The following section provides key findings from our study about the opportunities teachers have to build and develop CRSE skills at the 10 colleges and universities that award the greatest number of Initial Certificates to New York City teachers.

Finding #1:

Cultural Background and Sociopolitical Consciousness were the most common themes of CRSE represented in course descriptions across sampled programs.

Of the 732 course descriptions that were analyzed, 349 course descriptions were identified as CRSE—roughly 48% of sampled programs course descriptions satisfied the requirements to be identified as one of the CRSE themes. Collectively, the Cultural Background theme (46% of CRSE course descriptions) and the Sociopolitical Consciousness theme (27% of CRSE course descriptions) comprise 73% of all course descriptions (table 4). The Cultural Background theme which honors students diversity and inclusion was the most common element of CRSE. The vast majority (75% of all subthemes) of Cultural Background courses were part of the diversity, community, and culture subthemes (table 5). The least represented subtheme is intersectionality, only six of 732 course descriptions make reference to intersectionality (22).

While representation is an important component of CRSE, it’s also important that student teachers consider that representation within context. The Sociopolitical Consciousness theme puts those diverse identities into context that critically examines the role of race, identity, power, culture, values, and perspectives within a societal context. The Critical Thinking subtheme comprised almost half of all course descriptions included in the Sociopolitical Consciousness subtheme (table 6). Notably, 38 course descriptions contained Equity, Access, and Critical Consciousness subthemes and just 12 course descriptions included Bias and Systems subthemes.

The Relevancy, Critical Action, and Student Dignity themes are the least represented within the CRSE course descriptions (table 4). Collectively, the aforementioned themes represent just 27% of all CRSE course descriptions. That means Relevancy (directly connects teaching and learning to children’s prior knowledge and experience from their home and community to meaningfully engage students for high academic achievement), Critical Action (connect teaching and learning to action, social change and social justice), and Student Dignity (directly connect teaching and learning to students’ whole beings that are dynamic, multidimensional, in need of support, care, love, understanding and grace) may not be receiving enough attention in teacher preparation programs.

Relevancy

Of the 349 CRSE-specific course descriptions and 732 course descriptions analyzed, only 45 course descriptions explicitly offered student teachers with opportunities to learn about the Relevancy CRSE theme (table 7). The Relevancy theme describes the meaningful inclusion of students’ cultural backgrounds, assets, knowledge and wisdom to engage students in learning and achieve high academic success. This theme is foundational to CRSE. It’s not enough for educators to simply know students’ backgrounds and cultures. To implement CRSE, educators must also apply students’ backgrounds and cultures to curriculum (or curriculum development) and instruction in order to make classroom experiences relevant to students. Here, the term “apply” refers to integrating students’ backgrounds and cultures in the classroom as opposed to simply adding in symbolic representation. This implementation relies on educators’ cultural competence, or educators’ ability to know, appreciate, celebrate, and center students’ cultures in the classroom so that they can learn. (23) It is imperative that teacher preparation programs help educators to establish their cultural competence and receive formal training on teaching in culturally relevant ways. When educators do not receive this opportunity in teacher preparation programs, they are vulnerable to teaching in ways that center white middle class families’ values, knowledge, and experiences while marginalizing BIPOC and underrepresented communities.

Critical Action

Only 29 of 732 course descriptions were identified as meeting the Critical Action theme requirements (Table 8). If courses are not explicitly connecting teaching and learning to action, social change, and social justice, they are playing an active role in maintaining and perpetuating the status quo and institutional racism. Scholar Beverly Daniel Tatum states that, “Not only do we want these future teachers to understand the dynamics of inequity, but we also want them to see themselves as agents for change, empowered to engage in liberatory educational practices that will empower their students. (24)” Teachers play a key role in transforming schools into equitable spaces of learning. Likewise, students should also play a key role in transforming schools and society. Teacher preparation programs that do not help teachers build their capacity for critical action, sends teachers into the classroom underprepared to act as change agents.

