learning%20life%20report.pdf

7/28/2019 LEARNING%20LIFE%20REPORT.pdf

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The LIFE Center (The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments Center), University of Washington,

Stanford University, and SRI International

Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle

James A. Banks • Kathryn H. Au • Arnetha F. Ball • Philip Bell • Edmund W. Gordon • Kris D. Gutiérrez • Shirley Brice Heath • Carol D. Lee • Yuhshi Lee • Jabari Mahiri • Na’ilah Suad Nasir • Guadalupe Valdés • Min Zhou

Learning in and out of school in diverse environments



Te LIFE Center

AN NSF-FUNDED SCIENCE OF LEARNING CENTER

The Learning in Inormal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center A collaboration involving the University o Washington,

Stanord University, and SRI International.

The home o LIFE is the College o Education

University o Washington, Seattle

210 Miller Box 353600

Seattle, WA 98195-3600

Phone: 206-616-4480

Web site: http://www.lie-slc.org/

Center for Multicultural Education

College o Education

University o Washington, Seattle



Phone: 206-543-3386

E-mail: [email protected]

Web site: http://depts.washington.edu/centerme/home.htm

Copyright © 2007 by The LIFE Center (The Learning in Inormal and Formal Environments

Center) and the Center or Multicultural Education, University o Washington, Seattle

All rights reserved. No part o this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any orm or by

any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any inormation

storage retrieval system, without written permission rom the copyright holders.



The LIFE Center (The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments Center), University of Washington,

Stanford University, and SRI International

Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle

James A. Banks • Kathryn H. Au • Arnetha F. Ball • Philip Bell • Edmund W. Gordon • Kris D. Gutiérrez • Shirley Brice Heath • Carol D. Lee • Yuhshi Lee • Jabari Mahiri • Na’ilah Suad Nasir • Guadalupe Valdés • Min Zhou



EXTERNAL REVIEWS

Cherry A. McGee Banks, University o Washington, Bothell

Geneva Gay, University o Washington, Seattle

Sonia Nieto, University o Massachusetts, Amherst

Barbara Rogo, University o Caliornia, Santa Cruz

CENTER DIRECTORS AND RESEARCH ASSISTANT

James A. Banks, Director, Center or Multicultural Education

John Bransord, Principal Investigator, LIFE Center, University o Washington, Seattle

Yuhshi Lee, Research Assistant, Center or Multicultural Education/LIFE Center,University o Washington, Seattle

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments 4

Executive Summary 5

Part 1: Introduction 6

Part 2: Lie-Long, Lie-Wide, and Lie-Deep Learning 10

Part 3: Principles 14

Part 4: Conclusion and Recommendations 24

Checklist 28

Reerences 32

The Authors 36

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateul or the support o the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award #

0354453), which enabled the LIFE Diversity Consensus Panel to carry out the work thatled to this report. The opinions expressed in this report are those o the Panel members andshould not be attributed to NSF. John Bransord, the Principal Investigator or the LIFECenter, supported the Panel’s work in numerous ways. He attended most o the Panel’smeetings and made rich contributions to its discussions and deliberations. Luis Moll was anactive, thoughtul, and helpul member o the Panel during its rst year. Nora H. Sabelli, atSRI International, attended several Panel meetings and made insightul contributions to itsdiscussions.

Reed Stevens attended the rst Panel meeting and contributed to the lie-long, lie-wide, andlie-deep raming o the report. Roy D. Pea and Brigid Barron, both at Stanord University,

attended one o the two Panel meetings that were held at the Center or Advanced Study inthe Behavioral Sciences at Stanord and were active and helpul participants. Philip Bell hasbeen a strong supporter o this project and worked closely to keep LIFE graduate studentsinormed about this Panel’s work. We are grateul to the graduate students who participatedin and contributed to the discussions about the Panel’s work.

Two o the Panel’s meetings were held at the Center or Advanced Study in the BehavioralSciences at Stanord. We would like to thank the sta o the Center or their warmhospitality during our meetings. We owe special thanks to the Center director, Claude M.Steele, and to Jane Stahl, Linda Jack, Susan Beach, and Jesse Lewis.

We are deeply grateul to the our scholars who served as external reviewers, who are

identied earlier in this report. Their perceptive, careul, and incisive reviews enabled us tostrengthen this publication. We were unable to incorporate all o the suggestions made by the external reviewers and are completely responsible or the contents o this report.

The Authors

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Center or Multicultural Education at the University o Washington and the LIFE Center—

a research collaboration between the University o Washington, Stanord University, and SRIInternational, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)—established the LIFEDiversity Consensus Panel. The Panel’s goal was to develop a set o principles that educationalpractitioners, policy makers, and uture researchers could use to understand and build upon thelearning that occurs in the homes and community cultures o students rom diverse groups. A major assumption o this report is that i educators make use o the inormal learning that occursin the homes and communities o students, the achievement gap between marginalized studentsand mainstream students can be reduced.

This report consists o our major parts. Part 1, the Introduction, describes the educationalimplications o signicant changes related to demographics and globalization that are occurring

in the U.S. and around the world. Part 2 explicates lie-long, lie-wide, and lie-deep learning and states why these concepts should guide learning inside and outside o schools and othereducational institutions. Part 3, which constitutes the main part o this report, ocuses on theour principles listed below. Part 4 provides conclusions and recommendations. This report alsocontains a checklist that educational practitioners can use as a tool to generate dialogue about theour principles identied by the LIFE Diversity Consensus Panel.

PRINCIPLES

1. Learning is situated in broad socio-economic and historical contexts and is mediated by local

cultural practices and perspectives.2. Learning takes place not only in school but also in the multiple contexts and valued practices

o everyday lives across the lie span.

3. All learners need multiple sources o support rom a variety o institutions to promote theirpersonal and intellectual development.

4. Learning is acilitated when learners are encouraged to use their home and community language resources as a basis or expanding their linguistic repertoires.

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PART I:

Introduction



Globalization moves jobs, people, products, and ideasacross nations. Although nationalism is strong andnational borders are as tight as ever, globalizationchallenges national borders because o its infuence ontrade, technology, jobs, and the rights o people whoparticipate in global population movements (Banks et al.,2005). Individuals who live in nations that are memberso the European Union, or example, have certain rightsthat all European nations must recognize. Similarly, the

Universal Declaration o Human Rights codies humanrights that should be extended to all people in the world,regardless o the nation in which they live (Osler, 2005).

Globalization and worldwide immigration have alsoincreased the racial, ethnic, religious, and linguisticdiversity in U.S. schools and in schools around the

world. The U.S. has been diverse since its ounding. When Europeans arrived in America, Native Americangroups spoke a variety o languages and had rich anddiverse cultures. The arrival o Europeans and Aricansrom many dierent nations and cultures urther

enriched racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity in America. When the Mexican-American War endedin 1848, the U.S. annexed territory in the Southwestunder the terms o the Treaty o Guadalupe Hidalgo.Consequently, many people o Hispanic and indigenousbackground were added to the U.S. population.Immigration peaked in the U.S. near the beginning o the 20th century. Today, the U.S. is experiencing itslargest infux o immigrants since the early 20th century.

Globalization, global job competition, and the digital world in which students are socialized make it imperativeor educators to rethink the conventional aims andmeans o education or all students, including thoserom majority and minority groups. Theoretical andempirical evidence indicates that there is a signicantlag between education in the public schools and thedigital technology and culture in which students today are deeply involved (Mahiri, 2004). The schools are not

keeping up with the digital age in which students liveand participate.

