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ERIC Number: EJ963749
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 7
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1068-3844
EISSN: N/A
Students Find Their Place in History: Using Theatre to Expand Pre-Service Teachers' Multicultural Awareness
Stanton, Shannon M.; Gonzalez, Gilberto
Multicultural Education, v18 n4 p46-52 Sum 2011
Scholars for decades now have argued for the importance of multiculturalism in the United States, as they become a more diverse society. Multicultural education has the potential to provide a curriculum that is inclusive, offering multiple perspectives, and concerned with equity. It is without question the responsibility of colleges and universities to make sure teachers are prepared to meet the needs of the students they will teach. This includes the need to provide cultural relevancy within a curriculum that still remains very Eurocentric. As the discussions around multicultural education grow, there is a rising concern about how it will best be implemented in the classroom--if it is to be implemented at all. To address the needs at the college, the authors created two courses, one in theatre and the second in education, with the goal of getting pre-service teachers to experience a multicultural curriculum in a more intimate way. This article offers an analysis of the midterm course project that linked these two courses. In the theatre class, "Improvisation for Teachers" (IT), students were asked to express archetypal characters found in migration stories as a way to get them to connect the themes of multiculturalism they were learning in the education course, Heritage, Identity, and Empowerment (HIE). What follows in the discussion on multicultural education is the authors' methodology, an analysis of one of their assignments in the paired courses, and implications for teacher education programs.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A