Student Dignity

The Student Dignity theme makes up only 6% of all CRSE course descriptions and 3% of all course descriptions analyzed (Table 9). Only 22 course descriptions directly connected teaching and learning to students’ whole beings and affirmed that students are regarded as dynamic, multidimensional, in need of support, care, love, understanding and grace. Research shows that teachers who don’t have the skills or attitude to treat students with dignity directly contribute to educational inequities in academic performance (25), student teacher relationships (26), the school-to-prison pipeline (27) and more. If teacher preparation courses (as measured by course descriptions) do not reflect this critical CRSE theme, New York City teachers may not be prepared to treat students with dignity.

Understanding how to treat Black, Indigenous, Brown, Immigrant, Multilingual, LGBTQ+ Students, Disabled Students, and other marginalized students with dignity cannot be an assumed knowledge base or skill set that teachers have. According to numerous studies on biases and racism in education, educators do not come into classrooms with an understanding of how to treat marginalized students with dignity; that knowledge and those skills must be learned. (28) Research shows that dignity is related to classroom and individual student outcomes. (29)

Finding #2:

Six Elementary Education programs and seven Bilingual or TESOL programs of the 10 colleges and universities studied only included CRSE themes in 20% or less of their course descriptions

With few exceptions, the colleges and universities’ Elementary/Childhood Education course descriptions that we studied offer 14-30% CRSE opportunities (table 10) and their Bilingual/ TESOL Education course descriptions offer 7-20% CRSE course opportunities (table 11). Lehman College’s Elementary Education program stands out by offering CRSE opportunities in approximately 80% of its course descriptions, while producing 6% of the teaching population from the top 10 colleges and universities (table 2). Lehman College is followed by New York University, Columbia University, and Adelphi University for offering the highest percentage of courses with CRSE course descriptions. These top four universities produced 572 of 2081 certificates; this means that potentially, only 27% of all student teachers are exposed to many courses with CRSE course descriptions. The remaining 73% of student teachers had very few opportunities to be exposed to courses with CRSE course descriptions. Of the 45 credit hours required to graduate from the Childhood Education program, Brooklyn College offers zero opportunities to take courses with CRSE course descriptions.

Unlike the Elementary Education programs, the Bilingual/TESOL Education analysis does not have any standout colleges or universities. The majority of Bilingual and TESOL Masters level programs offer few opportunities to take courses with CRSE course descriptions. Only two institutions, Touro College and New York University, offered at least 40% of courses with CRSE course descriptions. Touro College and New York University awarded 16% and 7%, respectively, of all certificates in the 2015-2016 academic school year (table 2). The remaining schools, Adelphi University, Brooklyn College, City College, Hunter College, Lehman College, Long Island University, Queens College, and Columbia University offer far fewer opportunities to take courses with CRSE course descriptions.

Finding #3:

Course descriptions with CRSE themes provide illustrative examples of CRSE in action.

Our investigation of numerous teacher preparation courses provided an opportunity to elevate what CRSE “looks like” in course descriptions. Describing CRSE in action or in practice is an often cited request from stakeholders interested in CRSE. This section offers concrete examples of CRSE language that may be useful to guide colleges and universities in adopting CRSE language into their teacher certification program requirements and course descriptions. These examples are particularly important as a common request from potential CRSE practitioners, policymakers, and community members are concrete illustrations of CRSE in practice. In this section, we won’t review examples around the Cultural Background CRSE theme given how common language is around inclusivity, diversity, and access.

Illustrative Examples of the Relevancy Theme

In this research, Relevancy refers to directly connecting teaching and learning to children’s prior knowledge and experience from their home and community to meaningfully engage students for high academic achievement. This theme isn’t just about representation and diversity; it is also about how students’ cultural backgrounds, knowledge, assets, and values are used to engage students and how students’ cultures, experiences, and knowledge are legitimized in the classroom. This CRSE theme is expressed in several course descriptions. City College explicitly instructs teachers to “build on local funds of knowledge” and “operate from non-deficit models,” Lehman College teaches “contributions of the major racial and ethnic groups, especially in New York City,” Adelphi University states “paradigms of knowledge... will be critically examined, including... critical theory, feminine, and indigenous ways of knowing,” and Long Island University explores “alternate ways of knowing”. Columbia University prepares teachers “to draw upon community and family assets and consciously build a capacity approach to working in low-income neighborhoods.” Lehman College trains art teacher candidates to see “the appreciation of art in family, neighborhood, and school settings”.

