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This practitioner-based manuscript describes the development and implementation of Focus on College Understanding and Success (FOCUS), a school-university programmatic model to develop College Access Literacy (CAL) among both students and educators in a Professional Development School (PDS) network. With an emphasis on teacher training, supplemental learning opportunities for students, and faculty-student-parent mentor/partnerships, this model was designed to apply a culturally responsive approach to achieving equity in college readiness programming.

The paper is conceptual in that it presents an innovative idea to stimulate discussion, generate new ideas, and advance thinking about a collective impact school-university partnership initiative focused on supporting underrepresented students in pursuing higher education goals through participation in the FOCUS program. A thematic analysis was completed on focus group data collected for both educators and students who participated in the project. Data focused on the identification of both strengths and challenges of program development and implementation.

The paper provides insights and ideas related to how to structure a college access and success program that focuses on the assets that underrepresented students bring to college readiness opportunities designed for them by centering their struggles while uplifting their personal, unique abilities. Our results validate a college readiness program design and implementation process that relies on asset-based theoretical frameworks including Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) model and Moll et al.’s (1992) Funds of Knowledge (FoK) framework.

This study shows how school-university partnerships are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the strengths of students and their families in designing college readiness programming. By considering the local context and culturally responsive approaches to program development and implementation, programs like FOCUS can build on community resources and the teacher-student relationship to increase College Access Literacy (CAL) in both students and their teachers.

The purpose of this paper is to make visible the field's propensity to center whiteness even in engaging inclusive practices in information literacy classrooms. This paper offers abolitionist pedagogy as a means to understand and address these concerns.

This paper uses interdisciplinary research methods in the fields of education, library science, feminist studies, Black studies and abolition studies to examine and provide an analysis of current information literacy practices by using abolitionist pedagogy to articulate how it is possible to expand information literacy instruction practices.

Current information literacy practices and methods that seek to create inclusive learning environments for racialized and minoritized learners rely on a set of institutionalized practices such as critical information literacy and culturally sustaining pedagogies. An examination of these practices through an abolitionist pedagogical lens reveals how the field has engaged in reductive and uncritical engagement with these methods despite employing them to create inclusive spaces. Using abolitionist pedagogy as a lens, this critical essay examines the field's foundations in whiteness and illustrates pathways for transformative educational justice.

There has been much work on inclusive teaching practices that discusses challenging information literacy structures' reliance on dominant culture.? To date, there has been little to no scholarship on how information literacy practices could engage in abolitionist pedagogical praxis.

Although teacher educators have worked on improving pre‐service teachers' diversity awareness, researchers still face the challenge of pursuing a better approach to achieve the goal. In an era when educators are calling for evidence‐based practice, the purpose of this paper is to explore various ways in which both teacher‐education programs and general schools can integrate diversity issues into literacy teaching and learning. The paper undertakes this exploration on the basis of Gollnick and Chinn's cultural‐identity model and of weblog‐technology use.

The participants of this paper are 27 pre‐service teachers. The researchers set up a private group blog and invited all participants to be blog authors. The blog enabled the instructor to archive and categorize all posts and to continue to invite cohorts of pre‐service teachers to join the blog. Pre‐service teachers are placed in culturally and linguistically diverse classroom settings and are required to post their weekly reflections on the weblog. The researchers adopte mixed methodology to collect both qualitative data (field observation reports, discussion content on the blog, case studies, and focus groups) and quantitative data (pre‐post surveys).

The pre‐service teachers in this paper possessed positive and open‐minded attitudes toward English language learners. According to the pre‐ and post‐survey, pre‐service teachers are confident that they could resolve issues related to diversity in the classroom after participating in the paper. According to the results of the case‐scenario analysis, the instructor should use reading contexts to address diversity issues, especially those pertaining to exceptionality, geography, class, and gender. The pre‐service teachers' discussions and interactions on the blog were rich. Pre‐service teachers felt motivation to expand their diversity‐themed discussions from the classroom to the blog.

