This book reports an ethnographic study of thirty teachers from eighteen schools who participated in a staff development programme in multicultural education. The study examines how multicultural education was actually presented to teachers, and areas in which their classroom teaching and perception of students changed over the two-year period. Although most of the teachers reported learning a good deal, changes in their teaching and their discussions of teaching were fairly limited. After reporting the data, the book examines why changes were limited, analyzing three areas: the nature of staff development and how multicultural education was packaged; the structure of schools as institutions; and the identities and life experiences of teachers as White women, often from working class backgrounds.

This book reports an ethnographic study of thirty teachers from eighteen schools who participated in a staff development programme in multicultural education. The study examines how multicultural education was actually presented to teachers, and areas in which their classroom teaching and perception of students changed over the two-year period.

Although most of the teachers reported learning a good deal, changes in their teaching and their discussions of teaching were fairly limited. After reporting the data, the book examines why changes were limited, analyzing three areas: the nature of staff development and how multicultural education was packaged; the structure of schools as institutions; and the identities and life experiences of teachers as White women, often from working class backgrounds.

The work presented here is a large-scale evaluation of a theory-driven school reform project in New Zealand, which focuses on improving the educational achievement of Maori students in public secondary schools. The project's conceptual underpinnings are based on Kaupapa Maori research, culturally responsive teaching, student voice, and relationship-based pedagogy. Data were produced by a research team who conducted a three-year external evaluation of the project in 22 of the 33 schools implementing its professional development initiative. The book shows the extent to which a well-conceptualized and culturally grounded program in culturally responsive pedagogy, supported by a well-conceptualized professional development program, can shift teacher practices and understandings. These shifts lead to a reduction in the achievement disparities of minoritized students, as well as support for the students as culturally located human beings. While the professional development project in this book addresses Maori students' educational achievement, the study's findings and messages are applicable far beyond New Zealand, because the educational experiences of Maori people are common to many Indigenous and other minoritized peoples in countries around the world.

This collection of essays frames the work of teachers and teacher educators within a struggle over what it means to educate a highly diverse public. Visions for public education, as shaped by progressivism and the Civil Rights movements, have emphasized preparation of all children and youth for participation in a diverse democracy. This vision is being challenged by neoliberalism, which frames education as a commodity to be acquired for individual advancement within a competitive marketplace, and as an arena for profit-making. In this book, Sleeter connects incisive conceptual analyses, research reviews, and descriptive portraits of teachers and teacher educators as they "teach back to power." She argues that the work of pushing back against neoliberalism, especially as it overlaps with racism, patriarchy, and radical religious fundamentalism, is a political project, but one that research can help to support.