Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Diversity

Closing the Achievement Gap
This section of the web site describing the federal No Child Left Behind Act describes plans to address racially- and economically-related differences in students’ school achievement.

Racism and the Achievement Gap
This 2001 article from the weekly publication Education Week suggests that "many of the assumptions, values, and practices of people and institutions hinder the learning of students of color and students from low-socioeconomic classes."

Fostering High Achievement in African American Children
This article, by Janine Bempechat, considers influences from three sources—home, school, and public policy—that can help narrow the achievement gap between African American and white children.

Improving Immigrant Education
Although this online booklet, published by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, is subtitled "A Guide for K-12 Educators in the Northwest and Alaska," the chapters on the Immigrant Experience and Meeting the Needs of Immigrant Students can be useful to teachers throughout the nation.

Diverse Needs

Children’s Peer Relationships
This ERIC digest summarizes research on how children relate to one another and what teachers can do to foster positive peer relations.

Center for Adolescent Studies
This center at Indiana University offers a set of links relevant to adolescent issues, Teacher Talk, a newsletter for teachers of adolescents, and the Teacher Talk forum, an area for teacher discussion.

Diverse Abilities

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
ASCD has many resources on multiple intelligences and learning styles, including an online course on Multiple Intelligences, found through the Professional Development section of the site. Although ASCD charges for its online courses, you can visit sample lessons from them, including the Multiple Intelligences course, for free. You can visit several different web sites to learn more about your own preferred learning and teaching styles:

VARK Questionnaire
Assesses whether learners prefer visual, aural, reading-writing, or kinesthetic learning.

Multiple Intelligences Inventory
Tests which intelligence you favor. From the Learning Disabilities Resource Community.

Paragon Learning Style Inventory
This inventory is somewhat similar to the Myers-Briggs tests used in business that give you a four-letter description of your style.

Council for Exceptional Children
You can check out professional development opportunities, research and more at the web site of this professional organization for special educators.

ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education
This portion of ERIC will give you information about working with children who have special needs of all kinds.

National Center for Learning Disabilities
This organization is "committed to improving the lives of those affected by learning disabilities." The Tips for Parents, Teachers and Adults in the Resources section is a good place to start looking for teaching ideas.

LD Online
This is a comprehensive site about learning disabilities of all kinds. It includes a newsletter, artwork of the week, first-person stories from students about their learning challenges, and more.

The School’s Response to Diversity

Pathways to School Improvement
The "Pathways to Improvement" multimedia article series from the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory looks at several topics related to this chapter, including Meeting the Diverse Needs of Young Children, Addressing Literacy Needs in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms, and Educating Teachers for Diversity.

Multicultural Education

Center for Multilingual Multicultural Research
You can find research and links to many Internet resources on a variety of multicultural education topics at the web site for this center.

Rethinking Schools
Much of the Fall 2000 issue of the journal Rethinking Schools is devoted to multicultural education.

Walk a Mile in My Shoes
The Walk a Mile in My Shoes multicultural curriculum at Troy City School 14 offers this list of multicultural education resources.

Bilingual Education

Bilingual Education Resources on the Internet
This is a short list of helpful links from the University of Texas College of Education.

National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition
The web site for this clearinghouse, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, contains links to a wealth of Internet resources and lesson plans.

National Association for Bilingual Education
This is a national professional association for those educators working with language-minority students in America’s schools.

Dave’s ESL Cafe
This is a site for teachers of English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language. It includes such helpful features as "pronunciation power" and "tip of the day."

Special Education

Special Education
The weekly online publication Education Week has compiled this "hot topic" summary of information and resources on special education.

A Web Resource for Special Education
This web site at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, contains much information about special education, including the history of the field and types of disabilities. It also offers discussion groups, electronic addresses of special educators, and much more.

Library in the Sky
The Library in the Sky is a huge collection of Internet links maintained by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. This link leads to the special education section of the Library.

National Center to Improve Practice
The full name of this organization is the National Center to Improve Practice in Special Education Through Technology and, as the name implies, the web site profiles many ways technology can help in special education. Try one of their "tours" through exemplary classrooms.

Special Education Resources on the Internet
This is a large and well-maintained collection of links to special education information of all kinds. Topics include legal and inclusion resources, learning disabilities, medicine and health, behavior disorders, and gifted and talented.

Inclusion
The weekly online publication Education Week has compiled this "hot topic" summary of information and resources on inclusion.

The Teacher’s Response to Diversity

Multicultural Pavilion
This award-winning site from the University of Virginia offers a variety of ideas for multicultural lessons and activities and includes a reading list.

In the Classroom
This site from the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition has been designed to provide a toolkit for teachers of English language learners, whether within bilingual education, ESL, or English-only settings.

Inclusive Education
The University of Northern Iowa maintains this site to help general education teachers, special education teachers, parents and others learn more about inclusion of students with disabilities.