Critical Multicultural Educator Award

VANAME Critical Multicultural Educator Award

VANAME is looking for critical multicultural education teachers! We welcome teachers who teach in P-university levels, across all subject areas, and across rural, suburban, and urban contexts. 

Required materials consist of: 

1. 1-2 nomination letters that describe how your work develops the student outcomes of multicultural education in the classroom  (see below).

2.  Your name, current school or other institution, grade level and/or subject area(s), and contact information (email address, mailing address, phone number).

Submissions will be evaluated based on how well they speak to the five student outcomes of multicultural education, listed, below.

Student Outcomes of Multicultural Education in the Classroom

 Develop Positive Social Identities 

Students develop language, as well as historical and cultural knowledge, that affirms and accurately describes their membership in multiple identity groups, which may include but are not limited to identities related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, language, ability, religion, socioeconomic status, age, and geography. They learn to recognize how peoples’ multiple identities interact to create unique and complex individuals. They express pride, confidence and healthy self-esteem without denying the value and dignity of other people, and they effectively negotiate differences between their home and community cultures and the dominant culture.

 Develop Positive Academic Identities  

Students perceive themselves and members of their own identity groups as intellectually capable and able to achieve at very high levels. They connect their own knowledge and sense of purpose with challenging academic skills and concepts. They are able to use tools of inquiry to ask questions, develop informed opinions, and co-construct knowledge with peers and adults, and they communicate knowledge clearly, using multiple forms of communication. Students use these academic skills to develop social justice consciousness and take action for social justice in their schools and communities. 

 Engage Respectfully with Diverse People  

Students develop language and knowledge to accurately describe how people are both similar to and different from each other and themselves. They respectfully express curiosity about others, examining diverse experiences and perspectives in their social, political and historical contexts, exchanging ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way. They build empathy, understanding, respect, and connection across differences and similarities. Respectful engagement requires examining privilege(s) that derive from one’s social identities and thinking critically about ways to deconstruct privileged hierarchies in society. 

Develop Social Justice Consciousness  

Students recognize unfairness on the individual level and injustice at the institutional or systemic level, locally, nationally, and globally, analyzing its harmful impact on themselves and others. They link their own well-being with that of people who differ from themselves and understand that one’s well-being may result from the marginalization of others. They identify key figures and groups, seminal events, strategies and philosophies relevant to social justice history around the world. Students also actively pursue alternative perspectives by searching for and examining traditionally marginalized viewpoints and ways of knowing and being. 

 Take Action for Social Justice 

Students recognize their own responsibility to resist exclusion, prejudice and injustice in their everyday lives, despite pressure from others to do otherwise or displeasure from those around them who may thwart their efforts for social justice. Based on an analysis of roots of discrimination and colonization, and working as allies for equity and justice, they plan and carry out strategies of participatory democratic activism, and evaluate the effectiveness of various strategies.