Schools in the United States and around the world acechallenges and opportunities when trying to respondto the problems wrought by increasing diversity andinternational migration in ways consistent with theirdemocratic ideologies and declarations. There is a widegap between the democratic ideals in Western nationssuch as the United States and the daily educationalexperiences o non-mainstream groups in their schools.Non-mainstream students in the U.S. as well as in

Western European nations such as France, Germany, theUnited Kingdom, and the Netherlands oten experiencediscrimination and marginalization in school and society because o their cultural, language, and behavioraldierences (Banks, 2004; Luchtenberg, 2004).

The changes around the world caused by globalization and worldwide immigration are

signicantly infuencing education in the U.S. and in other nations. Students educated

in Western nations such as the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and France mustcompete or jobs with people educated in nations such as India, China, and Pakistan.

Technology enables companies to outsource jobs rom wealthy Western nations to

poorer Asian nations where labor is considerably cheaper (Friedman, 2005). I you have

recently made a reservation on a major U.S. airline, the individual who booked your

fight may have been in New Delhi, India. A book written by one o the authors o this

publication was developed in London, copyedited and typeset in Chennai, India, and

printed and bound in Great Britain.

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The rich diversity o U.S. schools presents challenges to which educators need to respond and opportunities thatthey should actualize. The academic achievement gap

between ethnic minority and majority group studentsis one o the most complex and intractable problemsaced by schools both in the U.S. and around the world;it dees acile analyses and responses (Banks & Banks,2004; Luchtenberg, 2004). Ladson-Billings (2006) uses“education debt” to highlight the structural inequality inU.S. schools and society and to shit the stigmatizing andnegative ocus rom low-income and minority students.

Diversity also provides rich opportunities to createlearning environments in which instruction is enriched,

the academic achievement o marginalized students isenhanced, and the education o all students is improved. As Bowen and Bok (1998) insightully point out, a goodeducation requires education about diversity in a diverseenvironment.

Schools should prepare students rom all racial, ethnic,cultural, and language groups to become eectiveand refective citizens o the national civic culture andcommunity (Banks, 2007). This goal should be attainedin ways that are consistent with the idealized values o U.S. society, which include civic equality, recognition(Gutmann, 2004), and cultural democracy (Ramírez& Castañeda, 1974). I we honor these values, then

we must help students rom diverse groups to becomeeective citizens o the U.S. and the world withoutalienating them rom their home cultures or violating their cultural and language identities (Wong Fillmore,2005).

Rather than alienate students rom their home andcommunity cultures and languages, teachers shouldbuild upon the cultures and languages o students

rom diverse groups in order to enhance their learning (Moll & González, 2004). An overarching tenet o thispublication is that teachers can increase the academic

achievement o students rom diverse groups i they make use o, and build upon, the knowledge, skills, andlanguages these students acquire in the inormal learning

environments o their homes and communities (Moll &González, 2004).

The Life Diversity Census Panel

The Center or Multicultural Education at the Universityo Washington and the LIFE Center—a researchcollaboration between the University o Washington,Stanord University, and SRI International, supported bythe National Science Foundation (NSF)—established the

LIFE Diversity Consensus Panel during the 2004-2005academic year. In its leadership role or the LIFE Center,the LIFE Diversity Consensus Panel ocuses on waysin which learning in inormal settings can enhance theacademic achievement o students rom diverse ethnicand racial groups, and o students who speak a rstlanguage other than English. This report describes thendings and conclusions o deliberations that have beenongoing or two years.

Principles related to the ways in which the learning

that students rom diverse groups acquire in inormalsettings in their homes and communities can be usedby schoolteachers and other educators to increasestudent academic achievement and to make schoola more inviting place make up most o this publication.The wide gap in the academic achievement betweenmost ethnic, racial, and language minority studentsand White mainstream students is a major problem

within U.S. schools and society writ large. Our hopeis that the principles we identiy and describe in thispublication will enable teachers, other practicing

educators, and uture researchers to increase theacademic achievement o all students by identiying,drawing upon, and creatively using the cultural andlinguistic capital students bring to school rom theirhomes and communities.

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Learning in Formal

and Informal Environments

Most o the learning that occurs across the lie span takesplaces in inormal environments. A major purpose o the LIFE Center is to unlock the mysteries and powerso human learning as it occurs in ormal and inormalsettings rom inancy to adulthood. Figure 1 comparesthe approximate amount o time people spend ininormal learning environments with the time they spend in ormal environments. LIFE uses this diagramas a beginning point or exploring a variety o issuessuch as inormal learning in ormal environments and

vice versa, clearer denitions o their similarities anddierences, the relative importance o dierent kindso learning environments as people mature, and ways

in which new technologies are aecting the boundariesbetween settings.

Figure 1 makes clear that people spend the majority o their time rom inancy to adulthood in inormallearning settings. We view this diagram as an initialmap o the lie-long and lie-wide territories o humanlearning, and as a resource or conversations about thescope and span o human learning.

Figure 1 Life-long and life-wide learning

0-5 K GR 1-12 UG GRAD WORK RETIREMENT

Formal Learning Environments

Informal Learning Environments

5.1%18.5%

1 6 W a k i n g H o u r s

7.7%

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PART 2:

DIVERSITY AND LIFE-LONG,

LIFE-WIDE,

AND LIFE-DEEP LEARNING



Many o today’s learners come rom social ecologies in which cultural, ethnic, or economic actors dier romthose o most educators in undamental ways. Reugeestatus, immigration history, economic standing, andgeographic mobility o these young learners may notmatch the key actors that marked the childhood, youth,vocational preparation, or vocational preerences o many o the adults in their schools. Yet these young learners bring with their racial, ethnic, and regionalidentities a host o strengths related to adaptive skills,identity condence, extended amily support, andexperiential bases. All o these strengths enable theselearners to contribute in numerous ways to the learning

environments in which they study, learn, and develop.New ways o looking and thinking about the stretch,depth, and breadth o lie-long learning is vital or young learners, who will be the citizens who sustain democracy in their organizations, communities, the U.S., and the

world.

Because educators are expected to help bring about a better-educated work orce, they have to prepare theyoung to keep on learning—in their jobs, amilies, andcivic responsibilities. The average worker will change

jobs nine times or more beore age 32 (U.S. Department

o Labor, 2003). Preparing uture workers who bring technological expertise to their jobs and who can keepupgrading and expanding what they know will require armore than intensive instruction within classrooms.

What it takes to be a well-inormed, good citizen haschanged drastically in the past two decades, along withvast alterations in the undamental relationships o business, technology, and government. Every society that wants thoughtul citizens—local, national, andinternational—recognizes the need to expand waysto create new knowledge and technologies. Evenmore important is the vital need to reconcile theseinormational and technological changes with enduring values related to ethics, religion, social relationships, andthe responsibilities o government. Such expansion callson educators to draw rom what they know about the

wide array o highly adaptive learning, especially refected

in the core experiential knowledge and wisdom thatcomes with racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity.

Preparing students to be productive workers is only one important goal o schools in democratic pluralisticsocieties. Schools should also prepare students tobecome eective citizens. Eective citizens in democraticmulticultural societies have the knowledge and skillsneeded to live in a complex and diverse world, toparticipate in deliberation with other groups, and to takeaction to create a more just and caring world.

Most readers o this report will recognize in the phrase “lie-long, lie-wide, and lie-deep”

something amiliar about their own learning. This phrase will remind readers that by

acquiring many dierent kinds o knowledge and skills, they have succeeded in their ownlearning, experienced setbacks, and decided occasionally to step aside rom one or another

challenge. We hope readers will revisit what they have gained through their travels along

the various paths o learning that have brought them to where they are now, and consider

how they might help make such learning possible or today’s young learners.

