Through the Symposium Lecture Series speakers are invited to the University to engage in discussion on issues related to racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity and education. These lectures are well-attended by the College of Education faculty, teachers, and school administrators.

See list of all CME Symposia

The Center for Multicultural Education's 30th Symposium: Commemorating the Past and Envisioning the Future: Making a Difference for 26 Years.

Friday, April 27th, 2018. 9 am - 3:30 pm. Walker Ames Room,  225 Kane Hall at The University of Washington

Keynote Speakers

Linda Darling Hammond Opening Keynote Speaker: Linda Darling-Hammond, President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute and Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University.

Closing Keynote Speaker: Django Paris, James and Cherry Banks Professor and Incoming Director of the Center for Multicultural Education.

Other Speakers include:

Tyrone C. Howard, Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies’ at UCLA and the Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion. Özlem Sensoy, Associate Professor of education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and is associate director at their Centre for Education, Law and Society. Nichole M. Joseph, Assistant Professor of mathematics education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development. Tao Wang, Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Faculty of Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai.

The Center for Multicultural Education's 29th Symposium in its Symposium Lecture Series

The Limits and Possibilities of Schooling in an Unequal Society

Pedro Noguera, School of Educaiton & Information Studies, University of California at Los Angeles

As social inequality increases the pressure on schools to do more to meet the needs of impoverished children grows.  Pervasive school failure in poor communities serves as proof to some that schools can never succeed unless or until inequality is addressed. However, a small number of schools and communities are demonstrating that even under adverse conditions progress can be made in creating schools that meet the needs of students.  Drawing upon research in poor communities in the US and several other nations, this presentation will examine the work of these schools and the role of agency in countering oppressive conditions including the political mandates that often obstruct progress.  The presentation will also consider what role educational researchers should play in the effort to create just schools during unjust times.

Pedro Noguera is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA. His research focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions, as well as by demographic trends in local, regional, and global contexts. He is the author of eleven books and over 200 articles and monographs. He serves on the boards of numerous national and local organizations and appears as a regular commentator on educational issues on CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and other national news outlets. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA he served as a tenured professor and holder of endowed chairs at New York University (2003 – 2015), Harvard University (2000 – 2003), and the University of California, Berkeley (1990 – 2000). From 2009 – 2012 he served as a Trustee for the State University of New York (SUNY) as an appointee of the Governor. In 2014 he was elected to the National Academy of Education. Noguera recently received awards from the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences, from the National Association of Secondary Principals, and from the McSilver Institute at NYU for his research and advocacy efforts aimed at fighting poverty.

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The Center for Multicultural Education's 28th Symposium in its Symposium Lecture Series 

Black Male(d): Peril and Promise in the Education of African American Males

Tyrone C. Howard, School of Educaiton & Information Studies, University of California at Los Angeles

Tyrone C. Howard, Professor of Education and Associate Dean for Equity & Inclusion in the Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences at UCLA, spoke at the Center's 27th symposium lecture on January 11, 2016. Professor Howard is also director and founder of the Balck Male Institute at UCLA, an interdisciplinary cadre of scholars, practitioners, community members, and policy makers dedicated to improving the educational experiences and life chances of Black males. Professor Howard’s research is concerned primarily with the achievement of youth in urban schools. He is the author of numerous articles and two books published by Teachers College Press, Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in America’s Classrooms; and Black Male(d): Peril and Promise in the Education of African American Males. In his lecture, Professor Howard examined the challenges and the promise in the education of African American males. Drawing from data on several data sets, Howard shared insights from his book on Black males. His presention also described conceptual, empirical, and practical interventions that school leaders, practitioners, and concerned community members can use to improve the schooling experiences and outcomes for African American males, one of the nation's most marginalized student groups.

Special Symposium Lecture

Multicultural Education in Northwest China
Jian Wang, Northwest Normal University, China

Wang Jian, a Yangtze River Scholar and distinguished professor of education at Northwest Normal University in China, spoke at a special symposium sponsored by the Center on April 5th, 2013. Wang is the director of research ats the Center for the Educational Development of Northwest Ethnic Minorities. He has served as the editor of Contemporary Education and Culture. His research explores many issues related to the education of ethnic minorities in Northwest China, including bilingual education, K-12 curriculum reform, and multiethnic curriculum and instruction. Professor Wang's research compares ethnic minority education in China to multicultural education in other countries. He brings cultural and anthropological lenses to the understanding of the lives of ethnic minority students, classroom teaching, and schools. Professor Wang is one of the leading researchers who studies the education of ethnic minorities in China.