With the assistance of weblogs, the instructor can extend the in‐class discussion. In the paper, group blogs became a tool that helped the instructor and the pre‐service teachers not only link the in‐class discussion to their field observations but also share personal experiences and resources. For introverted pre‐service teachers, a group blog can serve as a channel through which the pre‐service teachers can comfortably express carefully organized opinions. In general, the commenting feature of the blog enriches interaction among pre‐service teachers and widens their discussion in a way in which limited class time cannot.

As an interruption to existing nationalistic and neoliberal frames, teachers are beginning to embrace cosmopolitanism to ground literacy instruction. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the possibilities and tensions of using a cosmopolitan approach to literacy instruction. This chapter presents a qualitative study of interviews with 24 educators from the United States, Belize, and China to examine curricular and instructional choices educators report using to promote students' global meaning-making and cosmopolitan worldviews. Findings include three themes: situated relevance, glocal connections, and intercultural collaboration. Participants reported that creating a welcoming environment and promoting equality in the local classroom is foundational to teaching students at the local or global level. Teaching global literacies included teaching about similarities and differences locally and internationally and making local–global connections on issues of importance to the students. Also, participants reported that for students to engage in global meaning-making, they needed to dialogue and collaborate with people from different countries. While the findings present possibilities, the discussion approaches the data through the lens of potential challenges. Some participants reported first helping students move beyond ethnocentric thinking and stereotypes through reflexive exercises so that students could constructively interact with peers cross-culturally. However, not all participants taught reflexivity or with a critical lens. This study may bring awareness to educators as to curricular choices and instructional processes that hold promise for promoting students' global meaning-making.

This paper aims to provide insights for educators seeking to enact culturally responsive-sustaining education and research in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The authors examine what happened when the community-based Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) initiative they engaged with traditionally marginalized high school students was interrupted as a result of physical distancing necessitated by COVID-19.

Data for this inquiry were taken from a broader on-going ethnography of youth’s participation in the YPAR project and included audio and video recordings from meetings of the YPAR initiative and messages exchanged between and among authors and youth. Authors used components of culturally responsive-sustaining education and theories related to student voice as an analytic frame through which they considered how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced their work.

Three findings are examined in this paper. They consider: how youth participants and the authors stayed connected after they were no longer able to meet in person; how youth chose to center the needs of the subsidized housing community where they lived while continuing their work; and how youth and authors navigated the uncertainties they encountered in looking ahead to future possibilities for their study as the pandemic continued.

This study provides urgently needed insights for educators and researchers grappling with how they may enact culturally responsive-sustaining education and research during the COVID-19 global pandemic and beyond.

This chapter will provide an analysis of current educational conditions of Black males within our K-12 school system and the ongoing instructional implications for school leaders working to address literacy leadership and practice. It will provide insight and motivation for school leaders as they navigate political, social, and policy systems that surround the current educational climate and instructional expectations. Readers will engage in a reflective, collaborative, and constructive learning process related to how successful school leaders enhance teaching and learning on their school campuses for Black males and what behaviors are critical to supporting teachers and students through the process. Specifically at the elementary level where foundational decoding, fluency, and comprehension skills are developed and cultivated for early learners we must be intentional with all aspects of the learning process and our instructional pedagogy. This chapter will work to expand the body of knowledge surrounding Black males as we commit to deconstructing existing and reconstructing inclusive, equitable, and just learning environments. Implications for research, policy and practice, including recommendations to support ongoing formal and informal professional learning opportunities for educators to openly discuss their understanding of Black males, challenges they face, and strategies that they have found to be successful will be disclosed.

The purpose of this study is to serve as an exploration of technology engagement on culturally responsive pre-service teachers. In an effort to increase interests of PK–12 students of diverse populations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, many will need opportunities and introductions presented from their PK–12 teachers. Thus, as a part of teaching in the twenty-first century, PK–12 teachers play an intricate role in sparking beginning and continuing interest in technology. This is especially important for students who may not have the opportunity to engage in technology outside of their school setting. Consequently, it is imperative that PK–12 teachers develop a positive disposition toward and engage in technology themselves.

