Professional Development in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Schools: What if We Have PD Upside Down and Backwards?

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanley

Too often teacher professional development (PD) is designed for mainstream K–12 learners despite U.S. schools becoming culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). This theoretical paper offers guidance for centering professional learning on the margins, drawing three conclusions from robust experience with middle and high school educators. Recommendations emphasize relational PD, time and patience to shift underlying beliefs, and authentic inquiry grounded in practice rather than adopting superficial strategy checklists.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Transformative Professional Development

Project Alianza

Powerful Lessons

Professional Development in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Schools: What if We Have PD Upside Down and Backwards? Susan R. Adams, Ph.D. Katie Brooks, Ph.D. Brooke Kandel-Cisco, Ph.D. Butler University Abstract Too often teacher professional development (PD) is focused on mainstream K–12 learners, even as US schools become more culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). This theoretical paper provides guidance for centering professional development on the margins. The three conclusions are distilled from robust experiences with middle and high school K–12 educators. They include making PD relational, providing ample time and patience for teachers to change underlying beliefs, and grounding PD in authentic inquiry, rather than indulging a strategy fetish. Keywords: professional development; culturally and linguistically diverse students; equity AILACTE Journal 25 Adams, Brooks, and Kandel-Cisco As a cursory review of the history of American schooling reveals (Kaestle, 1983), public schooling in the United States was first developed for affluent White males. Indeed, most of what we do in schools is still grounded in those historical understandings of curriculum, pedagogy and assessments as originally designed, first just for White males, later for White females, and much later, for everyone else. As census data predictions make clear (Fry, 2006) very soon, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students will no longer be the minority at the margins, but they may well still be marginalized curricularly and pedagogically. What if, instead of continuing to design schools and schooling for the perceived “center” of our current population, we instead reconceptualize teaching and learning for students at the margins of our education population: CLD students? In this article we offer a vision for transformational teacher professional development (PD) that positions CLD students at its core. While firmly maintaining CLD students at the heart of our commitments, the PD we have created for CLDs has proven effective for teachers of all learners. Transformative Professional Development Nowhere is the need for transformative professional development (PD) more important than in the increasingly diverse U.S. schools. Between 1997 and 2011, for example, the total public school enrollment increased by only 5%(Hussar & Bailey, 2014). However, by contrast, during the same time period, the population of linguistically diverse students grew by over 55% . This recent increase in the population ofCLD students, however, has not been accompanied by ethnic and linguistic diversification of the corps of teachers and school administrators. The teacher corps is still composed primarily of White, female, middle class Englishmonolinguals (Zumwalt & Craig, 2005). This disparate percentage of White school principals and teachers relative to the student population is important because students of color tend to receive more negative and exclusionary disciplinary consequences, higher levels of referrals to special education, and lower levels of referrals to programs for gifted and talented students than do White 26 AILACTE Volume XIV Fall 2017 PD in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Schools students (Artiles, Kozleski, Trent, Osher, & Ortiz, 2010; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002). While a host offactors may contribute to these disproportionate outcomes, it is likely that a lack of cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic synchrony between school staff and students of diverse backgrounds creates conditions in which educators can continue to be unaware of their assumptions, misperceptions, and biases related to CLD students’ abilities, intentions, and behaviors (Townsend, 2000). When PD offerings and school improvement efforts ignore issues of language, race, and culture, they fail to acknowledge and address the needs of the students in their school. For example, reading initiatives in CLD schools that do not i

FAQs

Why does the paper argue that PD needs to change in culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) schools?

It argues that PD often targets mainstream learners while CLD students remain marginalized in curricula and pedagogy. It highlights mismatches between school staff and student cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds that can sustain unnoticed biases and misperceptions.

What three conclusions does the paper distill for centering PD on the margins?

The paper recommends making PD relational, providing ample time and patience for teachers to change underlying beliefs, and grounding PD in authentic inquiry rather than relying on a strategy checklist.

What is Project Alianza and how does it support teacher professional development?

Project Alianza is a year-long, weekly PD program for middle and high school teachers across four districts. It includes graduate coursework, inquiry projects, and culminating school change efforts developed with CLD students in partner schools.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanley