Multicultural Educators as Cultural Brokers and Language Mediators

With the lack of ethnolinguistic-specific resources for U.S. teachers, this essay is written for teachers working with ethnolinguistic students at schools and in the communities. In what follows, I will focus on two expanded theoretical underpinnings of becoming multicultural educators: (1) cultural brokering as a way to cross personal and professional boundaries, and (2) using languages as mediators to support the learning of ethnolinguistic students. For the second theoretical underpinning, I offer two recommendations for achieving the goals of multicultural education: (1) adopting an anthropological Funds of Knowledge approach, and (2) working our critical awareness inside out.