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What Is Learning That Is Life-Long,

Life-Wide, and Life-Deep?

Lie-long learning reers to the acquisition o undamental behaviors (e.g., walking and recognizing aces) and real-world inormation (e.g., objects all

when dropped, steeper inclines require more exertionthan gradual ones). Learning that extends rom ourchildhood into old age includes all the ways we manageinterpersonal sociability, refect our belie systems,and orient to new experiences. Most o the time, suchlearning is intuited, “picked up,” and unconscious.

Lie-long learning may conjure up specic kinds o inormation that relate primarily to career choices andthe practical needs o daily living. As learners have gainedall these sorts o inormation, they have also developedparticular skills on which eective and satisying perormance depends. Generally, learners preer toseek out inormation and acquire ways o doing thingsbecause they are motivated to do so by their interests,curiosity, pleasure, and sense that they have talentsto support a move toward certain kinds o tasks andchallenges. Whether learning to play the banjo, build

wooden boats, or whip up a perect chocolate cake,learners take in inormation and techniques throughobserving, trying, testing, and nding satisaction.Orientation toward these eorts begins in inancy andcontinues into old age.

Lie-wide learning involves a breadth o experiences,guides, and locations and includes core issues such asadversity, comort, and support in our lives. It takes ineverything rom knowing as a seven year old how to say no to chocolate cake at a riend’s birthday party withoutexplaining your allergy to learning how to predict tracpatterns on a busy reeway. It tells an individual where

an open parking space might be in a crowded towncenter and helps her gure out how to regroup i her

wallet is stolen during a vacation in an unamiliar city.This learning carries individuals through adaptationto new situations, ranging rom unamiliar terms

and instructions on tax orms to relocation rom oneapartment complex to another.

Negotiating human relationships, health maintenance,household budget management, and employmentchanges reminds learners that the wider the reach o their sets o skills, the better lie runs. An individualneeds only to ace a plumbing problem during a holiday,misunderstand the ne print o an insurance policy, orpuzzle over an unexpected credit rating to see the needor broad general know-how. I individuals cannot take

care o these issues themselves, they at least want to knowhow to nd someone they can trust either to do thesetasks or them or to help them learn how to do them.

Lie-deep learning embraces religious, moral, ethical,and social values that guide what people believe, how they act, and how they judge themselves and others.Fundamental in such learning is language. The symbol-making and processing capacity o humans is one o the most remarkable o human traits, underlying whatthey think and do and many o the ways they learn.People have to learn how to use all that comes with thegit o language in their roles: as child, parent, religiousinstructor or mentor, tenant, neighbor, employee, andpublic citizen. Each o these roles requires more than a single way o talking or a single medium o presentation.

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LIFE-LONG LEARNING

Language and interactional strategies that determine orientations toward engaging one’s body and mind in learning.

This learning begins in our earliest experiences o play, physical activity, and opportunities to plan and carry out ideas

and work projects alone and with others. This learning shapes our oundation or curiosity, eagerness, communication,

and persistence in continuing to learn and to keep on learning.

LIFE-WIDE LEARNING

Experience in management o ourselves and others, o time and space, and o unexpected circumstances, turns o events,

and crises. This learning brings skill and attitudinal rames or adaptation. Here we gure out how to adapt, to transport

knowledge and skills gained in one situation to another, and to transorm direct experience into strategies and tactics

or uture use.

LIFE-DEEP LEARNING

Belies, values, ideologies, and orientations to lie. Lie-deep learning scaolds all our ways o approaching challenges

and undergoing change. Religious, moral, ethical, and social learning bring lie-deep learning that enables us to guide our

actions, judge ourselves and others, and express to ourselves and others how we eel and what we believe.

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PART 3:

PRINCIPLES



We based these principles on research, wisdom o practice, and our work with schools and teachers

over several decades. The combined experience o themembers o the LIFE Diversity Consensus Panel includesdecades o classroom teaching, research, classroomobservations, and everyday living. We rst present the listo our principles and then discuss each one in turn:

1. Learning is situated in broad socio-economic and historical contexts and is mediated by local culturalpractices and perspectives.

2. Learning takes place not only in school but alsoin the multiple contexts and valued practices o

everyday lives across the lie span.3. All learners need multiple sources o support rom a

variety o institutions to promote their personal and intellectual development.

4. Learning is acilitated when learners are encouraged to use their home and community language resourcesas a basis or expanding their linguistic repertoires.

1. Learning is situated in broad socio-economic andhistorical contexts and is mediated by local cultural

practices and perspectives.Social class, race, ethnicity, national origin, and genderhave signicant infuences on opportunities to learnand develop in U.S. society. Being born into a racialmajority group with high levels o economic and socialresources—or into a group that has historically beenmarginalized with low levels o economic and socialresources—results in very dierent lived experiences thatinclude unequal learning opportunities, challenges, andpotential risks to learning and development. Although

the levels o economic and social resources are critical tothe kinds o experiences students have and the challenges

they ace, structural inequalities are not deterministic.Structural inequalities are mediated in important ways by local cultural and community practices and in amilies.

All students ace risks—to be human is to be at risk.Educators need to be aware o the kinds o risksthat learners encounter in their everyday lives, theaccumulation o risks that learners ace across dierentsettings, and the resources that exist in local practices thatallow students to eectively negotiate potential challenges(Spencer, 2006). The unequal distribution o a multitudeo resources—including housing, jobs, health care, and

education—creates serious risk conditions or many young people. Historically, middle-class White suburbancommunities have usually had resourceul neighbors, saestreets, high-perorming schools, and other community inrastructures conducive to education and upwardsocial mobility. In contrast, many low-income andracial and ethnic minority communities are plagued by poverty, social isolation, and a paucity o inrastructuresto support education and well-being (Anderson, 1999;Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, & Lawrence Aber, 1997;Ferguson, 2002; Ferguson & Dickens, 1999; Massey &

Denton, 1993; Portes & Rumbaut, 2006; Wilson, 1978,1987, 1996).

Dierential access to adequate schooling is a signicant way in which inequalities related to race and classare maniested (Gamoran, 2000; Haberman, 1991,Knapp, 1995). Most U.S. students have to negotiateschools that are ill-equipped to prepare them to engagemeaningully in the emerging global and technologicalsociety. Too oten, schools ail to connect with students

To acilitate lie-long, lie-wide, and lie-deep learning or students rom diverse

groups, educators should draw upon the cultural capital these students bring to school

rom their homes and communities. In our deliberations and discussions, we identiedour principles related to learning in inormal and ormal environments that teachers

and other educational practitioners can use to enhance the academic learning o

students rom diverse racial, ethnic, social-class, cultural, and language groups and

to increase educational equality or all students.

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as social, moral, and cultural beings (Nasir, 2004). Urbanschools—especially those that serve low-income studentsor students rom historically marginalized groups—oten

ail to oer students basic learning resources (Shannon& Bylsma, 2002). Many inner-city schools havedeteriorating and poorly maintained buildings, limitedplay spaces, inadequate books, less-qualied teachers,ew AP courses, and stigmatizing tracking practices(Darling-Hammond, 1997; Oakes, 2004). In mixed-race schools, minority and immigrant students areoten disproportionately tracked into low-ability, low-perorming classes (Kozol, 2005; Oakes, Joseph, & Muir,2004; Olsen, 1997). Consequently, the learning processo students in these communities can become disrupted

in schools. Students sometimes encounter very diculteducational environments that making learning dicult.