Using a mixed-method approach, this study investigates the perceptions of Historically Black Colleges and Universities PK–12 pre-service teachers in the area of technology engagement as they work to become culturally responsive teachers. The study provides an interpretation of the pre-service teachers’ level of interest/engagement practices and its relationship with their preparation as culturally responsive teachers.

The findings suggest a positive correlation between their education preparation program and their ability to utilize technology with their future students.

Finally, the study highlights the need for teacher educators to place a heavier focus on their own technology integration and for education preparation program courses/practicums to follow suit so that under-represented student populations develop more interest in STEM subjects.

This paper aims to explore the potential for instructional video to build capacity in culturally responsive teaching, and outline an approach developed at NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (Metro Center) for using inquiry-based, teacher-led teams to study, develop and film culturally responsive teaching in action. The paper explores the use of instructional video in an asset-focused model of professional development that develops culturally responsive teaching through digital videos that can be shared among colleagues, posted online and presented at professional conferences.

The primary aims of the paper are conceptual and include drawing on a review of the literature on instructional video to map onto one model of professional development the learning goals and reflective activities that are most likely to develop the potential of instructional video to change beliefs and develop critical consciousness, and providing anecdotal evidence to explore the potential for using instructional video in an asset-focused, transformative and responsive model of professional development in culturally responsive teaching.

Instructional video can be effective for professional development in culturally responsive teaching because people often need to see transformations in teaching and learning before they can believe such transformations are possible. Instructional videos of effective culturally responsive teaching, in this manner, highlight best practices and provide a way for schools to post an “early win” in their work in addressing achievement gaps.

Instructional video can assist educators in confronting and challenging prevailing deficit-based beliefs about ostensibly “low-achieving” students that limit possibilities for culturally responsive teaching; opening up opportunities for transformative learning and inviting the shift to a culturally responsive mindset; and examining and discussing models of excellent teaching. This model of professional development is asset-focused and transformative because it moves teacher voices from margin to center and empowers teachers as models and stewards of transformative learning.

Although numerous studies have documented the potential of instructional video in asset-focused and transformative models of professional development, only two studies explore the potential of instructional video specifically in the development of culturally responsive teaching (Lopez, 2013; Rosaen, 2015). This paper contributes to this nascent literature through documenting an approach to instructional video that was developed for and with teachers at a K-8 public school in Brooklyn.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a collaborative project and study implemented by two teacher educators in an elementary education program. To prepare teacher candidates for field experiences and practicum in a diverse (bilingual) urban school, the program uses coursework to impart asset-based pedagogies and practices.

In this mixed-method case study, this paper examined the awareness and perspectives of preservice teachers (n = 26) to cultural and linguistic diversity and relevant teaching and learning practices. In particular, this study gauged their engagement with multicultural children’s literature in a collaborative interclass activity. The data sources included beginning and end of semester survey responses, notes on participant interactions during the mid-semester collaborative interclass activity and participant retrospective reflections about the activity.

This paper found that teacher candidates showed increased awareness and positive shifts in perspectives. This study also ascertaind that, in learning to become culturally (and linguistically) responsive and sustaining teachers, they benefited from collaborative peer work that focused on learning about multicultural children’s literature, analyzing it and planning to integrate it into their classrooms.

Studies show that culturally relevant literature in schools is beneficial; however, teacher candidates often lack knowledge of such literature and how to use it. This need is especially critical and relevant when learning about and implementing culturally relevant and sustaining practices. The collaborative undertaking discussed in this study fills this gap through co-teaching and interclass activity that brings preservice teachers as a cohort to collaboratively learn about, discuss, reflect on and plan lessons as they prepare to work with students from different backgrounds than their own.