The Power of Culture: Teaching Across Language Difference examines the pedagogical and political supports necessary to give language minority students a high-quality education in mainstream classrooms. The volume focuses on three key issues of educational reform— high-stakes assessment, effective pedagogy, and teacher preparation—as they relate to teaching a diverse student body to high academic standards. Contributing authors assess the effects of high-stakes testing on language minority students, and debate whether educational reform has, in implementation, drifted away from the principle of equity.

Vivid descriptions of classrooms exemplify the art and science of teaching language minority students using the power of culture: the power of the mainstream culture and of the students' home cultures. Classroom studies focus on students from a variety of backgrounds, including Cambodian, Cape Verdean, Chinese, and Puerto Rican, as well as literacy students from Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Somalia who arrived in the United States with no literacy skills in either their native language or English.

The Power of Culture highlights mainstream teachers and teacher preparation programs that are taking the diversity challenge seriously and are responding to the complexities of teaching language minority students in constructive and innovative ways.

By examining the high-stakes educational context, examples of successful teaching across language difference, and teacher education programs that help teachers recognize and utilize the power of culture, The Power of Culture provides a timely compendium of studies and analyses to guide educators and administrators as they work to fulfill the reform promise of excellence for all students.

Table of Contents

"The High Stakes of High-Stakes Testing" by Miren Uriarte

"Revealing Illusions of Educational Progress: Texas High-Stakes Tests and Minority Student Performance" by Walt Haney

"A Quest for Quality: Providing Qualified Teachers for California's English Learners" by Julie Maxwell-Jolly and Patricia Gándara

"Agents of Literacy Change: Working with Somali Students in an Urban Middle School" by Audrey. Friedman

"Teaching Bilingual Students in Mainstream Classrooms" by María Estela Brisk, Mary Dawson, Millicent Hartgering, Elizabeth MacDonald, and Lucinda Zehr

"'Remember I Said': Cambodian Students' Second Language Literacy Development in a Mainstream Classroom" by Nancy Hornberger

"Connecting Classroom and Community through the Arts and Oral Narrative" by Berta Rosa Berriz

"Creating an Equal Playing Field: Teachers as Advocates, Border Crossers, and Cultural Brokers" by Lilia Bartolomé

"What We Would Have Liked to Know: Preservice Teachers' Perspectives on Effective Teacher Preparation" by Audrey. Friedman

"'You Can't Step on Someone Else's Words': Preparing All Teachers to Teach Language Minority Students" by Meg Gebhard, Theresa Austin, Sonia Nieto, and Jerri Willett

Zeynep F. Beykont, Editor received a doctoral degree in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and conducted postdoctoral research as a Community Fellow at MIT's Urban Studies and Planning Department. Her professional interest centers on identifying language policies and programs that support the cultural, linguistic, and academic development of minority youth. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked as a researcher and consultant in school-, museum-, and community-based educational programs in the U.S. and abroad. Her publications include Lifting Every Voice: Pedagogy and Politics of Bilingualism (2000), "Inclusiveness in Higher Education" Equity and Excellence in Education (with C. Daiute 2002), and "Against the Assimilationist Tide" in History Lessons: Transforming Social Relations of Power in the Classroom (with Johnson-Beykont, in print) edited by J. Cummins, D. Dragonas, A. Frangoudaki, and H. Smith. Her forthcoming book, Achieving Linguistic Democracy: The Role of Research, focuses on the role of research in addressing issues of equity, access, and cultural and linguistic democracy in educational institutions.

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