Education Week - May 11, 2022 - 16

What Is Culturally Responsive Teaching?
Here's what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher and where critical race theory ties in-or not
By Madeline Will
& Ileana Najarro
For decades, researchers have found that
teachers in public schools have undervalued the
potential for academic success among students
of color, setting low expectations for them and
thinking of cultural differences as barriers rather
than assets to learning.
In response, scholars developed teaching
methods and practices-broadly known as assetbased
pedagogies-that incorporate students'
cultural identities and lived experiences into the
classroom as tools for effective instruction. The
terms for these approaches to teaching vary, from
culturally responsive teaching and culturally
sustaining pedagogy to the more foundational
culturally relevant pedagogy. Though each
term has its own components defined by different
researchers over time, all these approaches
to teaching center the knowledge of traditionally
marginalized communities in classroom instruction.
As a result, all students, and in particular
students of color, are empowered to become lifelong
learners and critical thinkers.
But as a growing number of states seek to pass
legislation banning the teaching of the academic
concept known as critical race theory in K-12
schools-as well as more broadly limiting classroom
discussion on topics of race, gender, and
sexuality-this work is caught in the fray. Some
politicians have conflated culturally responsive
teaching with separate academic concepts and
initiatives, including diversity, equity, and inclusion
programs. As a result, legislation gets written
in ways that could stifle efforts toward equity
in schools, such as policies that can help underserved
students, researchers say.
This explainer unpacks what it means to be a
culturally responsive teacher, how all these research
terms are related, and where other academic
concepts such as critical race theory tie
in-or not.
What is the definition of culturally
responsive teaching?
Culturally responsive teaching means using students'
customs, characteristics, experience, and
perspectives as tools for better classroom instruction.
The
term was coined by researcher Geneva
Gay in 2000, who wrote that " when academic
knowledge and skills are situated within the
lived experiences and frames of reference for
students, they are more personally meaningful,
have higher interest appeal, and are learned more
easily and thoroughly. "
It's the kind of teaching that helps students of
color see themselves and their communities as
belonging in schools and other academic spaces,
leading to more engagement and success.
What is culture, and why is it relevant
to student learning?
Culture refers to the customs, languages, values,
beliefs, and achievements of a group of people.
Students' culture and lived experiences that influence
how they understand and make sense of
the world or themselves are an integral part of
who they are as learners. As Emily Style, the former
founding co-director of the National SEED
Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity),
once wrote, " Half the curriculum walks in
the door with the students. "
While more than half of public school students
are students of color, most schools are organized
around the mainstream culture of white Americans.
The culture that many students experience
at home and in their communities is not always
represented at school-or is represented in a stereotypical
way.
Also, 80 percent of teachers are white. Research
has found that teachers are just as likely
to have racial biases as non-teachers, and those
biases tend to influence the expectations they
have for their students and their ways of managing
their classrooms. For example, past research
has found that white teachers have lower expectations
for Black students than they do for white
students, and those can turn into self-fulfilling
prophecies when students internalize them or
when teachers change their approach to students
as a result of their mindsets.
One study found that white teachers were
more likely to praise a poorly written essay if
they thought it was written by a student of color
than if they thought the essay was by a white student.
Teachers' racial biases can also result in
decreased access to advanced coursework and
higher rates of suspensions.
When did culturally responsive
teaching start?
Culturally responsive teaching stems from the
framework of culturally relevant pedagogy,
which was introduced by scholar Gloria LadsonBillings
in the 1990s. Ladson-Billings was tired of
the commonly held narrative that Black children
were deficient and deviant, and that there was
something wrong with them. Instead, she wanted
to find out what was right with Black children,
their families, and their communities. To do so,
she researched the practices of effective teachers
of Black students.
For about two years, Ladson-Billings observed
teachers who were identified by both principals
and Black parents as being excellent. The teachers
had different ways of teaching, but they all
had high expectations for their students and fostered
academic success. They also all valued and
integrated themselves in the community from
Asset-Based Pedagogies
These teaching methods and practices focus on the strengths of all students and
value diversity in culture, language, and other traits. Here are some of the most
commonly known terms in this approach to teaching and their key components.
