Culturally Responsive Teaching

Most educators acknowledge that a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching is ineffective, and a more student-centered approach is necessary for student success. Culturally responsive teaching incorporates and centers unique student experiences and identities, supporting educators to build learning partnerships that result in increased student engagement and ownership of learning.

But what exactly is culturally responsive teaching?

Based on Gloria Ladson-Billings’ 1994 culturally relevant pedagogy framework, culturally responsive teaching refers to an approach to teaching and learning that facilitates the achievement of all students by recognizing that culture is a powerful force in shaping how we see ourselves and the world around us. In a culturally responsive classroom, reflective teaching and learning occur in a culturally supported, learner-centered context, whereby the strengths students bring to school are identified, nurtured, and utilized to promote student achievement. When students feel seen, heard, and understood, they are more likely to engage in the learning process and achieve success.

Zaretta Hammond, in her book Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, defines Culturally Responsive Teaching as “an educator’s ability to recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making and respond positively and constructively with teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the students know to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing. All the while, the educator understands the importance of being in relationship and having a social-emotional connection to the student in order to create a safe space for learning.”

Components of Culturally Responsive Teaching

In Beyond Flesh-Colored Crayons: The Four Components of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Hammond lists the four key components for culturally responsive pedagogy as follows:

  1. Affirmation - I recognize and accept you as you are. I understand and nurture your multiple identities and none of these aspects of you are in conflict to me.

  2. Validation - Validate students’ experience of the world by acknowledging the socio-political context we live in. Teach the truth about power, politics, history, and context in developmentally appropriate ways, and use these issues as tools of instruction and discourse.

  3. Cognition - Use students’ culture as a reference point for helping them understand concepts. This is where learning theory, neuroscience and culturally responsive teaching all meet up.

  4. Processing - Help students "hold on to it." Learn about the neuroscience of information processing to support students in internalizing content to the level of automaticity. Call and response, music, movement, and storytelling are all culturally relevant ways to create neural pathways.

What Culturally Responsive Teaching IS / IS NOT

Culturally responsive teaching is:

  • a bridge between home and school life,

  • affirming of students’ history and culture, and

  • centering student voices and learning styles in all lessons and classroom experiences.

Culturally responsive teaching is not:

  • confusing race and culture as being the same thing,

  • only about motivating students of color,

  • relying on a single method to engage students within the lesson,

  • mastering the details of every culture, and

  • just adding Black (or other groups’) history to the curriculum.

“We want to cultivate a young people who, across the course of their lifetimes, will disrupt, disquiet, or unhinge oppression.”

~Dr. Gholdy Muhammad

Strategies for Creating a Culturally Responsive Classroom

Promoting a culture of inclusivity and diversity in the classroom is not without challenges. However, there are strategies that teachers can implement to foster a classroom environment that is more culturally responsive.

  1. Commit to knowing your students well - academically, socially, and emotionally.

    • Learn about their families, cultures, and interests.

    • Ask questions, and talk with parents, community members, and colleagues.

    • Read books, watch movies, and listen to music.

    • Make home visits, or create opportunities for students to share and celebrate their family traditions and cultures.

    • Be aware of different worldviews, and learn about the 'collectivistic-individualistic continuum'.

    • Be explicit and talk to your students about 'code-switching' and help students know when and why it is appropriate while valuing their home culture and language.

  2. Build on the life experiences of your students and consistently bring them into the classroom. Current, real-world examples help students connect to the curriculum, allow for deeper engagement and help students make connections with their individual, community, national, and global identities. The classroom can be a space for students to develop and explore their 'socio-political consciousness' (Gloria-Ladson-Billings, 1994).

  3. Create a classroom learning community. Encourage students to care for one another and be responsible for each other inside and outside of the classroom. Provide consistent routines that help students feel valued and safe, and accountable to one another. Design a safe and welcoming classroom environment-students respond cognitively and emotionally to classroom aesthetics. Whenever possible, aim for natural light, moveable chairs and desks, and ample space to highlight student work and cultural artifacts. Let students know that the classroom space is theirs to create together.

  4. Hold high academic standards and expectations for all of your students, and enthusiastically encourage all students to reach those standards and beyond. Treat all students as competent and developing-focus on fostering a growth mindset. Design lessons with your most underserved students in mind.

  5. Understand your own cultural identity and its consequences. Rigorously examine your cultural behavior patterns, especially when it comes to classroom management and discipline. Be yourself with your students - honest, caring, and human.

References:

5 Common Myths about Culturally Responsive Pedagogy by Zaretta Hammond

Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim

The Dreamkeepers by Gloria Ladson-Billings

Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy by Gloria Ladson-Billings