Little Rascals in the City of God: Film Reflection and Multicultural Education

Abstract

Research has highlighted the factionalizing of pre-service teachers into two groups: Ethnic Minorities who understand diversity, and Whites who do not. In an exploration of the relationship of this distinction to the resources pre-service teachers actually bring into diversity courses, this study utilizes an innovative instructional strategy, ―Film Reflection And Multicultural Education‖ (FRAME) to access the cultural assumptions in pre-service teachers‘ understanding of ―others.‖ Using FRAME, data analysis of 133 pre-service teacher reflections revealed distinctions that fell within expectations related to pre-service teacher ethnicity, but also uncovered variations within ethnic groups. Findings suggest that bifurcating pre-service teachers along ethnic lines, therefore, does little to advance our understanding of the resources with which students enter teacher education programs. Assuring diversity instructors recognize the capacity of all their pre-service teachers to understand diversity is critical to protecting the rights of students (of all ages) to an equitable education. The results of this study show FRAME can help us achieve this goal

Keywords

• diversity, teacher education, equity, reflection, film

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