This study examined the relation between mothers' sensitive responsiveness to their children and the children's expressive language skills during early childhood. Reciprocal effects were tested with dyads of mothers and their children participating in the National Institute of Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Sensitive maternal interactions positively affected children's later expressive language in the second and third years of life. Although maternal sensitivity predicted later language skills in children, children's language did not affect later maternal sensitivity as indicated in a structural equation model. These results do not support the 1975 transactional model of child development of Sameroff and Chandler. A consistent pattern of sensitivity throughout infancy and early childhood indicates the importance of fostering maternal sensitivity in infancy for prevention or remediation of expressive language problems in young children.

In this article, we propose to infuse multicultural concepts into the technology core courses that are taught in undergraduate teacher education programs. The need to do so was realized as a result of participation in a Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant and the subsequent formation of an equity team that ultimately examined students' sensitivity to diversity and understanding of multicultural education. Drawing from the multicultural scholarship, the authors have developed an adapted schema that offers instructional technology a process for infusing multicultural content through the instructional technology curriculum. Students in these technology courses are taught that technology can be used to enhance learning and are encouraged to incorporate its use in their future teaching. As preservice and inservice teachers attempt to integrate technology into their elementary and secondary subject areas, they need to critically examine how such use will affect diverse ethnic, racial, and cultural learners. The authors contend that teacher education programs should go beyond independent attempts to infuse multicultural concepts and technology concepts into the curriculum. The double infusion models offered in this article present means of simultaneously integrating the themes, concepts, issues, and perspectives from both fields into the curricular experiences of the preservice teacher. Moreover, this article lays the theoretical groundwork for the implementation of the double infusion model into a teacher preparation program.

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This ethnographic case study examined the experiences of African American students within an urban school detracking reform initiative, which was intended to replace tracking practices through the institution of small schools. Over the course of a year, the researchers interviewed administrators, teachers, and students while gathering observational data from classrooms to explore the political nature of the reform and its impact on how students were viewed and treated by their teachers. Although this school reorganization aimed to expand opportunities for African American students, ultimately the data illustrated that restructuring efforts failed to change teachers’ attitudes and academic expectations, thereby denying students equitable educations. We found colorblindness to be a key factor that informed teachers’ persistent low expectations for students of color that reproduced tracking practices and inequitable opportunity structures in the smaller schools, thereby reinforcing the former stereotypes of low achievement for those students. This study calls for educators to challenge the racial ideologies of academic achievement, vis-a-vis teachers’ colorblind expectations, through political, normative, and technical dimensions of change to actualize educational equity in urban schools.

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