Description

---

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 tool kit for teachers interested in exploring issues of identity and difference as a foundation for creating a more just and equal society.

About the Author

---

Marit Dewhurst is the director of art education and associate professor in art and museum education at the City College of New York (CCNY). She has worked as an educator and program coordinator in multiple settings both nationally and abroad, including community centers, museums, juvenile detention centers, and international development projects. Building on her work in museums, she collaborated with youth activists to develop Museum Teen Summit, a youth-led research and advocacy program for museum teen programs. Since 2013, she has facilitated multiple workshops with youth, educators, and artists on the role of art education in teaching about the Movement for Black Lives. Working with educator Keonna Hendrick, she has also co-led professional development sessions across the country, focusing on cultural equity and inclusion in museums and other arts organizations. Her research and teaching interests include community organizing, antiracist education, museum and art education, and how young people, artists, and educators play key roles in justice-oriented social change. Publications include chapters in several books on art in social justice education and antiracist museum education as well as articles in Equity & Excellence in Education, The Journal of Museum Education, The Journal of Art Education, International Journal of Education through Art, and Harvard Educational Review. Her book, Social Justice Art: A Framework for Activist Art Pedagogy is used in classrooms, museums, and teacher-training programs in the United States and abroad.