Chapter 6: Creating Effective Learning Opportunities For Diverse Students and Families: Implications for Conducting Urban Education Research

The increasing diversity of today’s classrooms can no longer be overlooked. Students of color currently constitute 40% of the population in the United States (Matuszny, Banda, & Coleman, 2007). The 2001 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports 68% of the student population in 100 of the nation’s largest school districts is non-White. By 2050, it is anticipated that 50% of all students attending public schools in the United States will come from diverse—for example, ability, gender, geographic origin, language and communication style, race/ethnicity, sexual preference, social economic status—family backgrounds (Gollnick & Chinn, 2006).

Current public school teachers’ demographics do not mirror those of their students’. The previously cited NCES (2001) report reveals that 87% of teachers are White. Brandon (2003) cites Ladson-Billings’ (2001) work when describing today’s teaching work force: “88% are white and 81% are between 45-60 or more years old.” Darling-Hammond and Sclan (as cited by Brandon, 2003) add that “only 3% of new teachers speak a second language.”