Preparing Preservice Teachers for Diverse Mathematics Classrooms Through a Cultural Awareness Unit

Abstract

We designed a student-centered cultural awareness unit as a resource for mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) who want to explore the issues of culture, equity, and diversity with their preservice teachers (PSTs) but are not sure how and where to start. This unit is an introductory step toward beginning to listen to PSTs' views about culture and diversity in mathematics education. In this article, we report on three cohorts of PSTs who participated in the unit, which consisted of an article critique, class discussion, and postdiscussion reflection. We describe the methods courses, the unit, the impact of the unit on PSTs' cultural awareness, our reflections as MTEs, and suggested modifications to the unit.