Teaching and Learning in a Diverse World : Multicultural Education for Young Children

This comprehensive text addresses social and economic inequities and how they affect staff relationships, interactions with parents, and children’s classroom experiences.

How can we create truly multicultural classrooms? In this fourth edition of her popular text, renowned early childhood educator Patricia Ramsey draws on a wide range of research and practice from different communities around the world to explore the complexities of raising and teaching young children in a world fraught with societal divisions and inequities.

Using engaging examples and stories, Teaching and Learning in a Diverse World offers concrete suggestions to encourage teachers to reflect on their own histories and experiences and to challenge and rethink their assumptions and attitudes toward children and teaching. It describes research-based classroom practices to engage children in exploring the complexities of race, economic inequities, immigration, environmental issues and sustainability, gender and sexual orientation and identities, and abilities and disabilities. It also addresses the challenges of teaching in the context of globalization, pervasive social media, and increasing standards and accountability.

Book Features:

• Addresses social and economic inequities and how they affect staff relationships, interactions with parents, and children’s classroom experiences.
• Offers strategies to help teachers initiate conversations with colleagues, parents, and children.
• Discusses long-term structural decisions about early childhood programs, as well as day-to-day classroom teaching plans.
• Includes questions that prompt teachers to recognize the influence of overt and covert societal forces on their motivations and views of children.
• Free supplemental resources, including a comprehensive list of suggested books for children, can be downloaded at www.tcpress.com.

Patricia G. Ramsey is professor of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College, and co-author of the bestseller What If All the Kids Are White?, Second Edition