User:IntlEd Matt/Culturally relevant teaching

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Culturally relevant teaching or responsive teaching is a pedagogy grounded in teachers' practice of cultural competence or skill at teaching in a cross-cultural or multicultural setting. Teachers using this method encourage each student to relate course content to their cultural context.

'''Understandings of culturally relevant teaching has developed over time. Key characteristics and principles help define it, and research has allowed for the development and sharing of guidelines and associated teaching practices. Although examples of culturally relevant teaching programs exist, implementing it can be challenging.'''

General Teaching Practices

 * Researching family history by interviewing family members may connect students with familial cultural influences on their own lives. Documenting interviews in reflective writing can help students to engage in meta-reflections as they explore their beliefs and cultural assumptions about themselves and their peers. Writing about their own cultural identity and its connection to their educational experiences, or writing about a different culture learned from a peer has been found to promote student engagement.
 * Researching family history through interviews with family members can help individuals connect with familial cultural influences on their lives. Documenting these interviews through reflective writing can assist them in engaging in meta-reflections as they explore their beliefs and cultural assumptions about themselves and others. Writing about one’s own cultural identity and its relationship to their educational experiences or about a different culture learned from a peer has been shown to enhance student engagement.  
 * Diversity in teaching should be embraced in all classes and schools, regardless of the population. 
 * Incorporating authentic world assignments, where students confront cultural issues, may not only foster cultural appreciation, but also enhance problem-solving skills.

Additional Practices

 * Creating a positive learning environment: attentive skills, teaching skills, and teacher/student interaction (Radical Pedagogy, 2003).
 * Utilizing a diverse curriculum (Gollnick and Chinn, 2013).
 * Knowing, understanding, and working with families that come from different race and ethnicities (Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen, 1999).
 * Exposing children to role models from their own culture as well as those from other cultures (Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen, 1999).
 * Utilizing student's cultures to help them learn the subjects and skills taught in school (Gollnick and Chinn, 2013).
 * Starting multi-cultural education to students at an early age (Russel, 2007).
 * Using literacy and children's books with characters of different backgrounds in the classroom to help students can learn about new cultures (Ladson-Billings, 1992).
 * Setting high expectations for students of all cultural backgrounds.


 * Using literacy and children's books with characters of different backgrounds in the classroom (Ladson-Billings, 1992). 
 * Knowing, understanding, and working with families that come from different race and ethnicities (Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen, 1999).
 * Exposing children to a range of role models (Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen, 1999).
 * Creating a positive learning environment (Radical Pedagogy, 2003).
 * Starting multi-cultural education at an early age (Russel, 2007). 
 * Utilizing a diverse curriculum (Gollnick and Chinn, 2013).
 * Utilizing student's cultures to help them learn (Gollnick and Chinn, 2013).
 * Setting high expectations for students of all cultural backgrounds. 

Challenges to culturally relevant teaching
Not all educators favor culturally relevant teaching. Indeed, there are many practical challenges to implementing culturally relevant pedagogy including a lack of enforcement of culturally relevant teaching methods, and the tendency to view students as individual units only, rather than seeing them as linked inseparably with their cultural groups. In culturally relevant pedagogy, new teachers must be taught how to adapt their curriculum, methodology, teaching methods, and instructional materials to connect with students' values and cultural norms. Therefore, another challenge for educators is to prepare reflective practitioners who can connect with diverse students and their families. Even though some schools of education acknowledge credibility in training culturally relevant educators, many wrestle with how fit such training into their program and "grudgingly add a diversity course to their curriculum". One contributor to this reluctance comes from the education professors' discomfort with or fear of addressing issues such as racism in their courses. "The student population of America's classrooms has changed. Currently, 43% of students in our nation's schools come from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds. Latinos account for 20% of the school population and Blacks 17%. Nationally, white students now represent 57% of public school enrollment, down from 61% in the 1993–94 school year. Given these demographics, Kenneth Fasching-Varner and Vanessa Dodo-Seriki have suggested that disconnects in teacher and student identity lead to "Free and Reduced Pedagogy", or a non-student first approach that reduces students to cultural differences, discrediting students based on their identities and differences in identities between teachers and students. In the largest school districts, half or more of the students are non-white. Demographic projections predict that cultural and ethnic diversity will increase. Students of color will become the majority in the United States by 2023".

Culturally relevant teaching (CRT) has become a growing area of focus in education, but its implementation faces challenges. Indeed, there are many practical challenges to implementing culturally relevant pedagogy, including a lack of enforcement of culturally relevant teaching methods and the tendency to view students as individual units only, rather than seeing them as linked inseparably with their cultural groups.undefined In culturally relevant pedagogy, new teachers must be taught how to adapt their curriculum, methodology, teaching methods, and instructional materials to connect with students' values and cultural norms. Therefore, another challenge for educators is to prepare reflective practitioners who can connect with diverse students and their families. Even though some schools of education acknowledge credibility in training culturally relevant educators, many wrestle with how to fit such training into their program and "grudgingly add a diversity course to their curriculum". undefined One contributor to this reluctance comes from the education professors' discomfort with or fear of addressing issues such as racism in their courses. "The student population of America's classrooms has changed. Based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics in 2021, 54% of students enrolled in prekindergarten through grade 12 come from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds. Hispanic students account for 28% of the students enrolled and 45% of students enrolled in prekindergarten through grade 12 are white, falling from 61% in the 1993-94 school year. Given these demographics, Kenneth Fasching-Varner and Vanessa Dodo-Seriki have suggested that disconnects in teacher and student identity lead to "Free and Reduced Pedagogy", or a non-student first approach that reduces students to cultural differences, discrediting students based on their identities and differences in identities between teachers and students. In the largest school districts, half or more of the students are non-white.