University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute

The paper documents the characteristics of California’s existing student and teacher population, explores research on the effect on students of having teachers who are from minority groups and/or teachers who earn credentials from programs that focus on diversity is- sues, identifies barriers to increasing the number of teachers with diverse backgrounds in the workforce, and makes recommendations to in- crease the pool of minority teachers and to improve the preparation of teachers to perform effectively with diverse students.