"As I read this book, I was moved to laughter, to tears, and to deep reflection on what happens when teachers work together in considering serious issues that are usually left outside the schoolhouse door. . . . There are many lessons to be learned from this book."

–From the Foreword by Sonia Nieto

This is one of the first books to synthesize and coordinate the work of a national team of teacher researchers who, together, address the difficult issues of race and ethnicity in the classroom. With courage and honesty, experienced English and social studies teachers from four multicultural settings–Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco–grapple with the issues of how best to meet the literacy learning needs of an increasingly diverse school population. They deal with a variety of real issues of teaching within a culturally responsive framework, such as:

• Confronting issues of race and ethnicity in literature, within classrooms and in a larger community


• Helping students deal with neighborhood violence and conditions of poverty


• Designing a multicultural curriculum


• Creating an emotionally safe classroom


• Fostering peer relations among faculty members