Challenges created by inequalities can be exacerbatedby racism and discrimination. Group stereotypes canhave a powerul eect on student identities and learning opportunities. Steele’s (1997) research indicates that

when negative stereotypes about stigmatized groups areevoked in testing situations, members o these groupsunderperorm on academic tasks. Stereotype threat hasan immediate eect on the specic situation that evokesit as well as a cumulative erosive eect over time thatinfuences both intellectual perormance and identity (Steele, 1997).

Even seemingly positive stereotypes can have negativeeects on learning and personal growth. Lee (1996)describes how the model minority stereotype negatively infuences Asian Americans. It causes them to eelisolated and depressed, to experience shame when they seek help with learning diculties, to become suicidal,and to have low sel-esteem. An array o psychologicaland behavioral distress has caused long-term

psychological damage to many young Asian Americans,damage that extends beyond high school (Lee, 1996).

Cultural communities and amilies have a widearray o resources to draw upon when they negotiaterisky environments. Communities and amilies havedeveloped rich cultural traditions, created mechanismsand practices or coping and adapting, and developedimportant meaning-making and identity resources. Evenin inner-city neighborhoods, the majority o amilies

describe themselves and their neighbors as strong, loving,and decent (Anderson, 1999). Cultural communitiesconstitute one o the most central contexts that shape

human learning (Boykin, 1982; Boykin & Bailey, 2000;Heath, 1982, 2004; Scribner & Cole, 1973).

Cultural communities are diverse, fuid, changing, andmaniested dierently in various contexts as they shapethe perspectives o learners. Cultural identities—basedon class, race, ethnicity, national origin, and gender—infuence how people connect and respond to what itmeans to be a member o their cultural communities.

As the salience o a particular identity shits in a particular context, the learner’s connection to the setting,access to participation, and the meaning o behaviorchange. Youths oten consciously try to construct anidentity that is consistent with how others view them,as in social mirroring (C. Suárez-Orozco, M. Suárez-Orozco, & Doucet, 2004). In some situations andcontexts, youth construct an oppositional identity to resist inerior educational institutions and to seek alternative means or empowerment (Carter, 2005;Conchas, 2006; Fordham, 1995; Ogbu, 2003). Inother situations and environments, youth meet the highexpectations o their amilies and communities.

Resistance as a orm o coping can take multiple orms.One orm is constituted by a sense o optimism and a belie in a better uture. Another is a sense o pessimismand a lack o aith in the existing social system (C.Suárez-Orozco, 2004). In the latter situation, schoolachievement can be seen as unlikely to lead to upwardsocial mobility (Fordham, 1995; Matute-Bianchi, 1991;Ogbu, 2003). Reduced opportunities or social mobility create rustration and pessimism or all young people, butthese emotions and belies are most strongly elt by thosetrapped on the lower rungs o the social ladder (Portes &

Zhou, 1993; Zhou, 1997). However, it is not only low-income and minority students who behave in ways thatare viewed as resistant or oppositional. Some middle-class suburban youths also experiment with drugs, dressand act like street gangsters, and adapt inner-city youthcultural orms. These youth are unlikely to be perceivedas “bad kids” or to be penalized by negative stereotypesbecause they are cushioned by wide and strong saety netsthat their parents provide. They also are more likely tonish high school and attend college than youth who livein central cities (Lareau, 2003; Zhou, 1997).

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Because learning is lie-deep, youth grow and developthrough constant interactions with their amilies, thecommunities that surround them, and larger societal

institutions such as schools. Cultural community structures serve as spaces or engaging in cognitiveactivities (Nasir, 2002; Zhou & Kim, 2006). Studentsoten actively acquire and develop language skills,learning and thinking abilities, condence in themselves,and lie aspirations and goals through their daily encounters with other people and other social orces asthey advance in lie. Learning is also lie-wide, extending rom immediate and close-up undamental needs tonavigating a wide spectrum o highly varying contextsthrough lie.

2. Learning takes place not only in school but also in themultiple contexts and valued practices o everyday livesacross the lie span.

Youth do not learn just in school. The multiple contextsand valued practices o everyday lie across the liespan are vibrant, continuous spaces or learning. Thesecontexts include amily settings, community settings,neighborhood and neighborhood-based organizationalsettings, church and other religious settings, work settings, sports and other recreational settings, music inits range o venues, gangs and street activities, and thedigitally mediated settings o the media and popularculture.

Transitional learning and the learner’s identity areinterdependent and change over time. One exampleinvolves the digitally mediated settings o the media and popular culture. Particularly in the last 30 years,learning in the digitally mediated context has beencharacterized by experiences o intense novelty, diversity,and transience. These dynamic contexts o the last three

decades refect two intersecting and cross-ertilizing orces—digital mediation o texts and the globalizationo textual infuences.

Curriculum content and the characteristics o learnersare intricately tied to fuid repertoires o practice o learners who might be seen as “digital natives” in the ageo hip-hop. Lie-long, lie-wide, and lie-deep learning isrefected through new literacy practices enabled by multi-modal texts and cultural resources, which contemporary

youth engage in and draw upon or meaning making,cultural identity, a sense o power, and personal pleasure.

Overall, new orms o meaning-making tied to new orms o technology oer possibilities or novel orms o learning. Contemporary youth are utilizing technologicalresources to sample, cut and paste, and re-mix multimedia texts or replay in new congurations, justas hip-hop DJs recongure images, words, and soundsto play anew. Essentially, the emergence o new media enables novel orms o learning or contemporary young people, and ultimately all people.

Learning or youth that is lie-long, lie-wide, andlie-deep is occurring in semiotic domains that are

increasingly linked to interactive, web-compatible, digitaltechnologies like cell phones, iPods, video games, audioand video recording and playback devices, as well ascomputers. The challenges o developing healthy humanbeings are tied to expanding our notions o lie-long learning and literacy to more ully understand what is o the greatest value in these new learning contexts.

One implication o the increasingly pervasive digitalmediation o lie-long learning is that ormal schooling

will need to radically change to be eective or many youth. Future generations will no doubt nd technology a core aspect o their daily existence. Teachers needsignicantly more proessional development to closethe divide between adults who are more like touristsin digital worlds and youth under 30 who unctionas digital natives. More and more, the ability toengage young people in purposeul experiences thatare meaningully connected to the worlds outside o school will require increasing levels o technology inschools. As the need or technology in schools andcommunities continues to increase, styles o teaching

will need to accommodate more independent, project-

based, and problem-solving learning experiences. New pedagogies will need to incorporate radically dierentkinds o assessments that can account or changing roles and responsibilities among young people and theircommunities and that also take into account their lie-long learning in multiple semiotic domains.

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3. All learners need multiple sources o support roma variety o institutions to promote their personal andintellectual development.

In popular, political, and academic discourse, learning is all too requently equated with schooling. This

widespread confation privileges the consideration o ormal academic outcomes while obscuring the centralrole o a broad range o everyday capacities and socialoutcomes now recognized to be associated with a moreholistic view o youth development and preparationor lie. While academic achievement is essential orthe success o most individuals, educational eorts writlarge—including those associated with ormal schooling,

ater-school programs, community youth programs, andinormal learning opportunities—need to help youthdevelop across many dimensions. Youth need to acquireorms o social capital that will positively shape theirlong-term development and learning. They need to besupported in setting lie goals and in acquiring social andemotional competencies that will serve them across theirlie pursuits. They also need the oundational supportassociated with personal health and well-being.

