Classroom Cultural Ecology

The achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionately low at all levels of education. More than ever, Geneva Gay's foundational book on culturally responsive teaching is essential reading in addressing the needs of today's diverse student population. Combining insights from multicultural education theory and research with real-life classroom stories, Gay demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through their own cultural experiences. This bestselling text has been extensively revised to include expanded coverage of student ethnic groups: African and Latino Americans as well as Asian and Native Americans as well as new material on culturally diverse communication, addressing common myths about language diversity and the effects of "English Plus" instruction.

This volume is geared toward students and instructors involved in cultural ecology, ecological anthropology, and/or human ecology. While covering basic concepts for beginners, this book also provides a thorough and sophisticated discussion of cultural ecology's history and theory using examples from throughout the world, both historical and contemporary.

This study was conducted to gain descriptive insights into the routines, practices, perceptions, and interactions that make up the everyday ecology of classrooms serving African American children from low-income backgrounds. A taxonomic scheme was devised for examining the realities of what occurs in classrooms. The taxonomy identifies five dimensions of classroom life: (1) social/psychological relations; (2) technical core of instruction; (3) physical structure and organizational routines; (4) discipline and classroom management; and (5) attitudes, perceptions, and expectations. Protocols were obtained from classroom observations in 21 elementary classrooms, in which 52 observations yielded 150 hours of direct observation in grades 1 through 6. Thirty-seven students from these classrooms participated in focus groups. Findings show the importance of the teachers' personality and early morning demeanor in setting classroom tone and the usefulness of group instruction in averting disciplinary problems. Also highlighted were the teachers' tone of voice and nonverbal forms of disciplinary and management techniques. Students in focus groups showed generally positive attitudes toward their teachers, and their responses demonstrated the importance of teachers' language and communication styles. Results also show that cultural themes associated with mainstream culture were more prevalent in the classrooms than cultural themes associated with Afro-cultural ideas. The results have implications for the development of a more extensive and inclusive effort to describe the experience of low-income African American elementary school students. (Contains 26 references.) (SLD).

This book comprehensively examines classroom culture in the Chinese context and develops the model of “collective-individualism-based learning.” Classroom culture plays a fundamental role in constructing students’ learning competencies, perceptions, and behaviors. This book puts forward a collective-individualism-based learning model to explain the classroom culture in China, both past and present. The collective-individualism-based model reflects the individualized learning style of students in Chinese classroom culture, and is characterized by nine symbolic objects; a textbook, an exercise book, a pen, a blackboard, a screen, a computer, a table, a chair, and a platform. In addition to summarizing this approach to learning, the book examines the construction of a classroom culture with Chinese characteristics and argues that the collective-individualism-based model accurately portrays the personal learning style of students in a specific classroom culture that includes particular symbolic objects.

Ecologizing Education explores how we can reenvision education to meet the demands of an unjust and rapidly changing world. Going beyond "green" schooling programs that aim only to shape behavior, Sean Blenkinsop and Estella Kuchta advance a pedagogical approach that seeks to instills eco-conscious and socially just change at the cultural level. Ecologizing education, as this approach is called, involves identifying and working to overcome anti-ecological features of contemporary education. This approach, called ecologizing education, aims to develop a classroom culture in sync with the more-than-human world where diversity and interdependency are intrinsic. Blenkinsop and Kuchta illustrate this educational paradigm shift through the real-world stories of two public elementary schools located in British Columbia. They show that this approach to learning starts with recognizing the environmental and social injustices that pervade our industrialized societies. By documenting how ecologizing education helps children create new relationships with the natural world and move toward mutual healing, Blenkinsop and Kuchta offer a roadmap for what may be the most potent chance we have at meaningful change in the face of myriad climate crises. Timely, practical, and ultimately inspirational, Ecologizing Education is vital reading for any parent, caregiver, environmentalist, or educator looking for wholistic education that places nature and the environment front and center.

Ecocriticism is one of the most vibrant fields of cultural study today, and environmental issues are controversial and topical. This volume captures the excitement of green reading, reflects on its relationship to the modern academy, and provides practical guidance for dealing with global scale, interdisciplinarity, apathy and scepticism.

This book provides a conceptual basis for recognizing the classroom as an ecology of linguistic and cultural patterns that should be taken into account as part of the teacher's professional decision making. It argues that the orchestration of classroom behaviour cannot be separated from the mental ecology of metaphor and thought patterns that reflect the student's primary culture. Chapters discuss the metaphorical nature of language and thought, primary socilization, nonverbal communication, framing and social control, the classroom as an ecology of power, culturally responsive supervision, and educating teachers for the 21st century - all from a cultural and linguistic point of view.

At a time when environmental humanities and sustainability studies are creating new opportunities for curricular innovation, this volume examines factors key to successful implementation of cross-curricular initiatives in language programs. Contributors discuss theoretical issues pertinent to combining sustainability studies with foreign languages, describe curricular models transferable to a range of instructional contexts, and introduce program structures supportive of teaching cultures and languages across the curriculum. Exploring the intersection of ecocritical theory, second language acquisition research, and disciplinary fields, these essays demonstrate ways in which progressive language departments are being reconceived as relevant and viable programs of cross-disciplinary studies. They provide an introduction to teaching sustainability and environmental humanities topics in language, literature, and culture courses as well as a wide range of resources for teachers and diverse stakeholders in areas related to foreign language education.