Deepening Teacher Knowledge of Multiculural Literature Through a University-Schools Partnership‪.‬

How can professional development help teachers tune up subject matter knowledge to better reach their culturally and linguistically diverse students? When teachers evaluate such work as effective, what do they learn, and what makes the work possible? These questions guide this examination of a group of educators involved in a summer institute and follow-up activity. The work was part of a university-schools partnership designed to better prepare underrepresented youth for college. The specific institute goal was to strengthen knowledge of multicultural literature for use with high school students in a highly diverse, high needs urban school district. The teachers' goal was one among several common to multicultural education --that of content integration, infusion of cultural content in curricula (Banks, 1993). This work can occur in all subject areas but is particularly important and possible in social studies and English, where students encounter stories of challenges and conflicts in building cultures and civilizations and of how humans narrate and reflect on life journeys. Texts taught send strong messages about "official knowledge" and what schools are for (Apple, 1993), about power and social relationships and whose stories and perspectives warrant curricular space (Apple, 1992).