In September 1987, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the Council for Exceptional Children approved standards and guidelines mandating that teacher education programs in special education provide multicultural education throughout their curricula. These standards and guidelines were revised in February 1991, and Guideline B2.14 became the new multicultural guideline. This article describes a content analysis of 16 recent special education/human exceptionality survey textbooks that was designed to determine the extent to which multicultural information and content were included. A list of multicultural indicators was formulated using ERIC descriptors. Data were categorized according to general location in the textbooks, foundational categories, and pertinent multicultural issues. Results indicated that all 16 texts included some multicultural information and content. Five of the 16 textbooks contained a considerably greater amount of information and content. The findings are discussed within the context of special education teacher education.
Educational reform, broadly interpreted and applied, must include changes in the way that teachers themselves are educated. As education reform gradually permeates teacher education programs across the nation, many faculties are engaging in the arduous process of reconceptualizing and redefining their theoretical bases and pedagogical practices. With an unprecedented number of educators leaving the nation's schools due to early retirement and other attrition factors, many new teachers are being recruited and employed by public and private schools throughout the United States. Consequently, today's teacher education graduates will be expected to serve as leaders in the continuing effort to advance the capability of schools to prepare students to deal creatively and effectively with the complex challenges posed by a global society.The composite focus of the four books in this series edited by Gloria Appelt Slick is teacher education renewal and reconstruction in relationship to field experiences. The overall intent of the series is to provide information and examples to assist teacher educators in offering strong, challenging, and viable field experience programs. The topics addressed in all the books emphasize practical application, providing readers not only with &dquo;food for thought&dquo; but also &dquo;food for action&dquo; (p. xiv).
Overview of ContentThe first book, The Field Experience: Creating Successful Programs for New Teacheans, offers theoretical premises for advancing the state of the art and science in teacher education. In both the field experience in general and the professional development school in particular, are seen as the foundation for successful teacher education reform. This book and the series as a whole, provides illustrative snapshots and case examples representing a variety of model partnerships, tools, resources, and personnel used in emerging field-based teacher education programs are provided. Appropriate levels of field experience and connections with campus course content are defined and described. Feedback approaches and assessment measures used in field experience programs are presented, along with a variety of communication strategies valued by members of professional development school teams. In the final chapter, Burrett and Appelt Slick conclude, &dquo;Our authors indicate that creating successful programs requires designing a system that harnesses the energy of faculty, practitioners,
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