It is especially noteworthy that youth learning anddevelopment are requently presumed to be the result

o individual eort and accomplishment, rather thanthe product o communities, groups, and amilies.Traditional accounts o learning and cognitivedevelopment have tended to study phenomena in a single social setting—whether in the real world or thelab. A growing body o research on everyday cognitionand cultural development has documented how peoplelearn across social settings, activities, and lie pursuits(Gutiérrez & Rogo, 2003; Hutchins, 1995; Rogo,2003; Scribner, 1985). Theoretical and empiricalaccounts highlight the coordinated, distributed, and

interactive nature o learning and development thatoccurs within communities, groups, and amilies. What is all too commonly ramed as individualaccomplishment is better understood as the result o the coordination and strategic use o learning resources(Cole, 1996).

Communities vary in terms o the local resources they can routinely and easily provide to youth and the degreeo coordination that takes place across educational

institutions. Parents—whether they are afuent orlow-income—need to navigate the available ecology o resources and use them to support the learning anddevelopment o their children (Furstenberg, Cook,Eccles, Elder, & Samero, 1999).

Communities strongly infuence youth learning anddevelopment. Programs, resources, and incentivescan enable a community to identiy productivecongurations o resources and programs that ullllocally identied needs (Eccles & Appleton Gootman,2002). Models can be pursued that allow or overlapping and reinorcing educational experiences or youth ina variety o learning environments. These coordinatedlearning experiences should support the multipledevelopmental needs o youth in a coherent andpersonalized way.

Compelling models o coordinated developmentalsupport within a community share a range o characteristics. First, they ollow a community-centered,grassroots process to identiy pressing issues and todevelop coordinated plans. This involves engaging the

community in a participatory process or identiying local needs and creating local congurations o programsand resources that support the holistic development o youth. Second, local congurations involve overlapping and redundant learning experiences and developmentalsupports. Given the wide individual variation requently associated with learning, such redundancies o experienceand scaolding help a greater number o youth learn.

There are many positive eects that derive romcoordinated developmental support within a community.In such situations, youth can receive multiple orms o

mentoring while learning about a range o perspectives.They can expand their social network and developother orms o social capital. They can develop interestsand capacities that will serve them in the uture.Coordination and overlapping o programs and resourcescan promote the development o the community.

18



The holistic well-being, development, and learning o youth is accomplished within and by communities thatcontinually invest in the active coordination and use

o these enabling structures. There is great variationin the conguration o such structures, which isexpected, although the range o models is not innite.Local progress can be promoted by a comprehensiveelaboration and application o proven models.

Schools alone are not sucient to enable the optimalacademic and personal development o youth (Comer,1997). Additional educative resources must be madeavailable to children i their optimal development is tooccur. Schools are only one o the nation’s educationinstitutions (Cremin, 1988). Education also occurs athome, in aith-based institutions, on arms, in the streets,at museums and libraries, and on athletic courts or elds.Many parents selectively choose rom these and othersources to ensure that their children are well educated.

Communities and even nations—in addition toamilies—have important roles to play to supportlearning and teaching that occur outside o schools. More

equitable access to health, human, political, and socialcapital and to adequately unded institutions o humanlearning and development—such as amilies, homes,schools, hospitals, cultural and recreational acilities—may be the most undamental supplement to ormalschooling. Research indicates that such access—oten asdetermined by socio-economic status (SES)—is a strong predictor o academic achievement (Miller, 1995). It may not be SES per se that is important but the experiencesthat are oten associated with SES. Despite inequalities instatus and access to education-relevant orms o capital,

students tend to perorm better in school when thereare supports or academic and personal development intheir homes and communities (Comer, 1997; Gordon &Bridglall, 2005).



Schools have the primary responsibility or providing ormal teaching and learning experiences in academiccontent and skills related to the cognitive and aective

development o youth. Families and communities haveprimary responsibility or the physical, personal, social,and emotional development o youth and the activesupport o their academic and personal development ina context that is trustworthy. In such a division o labor,schools provide ormal education while amilies andcommunities provide supplementary education.

We dene supplementary education as the ormal andinormal learning and developmental enrichmentopportunities that are provided or students outsideo school and beyond the regular school day or year(Gordon & Bridglall, 2005). Some o these activities may occur inside the school building but are beyond thoseexperiences that are included in the ormal curriculumo the school. Boy and girl scouting, 4-H clubs, andreligious schools were or many years the most commonorms o supplementary education. Some amilies haveused mealtime to engage their children in discussionsabout current events, their activities at school, amily values, personal relationships, and allocation o amily responsibilities (Rogo, 2003).

Prior to the industrial revolution, children in rural areashad critical responsibilities or helping with arming andanimal husbandry. As a result o such work and relateddiscussions, children acquired attitudes, knowledge, andskills that served them well in school and in lie. Thecorporate sector promoted the sale o model airplanes,cars, ships, and trains; board games such as checkers,Monopoly, and Scrabble; bicycles, dolls, doll houses, andathletic equipment. All o these commercial products

were used to impart knowledge, skills, and values tochildren.

Recently, we have seen the advent o organizedrecreation, electronic games, custodial services, ater-school programs, arts/crats/music clubs, eld trips,study groups, and tutorial services. Many o theseactivities were designed to keep children busy and o thestreets, but they are also a rich source o supplementary education experiences that have not been equally available to advantaged and less advantaged children.Evidence increasingly suggests that these dierences areassociated with achievement disparities.

Supplementary education involves more than the extra services that must be paid or. In act, its most importanteature may be the active concern with and participation

in the process by signicant others—parents, parentsurrogates, peers, and interested adults. We believethat education that is well supported—including goodschooling and rich supplementary education—is a undamental right to which all children are entitled.

4. Learning is acilitated when learners are encouraged touse their home and community language resources as thebasis or expanding their linguistic repertoires.

We start with the premise that all learners have language

resources to draw upon. In act, both children and adultshave and use linguistic repertoires that include dierentlanguages, codes, registers, and styles. Most individualscan draw upon ways o speaking within their linguisticrepertoires (including several codes and combinationso these codes) as appropriate to meet the demands o dierent communication tasks (Gumperz, 1972). They use various styles and levels o language both fexibly anddynamically and continue to acquire additional wayso speaking throughout their lives, making languagelearning and use a lie-long process.

Individuals cannot develop or learn to draw on theirlinguistic repertoires without intensive meaningulpractice, preerably in emotionally supportiveenvironments. Children begin to acquire rules orspeaking and interacting appropriately in their homeenvironments rom the time that they are born. Inants,toddlers, and young children learn most o their early language through interactions with amily membersand close riends or paid daycare providers. Verballanguage comes along with ood, loving care, and amiliarsurroundings.

Being talked to is not at all the same as being talked with.For language learning, it is the with—being engagedin conversation—that counts (Heath, 1983). Many kinds o interactions can support language learning andbroadening o students’ linguistic repertoires, but alldemand joint attention o adult and child or youth, as

well as shared engagement and interest.

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As language learners grow beyond childhood, they interact in school and amily lie, to be sure, but they also spend time outside both settings. Oten those in

middle childhood and adolescence seek out situationsthat give them positive learning opportunities withsupportive adults. Sports, drama, choir, dance, andcommunity service oer the same kinds o opportunitiesor investigation that children seek in interactions in theirearlier years: What is the problem? What do we wantto happen? How can we make this happen in our work together?

When children arrive at school, they have already mastered eective ways o communicating withmembers o their amily and community. They havebeen socialized by their amily on what to say, whatnot to say, and when to say what to whom. As childrengrow up, their choices o one language or another—as

well as style, orm, and accompanying supports (digital,musical, gestural)—come through their socialization inroles such as students, employees, and citizens, as wellas amily members. In this sense, language learning and use are lie-wide. As we learn language, we alsodevelop enormous bodies o knowledge and an intuitiveunderstanding about how to communicate in dierentsituations, with various listeners and or multipleidentities and purposes, making language learning anduse lie-deep. For example, a proessor in a Midwesternuniversity may choose not to use his amily’s SouthBoston dialect when lecturing, but during oce hoursin casual conversations with students, the location o his early childhood is evident. Being able to call upona broad linguistic repertoire increases an individual’ssuccess in every situation—whether at home, in school,in the workplace, or in the community.

