment (Leistyna, 1999, p. 224). Praxis: Reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it (Freire, 1970, p. 36).

KAMRAT: The Story of a Virtual Multicultural Learning Community in Israel

Israel is a multicultural country, a country made up of different ethnic groups : many having their own culture, language and even religion. There isn’t much contact between some of the groups, especially between the secular Jews and the ultra orthodox Jews and between the Jewish population and the Arab population which comprises about 1/6th of Israel’s population. The new technologies and especially the technology of on-line computer telecommunication endow us with new tools and possibilities for on-going multi- cultural and multi- age communication between different ethnical groups. The new technologies know no stigma and no prejudice and as such easify and make possible neutral, less biased communication between groups, which are much apart. This paper is about the creation of an on- going learning community Kamrat, a multicultural on-line learning community, between two schools, in Israel, in 2000: One Israeli Arab school (A) and the other Israeli Jewish school (J). The tools used for the creation of this community were two: a closed network in Hebrew and the internet. Participants were learners in 7-9 grade. The project was conducted between Jan- May 2000 (with one introductory meeting in November 1999). The communities participating in the project, master two different languages: the language of the Jewish Israeli community is Hebrew, where as the language of the Arab community is Arabic. The project was conducted in the Hebrew language, and the Arab learners were encouraged to write some of the material uploaded in Arabic in Hebrew letters.

The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities

Sonia Nieto makes student learning the primary objective of multicultural education. She draws on a host of research in learning styles, multiple intelligences and cognitive theories to portray the way students learn. Nieto then takes the reader beyond individual learners to discuss the social context of learning, educational equity, the influence of culture on learning and critical pedagogy. Centering on multicultural education as a transformative process, the text includes many reflections of teachers who have undergone this process and whose experiences will be invaluable to other teachers.

PROFILE: The Light in Her Eyes: An Interview with Sonia Nieto

Presents an interview with educators’ educator Sonia Nieto--an author of two important books (“The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities,” and “Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education”). Discusses her books, avoiding stereotypes, current issues in multicultural education, how and what is taught, exploring unconscious attitudes, and linguistic diversities.

The light in their eyes: creating multicultural learning communities

The light in their eyes: creating multicultural learning communities