Integrating Issues of Diversity Across the Curriculum for All Pre-Service Teachers

Teaching across difference is a major issue in teacher education today due to the increasing cultural diversity of K-12 students. In this article, I consider how teacher education programs can integrate diversity issues across the curriculum for both hegemonic "majority" pre-service teachers (e.g., white, English dominant, middle-class, female) as well "minority" pre-service teachers from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. I argue that "mainstream" teacher candidates can learn cultural knowledge, skills and political awareness through diversity-infused curricula. I also assert that diversity-infused curricula provide safe "counter-spaces" for "minority" teacher candidates to examine their internalized oppression. However, I also acknowledge the tensions and challenges in implementing diversity-infused curricula, including individual resistance, structural issues regarding high stakes accountability, and incoherent, piecemeal implementation of diversity-infused curricula. I describe how teacher educators could combine diversity-infused curriculum with pre-service teachers' critical reflections and pedagogical stances during coursework as well as field experiences in order to foster pre-service teachers' teaching for social justice.