Teachers Bridging Difference: Exploring Identity with Art

Teachers Bridging Difference describes how educators can move out of their comfort zones and practice connecting with others across differences to become culturally responsive teachers. Based on a course developed for preservice teachers, the book illustrates how educators can draw on the visual arts as a resource to explore their own identities and those of their students, and how to increase their understanding of the ways our lives intersect across sociocultural differences.

Drawing on scholarship from multiple disciplines and from her own experience, Marit Dewhurst identifies four stances designed to help educators connect with students in today’s multicultural classrooms. To practice these stances, the book introduces eight arts-based activities that can be used by educators in multiple contexts. Ranging from community maps and conversation portraits to scenario comics and reflection zines, the activities are designed to be accessible to even those with little arts experience and can be executed with a wide variety of materials and media.

Unique and timely, Teachers Bridging Difference is an arts-based toolkit for teachers interested in exploring issues of identity and difference as a foundation for creating a more just and equal society.