This Issue

IN TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS and professional development across the world, reflection is often used to help teachers think through some of the complexities of their work. Indeed, teaching is intellectual work, and the task of teacher candidates and in-service teachers is to find substantive ways to think about classroom situations and make decisions about student learning. Effective teacher reflection is not an activity or a habit that naturally occurs. Rather, in order for teacher candidates and in-service teachers to reflect upon their work, some form of education and guidance is needed. This issue on teacher reflection and race in cultural contexts attempts to provide teacher candidates and in-service teachers with ideas and practical tools to help them achieve effective reflection. The articles in this issue consider both teachers' and teacher educators' roles in reflection.

How do these articles contribute to current discussions around reflection? I am optimistic that the articles will serve as a heuristic, or learning tool, for teachers who want to become more effective in their classrooms through reflection. The authors have written their articles to support the daily work of teachers in P-12 classrooms. And this issue weaves a thread of what I am calling race and cultural context. It is essential that teacher candidates, in-service teachers, and teacher educators work to become more knowledgeable about issues around race in various contexts. Thus, the articles have at the fore racial considerations and diversity that often cause teachers to provide inappropriate and inadequate learning opportunities through what they teach (curriculum) and how they teach it (pedagogy) because they are not sensitive to racially diverse students' needs. There are data to suggest that racially diverse students, particularly Blacks and Hispanics, fall behind White students in most academic areas (e.g., Gay & Howard, 2000; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Many of the authors take these disparities into account.

Why focus on race and reflection? Because the racial orientations of students are more varied today than ever before and because teachers are overwhelmingly White and middle class, we must think seriously about transforming teachers' reflection towards appropriate ways of meeting the needs of diverse students. In particular, the United States is a multiracial society; it is projected that by the year 2020, 48% of the nation's school-aged children in grades one to 12 will be students of color (Pallas, Natriello, & McDill, 1989). With this increase of diversity comes variations in perspectives, ways of understanding, communication, and learning.

The complexities surrounding race in the U.S. often mean that teachers enter classrooms without knowledge and skills pertinent to race—a situation that could be detrimental to the teaching and learning encounter. Many teachers have never had significant experiences with students from different racial or cultural backgrounds. As a result, these teachers often lack the skills, attitudes, and competencies to address the needs of students from diverse backgrounds and are perplexed about how they can meet these students' needs. Moreover, many teachers have never attended schools themselves with individuals of a different race or lived in cross-racial neighborhoods, which affects their understanding of racially diverse students.

Given this lack of exposure and understanding, teachers may rely on stereotypical conceptions of racially diverse students. Instead of recognizing the expertise and knowledge that students bring in the classroom by virtue of their life experiences, teachers may think about their students as being behind or lacking competencies to achieve. Thus, some teachers may think that diverse students are incapable of academic success and that diverse learners cannot meet and exceed high expectations. This thinking could be disadvantageous for students who encounter such teachers and learning contexts. Candidly, developing more appropriate thinking about diverse students does not mean lowering expectations (Ford, 1996).

This issue of Theory Into Practice attempts to uncover some of these issues around race, teachers' thinking/reflection, and their influences, challenges, and possibilities with students in their respective classrooms. I am arguing for explicit reflection around race. Teachers on all levels must come to confront and understand their own biases around racially...