Almost none of the course descriptions in this analysis communicated that teachers would be prepared to select CRSE text and/or how to supplement existing curricula in order to practice CRSE teaching. The one exception was a course description from Brooklyn College which mentioned “selecting literature that is appropriate for our multicultural society.” Furthermore, there are not strong connections being made between CRSE, equity and student success. Strikingly, growing student capacity for critical thinking is absent from the course descriptions. Our analysis shows that teacher candidates are frequently asked to critically examine ideas, but course descriptions do not directly mention cultivating those same skills in their classrooms. It should be noted that individuals can engage a level of critical thinking that does not encompass the central concepts in CRSE. This is why it is important for course descriptions (and policies and structures) to be explicit about CRSE and equity.

Illustrative Examples of the Sociopolitical Consciousness Theme

Sociopolitical consciousness refers to teachers’ development of an understanding of how identity and culture interact with social and political institutions. City College mentioned “access [is] considered in... teaching strategies as [it] relates to building community in the classroom,” a strategy for the teacher to affect equity in the classroom. Columbia University aims to educate candidates on types of inequity (social, political, spatial, and economic) that contextualize urban schools and schooling. Lehman College framed issues of equity alongside bias, emphasizing the “school as a sociocultural institution” and the teacher as an institutional gatekeeper.

City College is the only institution in the sample that examines teacher candidates’ instructional materials for bias. Brooklyn College, Lehman College, and Adelphi University mention elimination of bias or critical self-examination as a topic. Lehman College trains teachers to evaluate curriculum and instruction for “culturally and linguistically diverse young children,” and presents “alternate views on scope and sequence” for middle and high school children. The Lehman coursework appears to train teachers of all grade levels to realistically assess the accessibility of their materials.

Illustrative Examples of the Critical Action Theme

Critical Action refers to directly connecting teaching and learning to action, social change and social justice. These are courses that promote the ethos of democratic principles and steer future teachers to contribute to actionable outcomes. Brooklyn College, City College, Lehman College, Long Island University, and Touro College all explicitly address issues of advocacy and training teachers to be agents for positive change in their schools. Teachers are taught organizational theory at Brooklyn, Lehman prepares teachers to fight for linguistically responsive classrooms, City College calls teachers to act for curricular and structural change. Columbia University science coursework trains candidates to “draw from local resources in meeting the needs of urban learners” and centers multicultural science in content and pedagogy, which places the responsibility of Relevancy on the teacher. This type of positioning - the responsibility of the teacher to learn about local resources and develop multicultural pedagogy - is part of the antidote to a deficit mentality.

Though theories of change are taught to future teachers in some institutions, teachers must be trained to view and empower their students as change agents. Teachers will practice real change if they grow activism, engagement, and power among students. A prime example of the disconnect is this course description from City College: candidates will “explore aspects of social justice...and multiculturalism while producing standard-driven activities.” The danger of a course such as this is that it could privilege social justice awareness for the teachers, and maintain the paradigm of standardized activities for the students.

Illustrative Examples of the Student Dignity Theme

Student Dignity refers to directly connecting teaching and learning to students’ whole selves that are dynamic, multidimensional, and in need of support, care, love, understanding and grace. Adelphi University’s Art coursework highlights the “role art can play in opening cross-cultural understandings,” a way of looking at learning that privileges cultural knowledge. Hunter College and Lehman College also mention fostering a child’s artistic development, problem-solving, and expression in art. This culturally responsive, empowering framing of art class must be expanded to every subject and grade level. Columbia University was the only institution to explicitly position “relationships with children, their families, and community members well ahead of obtaining high scores on standardized tests.”

The NYCDOE definition of CRSE includes multiple mentions of affirmations for students. Affirmation is missing from most teacher training in these institutions. A disheartening finding of this analysis is the complete absence of the word “restorative” in course descriptions. Only Brooklyn College made mention of “group process, positive social interaction skills and peermediation”. Restorative justice is important groundwork for culturally responsive education, and teacher training programs must take initiative to train incoming teachers in restorative practices.