For young children, language learning takes place in

home and community settings. However, once childrenenter school, their learning may be stymied i they arenot allowed to use their existing language resources or i they are treated as though they lack language resources.Two issues should be highlighted as central to ensuring success in school: the choice o linguistic code and anemphasis on communicative intent versus orm.

Because all learning—in ormal and inormal settings—ismediated through language, the choice o the linguisticcode used in classrooms is prooundly important. In

the 1974 Lau decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheldthe right o Cantonese-speaking students to be taughtin their home language. The Lau decision made itabundantly clear that these learners were in essence being denied access to education because instruction was being conducted in a language they did not understand. Inthe 1979 King decision, the U.S. Circuit Court ruledagainst the Ann Arbor school district, concluding thatstudents who spoke Arican American Vernacular English(AAVE) as their rst language suered an educationaldisadvantage. This disadvantage came about because

teachers had a negative attitude toward AAVE, did notrecognize it as a legitimate language, and did not useknowledge o AAVE to inorm the way they taughtstudents to read. In short, U.S. courts have recognizedthe importance o the home language in students’education, in terms o giving students equal educationalopportunities.

When they arrive at school, children must then learnappropriate ways o speaking in an academic setting.The exception might be the ew whose amilies uselanguage in ways similar to those common in school.In general, children have to become conscious o theact that, in inormal settings, we tend to ocus moreon the communicative intent (the message the speaker istrying to convey) than on the code (the orm o languagethe speaker is using). In ormal settings such as theclassroom, the reverse is true. In these settings, we tendto worry more about orm—the code, switching betweencodes, and details o grammar and pronunciation. Itmatters whether children use the right vocabulary andpronunciation, whether they avoid colloquial usages,and whether they can use the right level o language to

explain, discuss, deend their opinions, and otherwisecommunicate what they have learned. While orm isimportant, an overemphasis on orm can have a negativeeect on learning. A ear o being criticized or errors inpronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary can easily makestudents hesitant about participating, taking risks, andexperimenting with language in the classroom.

21



However, when teachers ocus on communicative intentrather than orm, students can make positive educationalgains. Studies suggest that a ocus on communicative

intent in classroom settings, including fexibility aboutthe codes students are allowed to use, may promoteacademic growth. Moll and Diaz (1987) had Spanish-speaking students read a text in English but discuss themeaning o the text in Spanish. These students showedmuch better reading comprehension than when they

were required to discuss the text in English alone.Similarly, students who speak Hawaii Creole English—a non-mainstream variety o English—as their rstlanguage develop well as writers when their teachers allow them to coner with peers in Hawaii Creole English and

then rephrase their ideas in Standard English (Rynkos,1993).

In short, evidence suggests that students learn more when they are allowed and encouraged to use the variety o language resources available to them. Nevertheless,teachers who have been given little instruction on the

ways that language varies oten have little understanding o the relationship between power and language. Thislack o understanding, in turn, leads to restrictionsbeing placed on students’ language use. Students may be orbidden to speak their primary language in theclassroom or be corrected whenever they use non-mainstream grammar or pronunciation. Every society has a culture o power, and students must learn thelanguages or codes o the culture o power to advance tohigher education, to obtain good jobs, and to experiencesocial-class mobility (Delpit, 1988). While it is vitally important or students to become procient in thelanguages o power (in the U.S., varieties o standard

American English), the question is how this goal mightbest be accomplished. This question is particularly criticalin the case o students who are being raised outside the

culture o power and who are likely to be procient inlanguages and codes other than those o the languages o power.

A key issue is the attitude we maintain while seeking an answer to this question: specically, whether wesee speaking other languages as a problem or an asset.

I we view speaking other languages as an asset, thenthe solution is to allow students to learn the languageso power, academic content, and other knowledge,strategies, and skills through the variety o languageresources available to them (that is, through their existinglinguistic repertoires). The mindset here is that learnersare encouraged to use their language resources fexibly across settings. However, i speaking other languages isviewed as a problem, then students who are not already procient in the languages o power are at a continueddisadvantage. Certain codes are always identied as the

high prestige versions, and the burden alls on speakerso the lower prestige codes to make accommodations,even as their own existing linguistic repertoires are being devalued.

The relationship between language and identity isa complex one. In order or children to draw romthe variety o language resources available to themand to grow in their ability to expand their linguisticrepertoires, they must eel sae and valued. They mustknow that schooling will not require them to give uptheir identities, their loyalties, and the ways o speaking and communicating that they value (Beykont, 2002;

Wong Fillmore, 2005). They will understand that just asthey dress dierently to participate in various activities,they will also use dierent language styles and registersto carry out a variety o actions such as displaying competence, fattering others, arguing, courting,persuading, and buying and selling goods.

22



PART 4:

CONCLUSION ANDRECOMMENDATIONS



In presenting our recommendations or improving and sustaining educational access, opportunity, andparticipation or non-mainstream youth, we encourageall stakeholders to adopt a broad and nuanced vision

when making policy and curricular decisions (Gutiérrez,2004). Much educational policy and practice has beendesigned to address the needs o an undierentiatedgroup o students—such as low-income students,English Language Learners, and Arican American

students—without consideration o the vast variability in the needs, experiences, and available resources or themembers o these groups. We use the term “broad andnuanced vision” to emphasize that, while it is importantto rst seek to understand the educational situation o the target population as a whole, a second important andoten ignored step is to then consider the local needs o particular communities and students. We believe that thismore complex view o the varied needs and strengths o communities will help eliminate the tendency to developone-size-ts-all approaches to the schooling o non-

mainstream youth. The ollowing recommendations areinormed by our wish or complexity as educators, policy makers, and researchers consider new views o the role o culture and learning. These recommendations are keyedto the our principles described in this report.

PRINCIPLE 1

Learning is situated in broad socio-economic andhistorical contexts and is mediated by local culturalpractices and perspectives.

• A cultural approach to learning recognizes the range o experiences and knowledge that students accumulateacross the routines o their everyday lives. In thisapproach, we view student learning that occurs in homes,

communities, and schools as tightly interconnected andinteractive.

• Policy makers should support the development andsustainability o collaborative problem-solving learning environments or students rom diverse racial, ethnic,cultural, and language groups.

• Across all learning environments, learning is enhanced when the everyday lives and valued practices o studentsare used in instruction.

• Policy makers should recognize and take action to reducethe structural orces, inequities, and constraints learnersexperience, such as racism, relative access to healthservices, and low socio-economic status.

• Learning is acilitated when the cultural, socio-economic,and historical contexts o learners are recognized,respected, and responded to.

25

In this report, we have presented a rationale or the development o schools that prepare

students or lie-long learning that is lie-wide and lie-deep. In our technological and

interdependent world (Friedman, 2005), productive workers and successul citizensmust continue to learn throughout their lives. We have also described the racial, cultural,

ethnic, and linguistic diversity within the United States and around the world, and the

challenges and opportunities that diversity presents to schools and to nations. We

presented and explicated our principles that will help educators to transorm diversity

into an asset by using the cultural and linguistic capital that students bring rom their

homes and communities to teach the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to be

eective citizens in the United States and the world.



• Researchers and educators should recognize thatcultural structures or themes are important parts o the lives o students and are maniested through the

daily interactions between children and adults in theiramilies and communities. These cultural community structures serve as spaces or engaging youth incognitive activities.