Culturally responsive teaching:
l High
expectations
for students
l Culturally
relevant curricula
l Honoring
different
communication
styles
Culturally relevant teaching:
l A focus on student learning l Cultural competence l Critical consciousness
Marginalized communities
" What lies beneath the surface is what the traditional educational system has
ignored: the rich wealth of knowledge of those communities, their ways of thinking
and being in the world, the languages they speak, and their ways with words. "
-Teddi Beam-Conroy, University of Washington associate teaching professor
SOURCE: Education Week reporting
Images: DigitalVision Vectors & iStock/Getty
Culturally sustaining teaching:
l Valuing
community
languages and
practices
l Student and
community
agency and input
l Curricula rooted
in communities'
histories
which their students came.
Ladson-Billings distilled the commonalities
in those teachers' beliefs and practices into
the framework of culturally relevant pedagogy,
which she defined as a model that " not only addresses
student achievement but also helps students
to accept and affirm their cultural identity
while developing critical perspectives that challenge
inequities that schools (and other institutions)
perpetuate. "
There are three components of culturally relevant
pedagogy:
* Student learning-prioritizing students' intellectual
growth, including their ability to problemsolve;
*
Cultural competence-creating an environment
where students affirm and appreciate their
culture of origin while also developing fluency in
at least one other culture; and
* Critical consciousness-teaching students
how to identify, analyze, and solve real-world
problems, especially those that result in societal
inequities against marginalized groups.
So, what are the characteristics
of culturally responsive teaching?
Gay's research shows five essential components
of culturally responsive teaching:
* A strong knowledge base about cultural diversity.
Teachers should understand different racial
and ethnic groups' cultural values, traditions,
and contributions to society, and incorporate that
knowledge into their instruction.
* Culturally relevant curricula. Teachers
should include multiple perspectives in their instruction
and make sure the images displayed in
classrooms-such as on bulletin boards-represent
a wide range of diversity. Teachers should
also contextualize issues within race, class, ethnicity,
and gender.
* High expectations for all students. Teachers
should help students achieve academic success
while still validating their cultural identities.
* An appreciation for different communication
styles. Teachers should understand different
communication styles and modify classroom interactions
accordingly. For example, many communities
of color have an active, participatory
style of communication. A teacher who doesn't
understand this cultural context might think a
student is being rude and tell the student to be
quiet. The student may then shut down.
* The use of multicultural instructional examples.
Teachers should connect students' prior
knowledge and cultural experiences with new
knowledge.
Doesn't that require teachers to
reinforce stereotypes about students
of color and even discriminate
against white children?
In short, no. While the academic framework of
culturally responsive teaching and other assetbased
pedagogies emerged from how to best support
students of color, it evolved into a teaching
approach that serves all students, regardless of
their racial background.
Sharroky Hollie, the director of the nonprofit
Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and
Learning, works with teachers to practice what he
calls cultural and linguistic responsiveness. In his
work, he talks about the rings of culture, meaning
the various aspects of students' identities that can
impact how they interact with the world around
them.
To Hollie, it's not just about thinking of ways to
validate and incorporate a student's racial background
into the classroom. It's not about thinking
of students in a one-dimensional, stereotypical
way. Culturally responsive teachers must also
consider the student's gender, age, socio-economic
status, whether they live in the suburbs or
a rural area, and more.
" It's not as simplistic as we're trying to value
our students of color, " he said. " We're actually
trying to value the rings of culture that they bring
to our schools, regardless of their racial background. "
For
instance, in predominately white school
districts, there are white students who, due to
where they live or their family's socio-economic
status, are underserved by their school district
and could benefit from a culturally responsive
approach to education, Hollie said.
What is culturally sustaining
pedagogy, and how is it different
from culturally relevant teaching?
Schools are still places where white norms are
considered the default standard in the curricula,
behavioral expectations, linguistic practices, and
more. Culturally sustaining pedagogy says that
students of color should not be expected to adhere
to white middle-class norms, but their own
cultural ways of being should be explored, honored,
and nurtured by educators.
Django Paris, who coined the term in 2012,
and co-author H. Samy Alim once told Education
Week that culturally sustaining pedagogy
" positions dynamic cultural dexterity as a necessary
good, and sees the outcome of learning as
additive, rather than subtractive, as remaining
whole, rather than framed as broken, as critically
enriching strengths rather than replacing deficits.
... As such, CSP explicitly calls for schooling to be
a site for sustaining-rather than eradicating-the
cultural ways of being of communities of color. "
The framework builds on the work of LadsonBilling
and others but offers a " loving critique "
that cultural relevance in the curriculum is not
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