April 5, 2013

Fall 2010 Symposium

Guadalupe Valdés, professor of education at Stanford University, spoke at the Center's fall symposium lecture on November 19, 2010. Valdés's research explores many of the issues of bilingualism relevant to teachers in training, including methods of instruction, typologies, measurement of progress, and the role of education in national policies on immigration. Specifically, she studies the sociolinguistic processes of linguistic acquisition by learners in different circumstances - those who set out to learn a second language in a formal school setting (elective bilingualism) and those who must learn two languages in order to adapt to immediate family-based or work-based communicative needs within an immigrant community (circumstantial bilingualism). Her research in these areas has made her one of the most eminent experts on Spanish-English bilingualism in the United States.

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25th Symposium Lecture

Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society

Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, New YorkUniversity

One child in five in America is the child of immigrants, and their numbers increase each year. Very few will return to the country they barely remember. Who are they, and what America do they know?

Based on an extraordinary interdisciplinary study that followed 400 newly arrived children from the Caribbean, China, Central America, and Mexico for five years, the Suarez-Orozcos provide a compelling account of the lives, dreams, and frustrations of these youngest immigrants. Richly told portraits of high and low achievers are packed with unexpected ironies. When they arrive, most children are full of optimism and a respect for education. But poor neighborhoods and dull — often dangerous — schools can corrode hopes. The vast majority learn English, but it is the English of video games and the neighborhood, not that of standardized tests.

October 24, 2008

24rd Symposium Lecture

Citizenship, Multiculturalism and Minority Education in Britain: a Question of Civil Rights or Human Rights?

Audrey Osler

Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds, UK

October 26, 2007

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23rd Symposium Lecture

Contingencies of Identity and Schooling in a Diverse Society: Toward Reducing Inequality of Outcomes

Claude M. Steele

Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences at Stanford University

November 3rd, 2006

Claude M. Steele is director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences at Stanford University. His research interests are how people cope with self-image threats; how group stereotypes can influence intellectual performance; and addictive behaviors. Professor Steele is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize and the Distinguished Scientific Career Awards from both the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society. He has received honorary doctorates from Yale, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and the National Academy of Sciences. His papers have been published in numerous scholarly journals such as American Psychologist, Harvard Educational Review, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

22nd Symposium Lecture

It's not a Conspiracy, it's Worse than That: a Critical Race Perspective on Racism and Education Policy

David Gillborn
Head of Policy Studies & Director of the Health & Education Research Unit,
University of London, Institute of Education
Founding Editor of the international journal, Race, Ethnicity & Education

November 9, 2005

David Gillborn is Head of Policy Studies & Director of the Health & Education Research Unit at the Univeristy of London, Institute of Education. He holds a doctoratein Sociology at the University of Nottingham (1987), and worked as a Research Fellow in Education at the University of Sheffield before joining the Institute in 1992. Dr. Gillborn is the Founding Editor of Race, Ethnicity & Education, a refereed international journal dedicated to the study of race, racism and ethnicity in education contexts. The journal provides a vital forum for scholarly debate and critical research that is fast establishing itself as a leading publication in its field. In addition, Dr. Gillborn is also involved in several other journals and is an editoria board member of both the International Journal of Inclusive Education and Qualitative Research. Dr. Gillborn's profound scholarship includes Rationing Education: Policy, Practice, Reform & Equity (2000), and Racism and Antiracism in Real Schools: Theory, Policy, Practice (1995).

21st Symposium Lecture

Critical Perspectives on Diversity, Research, and Education

Professor Zeus Leonardo
2005 - 2006 Acting Director for the Center

October 28, 2005

Prof. Zeus Leonardo is an Associate Professor of social and multicultural foundations in the College of Education at California State University, Long Beach. His books include Ideology, Discourse, and School Reform (2003), Critical Pedagogy and Race (Editor, 2005), and Charting New Terrains of Chicano(a)/Latino(a) Education (Co-Editor, 2000). Professor Leonardo has published numerous articles and book chapters on critical education and social theory with special attention to issues of race, class and gender.

20th Symposium Lecture

Science and Technology in a Multicultural and Postcolonial World:
New Issues and Challenges

Professor Sandra Harding
Professor of Education and Women's Studies
University of California, Los Angeles

July 14, 2005

Sandra Harding is Professor of Education and Women's Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Harding taught for over twenty years at the University of Delaware before joining UCLA in 1996. At UCLA, she served as the director of the Center for the Study of Women for five years. Professor Harding has written numerous books and articles on the subjects of feminist epistemology, feminist research and methods, and scientific knowledge. Her books include: Is Science Multicultural? (1998); Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives (1991); and The Science Question in Feminism (1986). She has also served as an editor and co-editor for several journals, including Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

The 19th Symposium Lecture

What if We Leave All the Children Behind? The Challenge of Teaching in the New Millennium

Gloria Ladson-Billings

Kellner Family Professor in Urban Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison

October 22, 2004

The 18th Symposium Lecture

Expanding the Borders of the Nation: Ethnic Diversity and Citizenship Education in Japan

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu

Professor of Education
University of Tokyo

January, 28, 2004

The 17th Symposium Lecture

The Development of Biliteracy in Children: The Mediating Roles of Language Ideologies

Luis Moll

Professor of Education
University of Arizona

October 25, 2002

The 16th Symposium Lecture

Will Anybody Know Who I Am? On Witness, Justice and Respect

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

Professor of Education
Harvard University

November 9, 2001

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is the Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University and a highly acclaimed educator and researcher. Since joining the faculty at Harvard in 1972, her research has focused on the culture of schools, the patterns and structures of classroom life, the relationship between adult developmental themes and teachers' work, and socialization within families, communities and schools.

