We endorse the following strategies as a guideline for implementation of culturally sensitive curriculum and textbooks:

• Maintain high standards and expectations
• Teachers maintain high standards and demonstrate high achievement expectations for all ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students; this includes offering challenging and advanced course work.
• Encourage active participation of parents or guardians
• Teachers inform parents of the importance of talking with their children, taking the time to teach them (in their own home language ), sharing oral histories and traditional folk tales, and labeling objects and events around the home.
• Incorporate the home culture
• Teachers learn about their students' home-community culture in order to better comprehend students' behavior in and out of school.
• Capitalize on students' backgrounds
• Teachers recognize that learning is strongly influenced by students' cultural backgrounds. Although students differ in their knowledge of oral and written language, research demonstrates that all children come to school with a background of experience that teachers can capitalize on during the learning process.
• Use culturally relevant curriculum materials
• Teachers use relevant curriculum and instructional materials that recognize, incorporate, and accurately reflect students' racial heritage and the contributions of various ethnic groups.
• Identify and dispel stereotypes
• Teachers use language and instructional resources that are nonsexist, non racist, and non ethnocentric; if stereotypes are present in lectures or texts, teachers point them out to students.
• Create culturally compatible learning environments
• Teachers recognize the influence of students learning styles, culture, and native language on the ways in which they learn and use language.
• Use cooperative learning structures
• Teachers use cooperative learning approaches that increase the likelihood of interethnic friendships and improved attitudes and behaviors toward classmates of different backgrounds. Methods that include group goals and individual accountability are the most effective.
• Capitalize on students' culture, language, and experiences
• Teachers construct lessons in ways consistent with students' home-community culture and language to take advantage of students' cognitive experiences and to allow students opportunities to engage in behaviors conducive to achievement

Questions? Julien Ross julienross@yahoo.com, Alexia Palacios alexiap@mail.utexas.edu