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A Critique of an Article entitled Preparing Preserve Teachers in a Diverse World

by S.D. Lenski, K. Crawford, T Crumpler & C. Stallworth

Anne Harbottle
University of British Columbia

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A Critique of an Article entitled Preparing Preserve Teachers in a Diverse World

by S.D. Lenski, K. Crawford, T Crumpler & C. Stallworth

The article entitled Preparing Preservice Teachers in a Diverse World questions whether
main focus was to try and ddeveloping a more adequate way to prepare new teachers will
address the imbalance of a teaching force in the United States, who are over 90% white, to an
increasingly culturally diverse student population (Hodgkinson 2002) so that it may assist
educators in the development of habits of mind to consider those cultures in teaching
practices (Lenski et al. 2006)

by assisting educators in the development of habits of minds

that incorporate an understanding and value of students cultures and recognition of the need to
consider those cultures in teaching practices (Lenski et al. 2005) The writers argue y proposed
that if teachers were educated in the ways of ethnography, such they could use this knowledge
wouldto shape their teaching. Lenski et al statesd, that majority of teachers, who are white
including and that even those who teach with a belief of colour blindness or equality, will still
privilege main stream students (2005). They Lenski et al proposed that, if preservice teachers
were taught to be ethnographic researchers (researchers who study cultural patterns and
participants in their natural setting) they could begin then start to better understand the culture of
their students. they would be teaching.
Lenski et al. then used a case study to assert show the effectiveness of their project. The
researchers set-up used the first year as a pilot and to gain information to refine their project and
their study. The project had 28 participants (25 female and 2 male) were to go into the
communities, where that they would were going to be teaching in and observe. erve what they

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saw.

Bimonthly discussions by the The participants assisted in educating themalso participated

in bimonthly discussions where they were educated on as to how to improve their ethnographic
research skills; moreover, . In addition, S.D. Lenski modeled the proper way to complete
ethnographic research. The preservice teachers were to examine their own views about diversity
education and They were then asked to present write a final paper. and prepared a presentation.

For a study that aimed to teach preservice teachers to be ethnographic researchers the
researchers themselves used a different qualitative approach of a case study. Lenski et al used
the data from the second year of a five year project. (2005) The researchers used the first year as
a pilot and to gain information to refine their project and their study. The project had 28
participants (25 female and 2 male) go into the communities that they were going to be teaching
in and observe what they saw. The participants also participated in bimonthly discussions where
they were educated on how to improve their ethnographic research skills. In addition, S.D.
Lenski modeled the proper way to complete ethnographic research. They were then asked to
write a final paper and prepared a presentation. The case study focused on 6 of those 28
participants. However, little was explain as to how the researchers chose the 6 representatives
for the entire group of participants. There was not even mention of the gender breakdown. The
6 were interviewed throughout the year. The information from these representatives was then
analyzed by the researcher in order to look a themes or questions. The questions were then used
to delve back into the data and to analyze it more thoroughly (Lenski et al, 2005).
Lenski et al noticed that the preservices teacher learned four main things. The first was
that they had to confront the cultural assumptions they were making during their observations.
The second thing they learned was to expand their idea of diversity. By that, they needed to
understand the race was only one part to diversity as was gender and other components. In

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addition, the participants learned to become participant observers. This means that they learned
that distancing themselves from the community did not help them; actually become a part or
learning about the community and culture did. Finally, they learned that they could use their
knowledge learned from their observations to help better shape their lessons to meet the needs of
their learners. The researchers found three interesting trends in their data of the preservice
teachers. One such trend was that participants wanted to be told specifically what to look for
while researching (Lenski, 2005) The second thing was that preservice teachers moved from
observing to applying the information which meant they were using their information to shape
their teaching. Lastly, the preservice teachers found the final project to be too much.
Lenski et al concluded that teaching preservice teachers how to be ethnographic
researchers helped create teachers that were more effective multicultuaral educators. They also
stated that this project and study needed to be repeat in other universities in order to be
completely to be verified.
I found this article to be well organized and clear. I understood the many purpose was a
case study on their project. I found that they had research to explain their idea and reasoning
behind their project. I noticed however that there was little on the opposing viewpoints. By this I
mean they did not compare other projects or ways that try to aid preservice teachers to be more
culturally aware. I did find the examples they used in their findings extremely helpful in
understanding the four main things the preservice teachers learned.

My main concern is with

only choosing 6 representatives out of the 28 participants. Little about why or how this small
group was chosen is given.

I find it lacking in data that they did not choose more

representatives. I feel that this small pool of representatives could have biased the finding of the
project and makes me sceptical of the finding with further case studies to confirm this one.

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References

Lenski, S. D., Crawford, K., Crumpler, T. & Stallworth C. (2005) Preparing Preservice
teachers in a diverse world. In Gay, L.R., Mills, G. &Airasian, P. Educational research:
competencies for analysis and applications. (pp. 436-441).New York, NY: Pearson.