• Educators and researchers should acknowledge andexamine their own biases about cultural, racial, ethnic,and other social dierences that exist in variouscommunities. They should also refect on their beliesabout racial and ethnic minorities and their culturalcommunities to ensure that their responses to youth

are not based on stereotypical knowledge.• Researchers and educators should make a concerted

eort to understand how immigrant students mustnegotiate several cultural worlds in order to ulll theirroles at home, in the community, and at school.

PRINCIPLE 2

Learning takes place not only in school but also in themultiple contexts and valued practices o everyday lives

across the lie span.• Educators need to recognize that youth are learners

who have perspectives and experiences that constitutevalid knowledge bases and resources or ormaleducational experiences.

• Teachers need to diversiy pedagogical approaches in ways that integrate new media, technologies, and therange o students’ experiences and knowledge to enrichstudent learning.

• Educators should understand and attend to the vastarray o textual media learners engage in and draw upon them as educational resources.

PRINCIPLE 3

All learners need multiple sources o support rom a

variety o institutions to promote their personal andintellectual development.

• Educators need to recognize that holistic youth well-being, development, and learning are accomplished

within and by communities.

• Programs, resources, and incentives should be put inplace that allow a community to identiy productivecongurations o resources and programs that supportand ulll locally identied needs.

• Allocation and coordination o programs, resources,

and incentives between and across communitiesand schools are essential to overcome inequities ineconomic, political, and social capital or various ormso education-relevant capital.

• Strong collaboration between learners, their amilies,educational practitioners, policy makers, andeducational researchers will strengthen the perspectivesand knowledge bases o all stakeholders and o education writ large.

PRINCIPLE 4

Learning is acilitated when learners are encouraged touse their home and community language resources as abasis or expanding their linguistic repertoires.

• Policy makers, parents, and other stakeholders shouldview speaking another language as an asset, not as a liability.

• Learners should be encouraged to use their languageresources fexibly across settings.

• Educators need to acknowledge the language o powerand to examine their biases regarding what counts aslinguistic comprehension.

• All students should be provided with the opportunity,instruction, and resources to become bilingual.

• Educators should reconsider many o the commonrecommendations oten given or the developmento supports that scaold academic and personal

26



Instead o asking amilies to provide places or their children to

study, read, and do academic work—with adequate and protected

time or such work—educators should recognize that amilies

may have limited space and time or resources to support learning

in the idealized ways oten cited. Instead, educators should

encourage amilies to develop amily routines and structures

that use the available resources o the amily and community to

support learning. Families have resources and the desire to support

children’s learning. However, the daily scripts they develop around

learning may not refect the normative views oten ascribed to

middle-class amilies.

One Spanish-speaking mother, or example—drawing on her

own schooling experiences in Mexico and her children’s bilingual

schooling in Texas—developed a daily amily routine that required

her children to sit around the kitchen table to do their homework.

In organizing this routine, the mother helped to ensure that her

children had assistance readily available: the older children could

help their younger siblings with homework (Gutiérrez & Arzubiaga,

in press). Educators need to recognize and encourage such local

and innovative routines that are both valued and productive in

individual homes and communities.

development in the homes o students and in schools.Such recommendations are oten provided withoutconsideration o the social and economic structures

that constrain everyday lie or members o non-dominant communities.

• Policy makers should ensure that classroom andcommunity libraries are rich with books, reading andstudy materials, and on-line computer access that areeasily available to parents and students in English andhome languages.

• Intergenerational mentoring and tutoring programsshould be established that involve community members, business constituencies, and senior citizens

rom the community as resources or parents andamilies.

• Accessible and aordable health maintenance andnutrition programs should be integrated into schooling and learning environments.

• The vocabulary, language, and literacy development o bilingual students should be assessed with appropriatemeasures.

• Teachers should encourage students to use the variety o language resources available to them and build onthe language experiences and resources students bring to school rom their homes and communities.

• When researchers study learning and cognition they need to consider the development o children who

routinely use two or more languages in their daily lives.

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1.0 Aretheeducatorsinyourinstitutionawarethatlearningissituatedin

broadsocio-economicandhistoricalcontextsandismediatedbylocal

culturalpracticesandperspectives?

1.1 Are the educators in your institution aware o the accumulationo risks that learners encounter in their everyday lives?

1.2 Are the educators in your institution aware o the resources andconstraints that exist in local practices that allow learners toeectively negotiate potential challenges?

1.3 Do the educators in your institution connect with students associal, moral, and cultural beings?

1.4 Is your institution well-equipped to prepare students to engagemeaningully in the emerging global and technological society

in which we live?

1.5 Are the educators in your institution knowledgeable about the wide array o resources that students may draw upon rom theircultural communities and amilies when they negotiate risky environments?

1.6 Do the educators in your institution recognize that culturalcommunity structures serve as spaces or practicing and enacting cognitive activities that shape the perspectives o learners?

1.7 Do the educators in your institution understand that learning

is lie-deep, and that youths grow and develop through constantinteractions with their amilies, communities, and educationalinstitutions such as schools, colleges, and universities?

1.8 Do the educators in your institution understand that learning is lie-wide, extending rom immediate and close-up undamentalneeds to navigating a wide spectrum o highly varying contextsthrough lie?

LEARNING IN AND OUT OF SCHOOL IN DIVERSE ENVIRONMENTS CHECKLIST

This checklist is designed as a tool or educators to generate dialogue about the principles

discussed in this report. The checklist provides educators a springboard or discussionand refection.

Hardly at All Somewhat Strongly

RatingPrinciples

28



2.0Aretheeducatorsinyourinstitutionawarethatlearningtakesplacenot

onlyinschools,colleges,anduniversitiesbutalsointhemultiplecontexts

andvaluedpracticesofeverydaylivesacrossthelifespan?

2.1 Do the educators in your institution recognize that learners donot learn just in schools, colleges, and universities but also inmultiple contexts, such as amily settings, community settings,

work settings, and digitally mediated settings?

2.2 Do the educators in your institution recognize that the valuedpractices o everyday lie that you experience across the lie span

provide vibrant, continual spaces or learning in school, college,and university settings?

2.3 Do the educators in your institution pay sucient attention tohow learning that takes place in dynamic contexts refects theintersecting and cross-ertilizing orces o the digital mediationo texts and the globalization o textual infuences?

2.4 Do the educators in your institution recognize that lie-long,lie-wide, and lie-deep learning is occurring in semiotic domainsenabled by multi-modal texts and cultural resources that youthsengage in and draw upon?

2.5 Does your institution provide students novel orms o learning and meaning-making through diverse orms o technology?

2.6 Is access to technology distributed equitably within your institutionamong students rom dierent ethnic, cultural, language, andsocial-class backgrounds?

2.7 Does your institution provide proessional development programsto help teachers and instructors develop the knowledge and skillsneeded to create new pedagogies that incorporate and take intoaccount the lie-long learning o students in multiple semiotic

domains?

2.8 Do the curriculum and styles o teaching in your institutionprovide independent, project-based, problem-solving learning experiences that are meaningully connected to the world outsideo ormal educational environments?


RatingPrinciples

29



3.0 Dotheeducatorsinyourinstitutionunderstandthatalllearnersneed

multiplesourcesofsupportfromavarietyofinstitutionstoenhancetheir

personalandintellectualdevelopment?

3.1 Do the students in your institution have access to ater-schoolprograms, community youth programs, and inormal learning opportunities that will help them develop orms o social capitalthat will positively infuence their long-term developmentand learning?

