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The purpose of this paper is to summarize the findings from focus group interviews conducted with librarians and library staff, faculty and students. It highlights the significance of implementing inclusive teaching and culturally responsive strategies in instructional settings and interactions with library patrons and seeks to emphasize the importance of developing guidelines, best practices and effective strategies.

Using focus groups, this study interviewed librarians and library staff, faculty and students. This research approach identified, reviewed and assessed existing programs and practices in instruction and library interactions.

The findings from this paper indicate that while faculty and librarians are making individual efforts to promote inclusivity in teaching and interacting with patrons, many participants expressed the necessity for institutional-level training, guidelines and good practices on how to achieve and implement culturally responsive and inclusive teaching strategies.

The methodology utilized in this study can be adapted by other libraries or institutions aiming to explore the practice of inclusive pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching within their own context. The insights from the study inform the development of strategies that librarians, faculty and staff can employ to integrate inclusive and culturally responsive teaching into their instruction and services for the wider academic community.

This study aims to design and measure the effects of the culturally inclusive science teaching (CIST) model on 30 teacher candidates to teach science to culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students.

The CIST model for culturally inclusive science lessons included six sessions: inquiring, questioning, interacting (online with international students who were at the beginning level of English proficiency), interacting (face-to-face with international internship students who were at the middle level of English proficiency), interacting (face-to-face with international students on campus who were at the advanced level of English proficiency) and developing lessons.

The pre- and post-self-efficacy tests, the culturally inclusive lessons and the final essay reflection resulted in an increase in teacher candidates’ confidence in teaching science to culturally diverse students and improvement in their skills to create culturally inclusive lessons.

Through the model, the teacher candidates interracted with international students with various levels of English proficiency and developed lessons for culturally diverse students. The CIST model is a prospective teaching strategy for teachers to support CLD students’ achievement in science by providing meaningful science in the context of their personal lived experiences.

We explored social studies teachers’ dispositions towards working with immigrant students in an Atlantic new gateway state. We surveyed 99 middle and high school social studies teachers using the additive versus subtractive models as a theoretical framework. Although teachers’ professional backgrounds and school contexts were connected to teaching inclusively, their academic expectations of immigrant students, their beliefs on assimilation (regarding schools’ and teachers’ roles in maintaining heritage cultures and languages), and their opinions on the effective implementation of school policies concerning immigrant students’ learning were significant contributors to teaching inclusiveness.

This chapter considers the opportunities and challenges for HE to develop, support and celebrate excellent teaching. Drawing on conceptualisations of teaching excellence in quality frameworks and in the literature, it considers how teaching quality has traditionally been interpreted, suggesting (as in Chapter 2) that there is a need for more nuanced and comprehensive understandings of teaching excellence to be developed, demonstrated, recognised and rewarded, to reflect the complex nature of teaching excellence across the academic career profile. It considers how institutions might build and communicate shared understandings of excellence in teaching and promote a culture in which excellence at all levels of teaching is valued in the same way as research. It discusses the ways in which the professional learning and support needs of academics can be met at various stages of the academic career, to develop in teaching faculty and education leaders a sense of being appreciated, connected and competent in their contribution and commitment to teaching excellence.

For teachers to fully enact pedagogy rooted in equity and inclusion, they must have access to purposeful systems and tools supporting proactive and collaborative planning built explicitly to center the needs of those historically denied full access to learning. This chapter takes on the historical injustices that have been perpetuated within public education in the United States since its inception and presents practical tools and systems (rooted in research and refined in the field) that can promote more equitable day-to-day teaching and learning in classrooms.

This chapter employs multiple frameworks to establish the need for and the promise of culturally inclusive science literacy strategies for urban United States contexts. Relevant frameworks for inclusive science education include (but are not limited to) science literacy by discourse norms found in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and National Research Council (NRC) reform documents and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. Science education research has demonstrated that traditional notions of literacy have historically led to exclusion of diversity among successful science students. In part, an assessment driven narrow representation of science in schools has led to a growing opportunity gap for children of colour, particularly in urban settings in the United States. Culturally based best practices in teaching science literacy can aid in the achievement of underrepresented science students as research continues to demonstrate the need for culturally relevant curriculum materials which recognise diverse cultural perspectives and contributions in science.

In this chapter, we discuss teaching physical education to Black male students in urban schools. We present a brief account of the history and status of physical education and specifically examine school physical education, particularly for Black male students in urban geographical contexts. We also offer strategies to counter the narrative of Black male school failure and present strategies for addressing the needs of urban teachers and Black male students.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is about understanding and acknowledging when racism has impacted a policy, person, system, and our history. This chapter examines CRT as a tool to understand what has happened in our history and educational system and as a tool to dismantle our current system to bring about true inclusive and authentic schools. It serves to analyze the practical use of CRT in our current public K-12 educational system. The purpose is to fast forward our discussion on race and to explicitly illustrate the dire need for an inclusive education fundamentally girded in an abolitionist mindset for school systems, educators, parents, and students. Although CRT has branched out to be inclusive of many populations, the core purpose was to examine anti-Blackness in America and how that has stained our education system. Inspired by the dissertation conducted by Ayanna Blackmon-Balogun, the aim of this chapter is to draw our attention to that essential purpose of CRT so that schooling can become more liberatory and meaningful to all.

In 2017, 22% of the Canadian population are foreign-born immigrants and one in five is a visible racial minority. Canadian schools and classrooms mirror the diversity of the society and are populated with more and more immigrant and refugee students from diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds each year. Uprooted from their home countries and familiar environments, immigrant and refugee students experience barriers and challenges in new living and educational environments. The increasing number of immigrant and refugee students and their unique educational needs and challenges have called building welcoming and inclusive schools a priority in Canadian education system. This chapter addresses the urgent need for high-impact policies, practices and praxis to build welcoming and inclusive schools for immigrant and refugee students through cross-sector community engagement. Based on several empirical studies, critical and extensive literature review and authors’ professional reflections, this chapter introduces a theoretical framework of building welcoming and inclusive schools for immigrant and refugee students and introduces the promising strategies of engaging community stakeholders, including educators, students, parents, governments and community organizations and agencies.