Against All Odds: Multilingual Multicultural Educators for the 21st Century

ABSTRACT

In 2019 more than half of the nation’s population under age 16 identified as a racial or ethnic minority. As of 2014, Latinx in California surpassed whites as the state’s largest ethnic group and today, more than 200 different languages are spoken. This makes California home to one of the most diverse student populations in the world. However, current research indicates that educators are not prepared to meet the educational needs of linguistically and culturally diverse students or lead the instructional demands of these students. In response, the Higher Learning University launched the Multilingual Multicultural Education (MME) master’s degree program in rural California. This ethnographic study examines the challenges related to establishing and maintaining a successful program through the lens of five instructors who were instrumental in the inception and development of the program. The major themes identified in this study include the transformational context occurring during the program’s establishment (i.e. shifts in demographics, policy, and attitudes), challenges (i.e. prevailing anti-immigrant attitudes), pedagogical impact (i.e. students’ increased understanding of themselves in an unequal society, advancement of research and professional skills), and postgraduate impact (i.e. development and transformations related to linguistic and cultural competency for social justice).

KEYWORDS:

• Critical pedagogy
• post-secondary education
• multicultural education
• bilingual education
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Pseudonyms have been assigned to names of education institutes and their locations along with individuals to protect anonymity.

² “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance … ” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/regulatory/statutes/title-vi-civil-rights-act-of-1964