3.2 Are the students in your institution oered opportunities to access

learning environments and communities that support theirmultiple developmental needs in a consistent and personalized way?

3.3 Are the students in your institution supported in setting lie goalsand in acquiring social and emotional competencies that they willdraw on across their lie pursuits?

3.4 Do the educators in your institution recognize that theaccomplishments o youth are not gained just through individualeort, but are also the result o the coordinated cultivation and thestrategic use o learning resources rom communities, groups,and amilies?

3.5 Do the students in your institution have the opportunity to receivemultiple orms o mentoring while they learn about a range o perspectives, expand their social networks, and develop variousorms o social capital?

3.6 Do the educators in your institution have a holistic view aboutyouth learning, well-being, and development, and recognize thatthey are accomplished within and by supportive communities?

3.7 Do the students in your institution have the opportunity to accessvarious orms o education-relevant capital and institutions o

human learning and development needed to supplement theirormal education?

3.8 Do the educators in your institution understand andacknowledge that students tend to perorm better when there aresupports or academic and personal development in their homesand communities?

3.9 Do the educators in your institution encourage students toparticipate in supplementary educational opportunities?


RatingPrinciples

30



4.0 Dotheeducatorsinyourinstitutionunderstandthatlearningisfacilitated

whenlearnersareencouragedtousetheirhomeandcommunitylanguage

resourcesasthebasisforexpandingtheirlinguisticrepertoires?

4.1 Does your institution provide students a supportive environmentin which they can develop dierent linguistic repertoires to meetthe demands o various communication tasks?

4.2 Do the educators in your institution understand that languagelearning and use is a lie-long and lie-wide process?

4.3 Do the educators in your institution understand the relationshipbetween language learning at home and language learning inormal educational settings?

4.4 Do the educators in your institution recognize that studentlearning may be stymied i students are not allowed to use theirexisting language resources or i they are viewed as decient inlanguage resources?

4.5 Do the educators in your institution discuss the ways in whichlearning is mediated through language in ormal and inormalsettings?

4.6 Do the educators in your institution view the ability to speak another language as an asset, not as a liability?

4.7 Are educators in your institution aware o the connectionsbetween the languages or codes o the culture o power andsocial-class mobility?

4.8 Does your institution provide students equal opportunities tolearn the languages o power, academic content, and otherknowledge, strategies, and skills?

4.9 Does the curriculum in your institution build on the language

experiences and resources that students bring to the ormallearning environment rom their homes and communities?


RatingPrinciples

31



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THE AUTHORS

James A. Banks is the Kerry and Linda KillingerProessor o Diversity Studies and director o theCenter or Multicultural Education at the University o Washington, Seattle. He is a past president o the

American Educational Research Association (AERA) andthe National Council or the Social Studies (NCSS).

Kathryn H. Au is chie executive ocer o SchoolRiseLLC and was ormerly the Dai Ho Chun Proessor o Education in the College o Education at the University o Hawaii at Manoa. She has done extensive research oncultural diversity and literacy.

Arnetha F. Ball is associate proessor o education atStanord University. Her research ocuses on the oral and

written literacies o culturally and linguistically diversepopulations in the United States and South Arica.

Philip Bell is associate proessor o education at theUniversity o Washington, Seattle, and specializes incognitive studies. His cognitive and cultural program o research ocuses on how people learn science across thesettings o their lives.

Edmund W. Gordon is the John M. Musser Proessor o Psychogy Emeritus at Yale University, the Richard MarchHoe Proessor Emeritus o Psychology and Education,and director o the Institute o Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. He has served as vice president o academicaairs and interim dean at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Kris D. Gutiérrez is proessor o social researchmethodology in the Graduate School o Education andInormation Studies at the University o Caliornia, Los

Angeles, director o the education studies minor, anddirector o the UCLA Center or the Study o UrbanLiteracies. She was a ellow at the Center or AdvancedStudies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanord in 2006-2007.

Shirley Brice Heath is proessor at large and proessor

o anthropology and education at Brown University.Her publications range across our major areas: languagesocialization, organizational learning, youth culture, andlanguage planning.

Carol D. Lee is proessor o learning sciences and o Arican American studies at Northwestern University.Lee is past president o the National Conerence onResearch in Language and Literacy and the chair o thestanding committee on research o the National Councilo Teachers o English.

Yuhshi Lee is a doctoral student in multiculturaleducation and a research assistant at the Center orMulticultural Education at the University o WashingtonSeattle.

Jabari Mahiri is an associate proessor o education in theLanguage, Literacy, Society and Culture program at theUniversity o Caliornia at Berkeley. His research ocuseson strategies o reorm in the teaching and learning o urban youth with an emphasis on writing development.

Na’ilah Suad Nasir is assistant proessor o educationat Stanord University. Her research ocuses on theintertwining o cultural, social, and cognitive processesin development, particularly with regard to Arican

American students and other students o color.

Guadalupe Valdés is the Bonnie Katz TenenbaumProessor o Education and proessor o Spanish andPortuguese at Stanord University. She is chair o theeditorial board o the Modern Language Association’sseries on Teaching Languages, Literatures, and Culturesand a member o the Board o Testing and Assessment

o the National Academy o Education.

Min Zhou is proessor o sociology and the ounding chair o the Department o Asian American Studies atthe University o Caliornia, Los Angeles. Her researchinterests include immigration and immigrant adaptation,education, Asian America, race and ethnicity, and urbansociology.

36



Te LIFE Center

LIFE, short or Learning in Inormal and Formal Environments, is a research collaborationbetween the University o Washington, Stanord University, and SRI International that ocuseson transorming our understanding o human learning. The research spans neurobiological,psychological, and sociocultural approaches and also incorporates work in augmenting human

learning through new technologies. The LIFE Center engages in basic research and educationalpartnerships, serving as a hub or a national network o research ocused on learning.

LIFE’S PURPOSE

To unlock the mysteries and powers o human learning as it occurs in inormal and ormalsettings rom inancy to adulthood.

LIFE’S MISSION

1. To identiy and investigate underlying principles o how people learn that address key research questions rom a variety o methodologies and disciplines (neurobiological,cognitive, developmental, and socio-cultural), in part by sparking “conceptual collisions”among these viewpoints.

2. To oster research and education collaborations with individual and institutional partners inthe feld, and to promote qualitative improvements, both theoretical and practical, in ourcollective capacities or understanding and supporting human learning.

Center for Multicultural Education

The Center or Multicultural Education ocuses on research projects and activities designedto improve practice related to equity issues, intergroup relations, and the achievement o allstudents. The Center also engages in services and teaching related to its research mission.

RESEARCh related to race, ethnicity, class, language diversity, and education represents the centralmission o the Center.

PUbLICATIONS such as the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (2nd ed., 2004), editedby James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks, provide remarkable depth and breadth and animpressive look at research and scholarship in the feld.

ThE SyMPOSIUM-LECTURE SERIES ocuses attention on topics related to race, ethnicity, class,language, and education.

GRADUATE STUDy with top university scholars at the master’s and doctoral levels prepareseducators or working in an increasingly diverse nation and world.

A wIDE RANGE OF COURSES in multicultural education oers opportunities to build a broad anddeep understanding o the issues conronting our society and the world and the means toreconcile them.



Center for Multicultural Education College o Education

University o Washington


Te LIFE Center

AN NSF-FUNDED SCIENCE OF LEARNING CENTER

The Learning in Inormal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center

A collaboration involving the University o Washington, Stanord University,

and SRI International.

The home o LIFE is the College o Education

University o Washington, Seattle210 Miller Box 353600


Phone: 206-616-4480

Web site: http://www.lie-slc.org/

learning%20life%20report.pdf

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