Affirming Student Ethnic Identities : How Teachers Can Create Welcoming Classrooms

Affirming Student Ethnic Identities introduces a researched-based model that shows educators how to support student ethnic identity development while teaching subject matter content.

Teachers share their stories, detailing how their own ethnic identity development transformed their teaching and their ability to connect with their students. The text includes research that informs the discussion of important issues such as “code switching,” “acting White,” “the importance of familial and given names,” and “ethnic slurs” that are likely to surface when teachers support students in exploring their ethnicities and proclaiming their ethnic identities. Lesson designs for use at the elementary, middle, and high school grade levels are provided, as well as a structure for designing an ethnic identity development curriculum.
Ethnic identity is a critical developmental process for all students, and this book offers new teaching strategies designed to help students achieve their academic goals by fully embracing their histories, traditions, and customs.
Book Features:

• New Strategies for Helping Students Achieve Academic Goals: Responds to research showing that students with a strong sense of ethnic identity have higher levels of academic achievement, persist in educational endeavors, and have a higher college-going rate than students without a strong sense of ethnic identity.
• A New Model for Promoting Ethnic Identity Development in Education: Introduces the author’s Ethnic Identity Exploration and Proclamation in Education model designed to support all students in K–12 school settings.
• Fills a Void in Teacher Education: Provides theoretical principles and conceptualizations of ethnic identity for different groups, pedagogical strategies to help preservice and classroom teachers to reclaim and celebrate their ethnic identities, and the structure for ethnic identity curriculum development.
• Best Practices Based on Research with Classroom Teachers: Includes guidance for implementation with discussions of difficult issues, useful lesson designs, teachers’ personal work on ethnic identity exploration, profiles of teachers who share their personal struggles, and more.

André J. Branch is associate professor of teacher education at San Diego State University, the cofounder and director of the International Research Network of Ethnic Identity Pedagogy, and serves with the California State University Center for Transformational Education Preparation Programs.