She is a prolific author of numerous articles, monographs, chapters and several books: Worlds Apart: Relationships Between Families and Schools (1978), Beyond Bias: Perspectives on Classrooms (1979) (with Jean Carew), and The Good High School: Portraits of Character and Culture (1983), which received the 1984 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association. Her book, Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer (1988), which won the 1988 Christopher Award, was followed by I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation (1994), and The Art and Science of Portraiture (1997) (with Jessica Hoffmann Davis), which documents her pioneering approach to social science methodology. In her most recent work, Respect: An Exploration (1999), Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot reaches deep into human experience to find the essence of this powerful quality.

In addition to her teaching, research, and writing, she sits on numerous professional committees and boards of directors including: The National Academy of Education, The Boston Globe, Bright Horizons, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 1984 she was the recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Prize Award, in 1993 she was awarded Harvard's George Ledlie Prize, and in 1995 she became a Spencer Senior Scholar. She is the recipient of twenty honorary degrees from colleges and universities in the United States and Canada and was awarded the Emily Hargroves Fisher Endowed Chair at Harvard University in 1998.

The 15th Symposium Lecture

Becoming Good American Schools: The Struggle for Civic Virtue in Education Reform

Jeannie Oakes

Professor of Education
Director of Institute for Democracy, Education & Access
University of California, Los Angeles

October 19, 2001

Jeannie Oakes is Professor of Education and Associate Dean in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Oakes also directs UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education & Access (IDEA), which brings UCLA's research capacity and commitment to bear on what may be the most pressing public issue in Los Angeles and in California today: bringing neighbors together to address the critical problems of public education across the many communities of Los Angeles. Through a program of multidisciplinary scholarship and activities, IDEA addresses the relatiionship between educational access and the broader political economy in diverse Los Angeles.

Oakes studied how tracking and ability grouping created within-school segregation, and inequalities in students' opportunities to learn. Oakes' recent research follows the progress of educators who are attempting to eliminate schooling inequalities and build more democratic school communities. this work is reported in Beyond the Technicalities of School Reform: Lessons from Detracking Schools, in Creating New Educational Communities, the 94th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, and in her latest book, Becoming Good American Schools: The Struggle for Civic Virtue in Education Reform.

In 1986, she received a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educatiional Press Association of America, The American Educational Research Association awarded her its Early Career Award in 1990, and its Palmer O. Johnson Award for Outstanding Research Article in 1997. In 1996, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference presented her with the Ralph David Abernathy Award for Public Service, and she received the National Association for Multicultural Education's Multicultural Research Award in 1998. This past February, she was awarded the Margaret B. Lindsey Award for Distinguished Research in Teacher Education by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Jeannie Oakes also directs UCLA's Center X-where Research and Practice Intersect for urban School Professionals. Center X links three major UCLA professional education programs: the pre-service Teacher Education program, the Professional Development programs for practicing educators, and School-University partnerships working to increase the diversity of California students who attend colleges and universities. Oakes' research program at the Center investigates teacher development aimed at social justice for urban schools serving low-income students of color. Her 1999 book, Teaching to Change the World explores the educational foundations, values, and approaches to teaching that are at the core of Center X.

The 14th Symposium Lecture

Alan Schoenfeld,

University of California, Berkley

The 13th Symposium Lecture

Lisa Delpit

Georgia State University

The 12th Symposium Lecture

Marylin Cochran-Smith

Boston College

The 11th Symposium Lecture

Guadalupe Valdes 

Standford University

The 10th Symposium Lecture

Quintard Taylor

University of Washington

The 9th Symposium Lecture

Reva Joshee

University of British Columbia

The 8th Symposium Lecture

Claude M. Steele

Stanford University

The 7th Symposium Lecture

Lily Wong Filmore

University of California, Berkley

The 6th Symposium Lecture

Kathryn Au

University of Hawaii at Manoa

The 5th Symposium Lecture

Linda Darling-Hammond

Teacher's College, Columbia University

The 4th Symposium Lecture 

Shirley Brice Heath

Stanford University

The 3rd Symposium Lecture

Cary Partington

Edith Cowan University, Western Australia 

The 2nd Symposium Lecture

Elizabeth G. Cohen

Stanford University

The 1st Symposium Lecture

Edmund G. Gordon

Yale University

Geneva Gay

University of Washington, Seattle