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Caribbean Journal of Education

Reconstructing Teacher Education for Educational Equity and Diversity

Pages: 
36-51
Publication Date: 
April 1997
Issue: 
Abstract: 

One of the biggest challenges for teacher education in Western societies is to prepare practitioners for the growing diversity within their schools. Massive global migrations over the past decades have given schools and classrooms the “United Nations'' look: students from various racial, ethnic, cultural, language, and religious backgrounds often share the same learning environment. This contemporary cultural explosion is further diversified and made complex by the range of students' social and economic status (SES), gender and sexual orientations, exceptionalities, and other forms of difference that are commonplace in today's schools. How are teacher educators responding to this diversity? Verma's (1993) international perspective on teacher education highlights the shortcomings of institutions in countries such as Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, South Africa, and Holland in their response to educational equity and diversity in teacher preparation. His collection of essays alerts teacher educators to the massive exclusivities and inequalities that are evident in the selection of student teachers, the curriculum and process, and practicum experiences within schools and communities.

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