What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

Culturally Responsive Teaching recognizes that diverse cultural influences shape how students learn. Cultural influences inform how a student responds to an instructor and a learning community, and in turn, how instructors and learning communities respond to students. To be a culturally responsive educator is to examine one’s own cultural lens and to build curiosity and respect for multiple ways of knowing and expressing knowledge into course design.

Culturally responsive pedagogy is a teaching approach that recognizes the importance of including students’ cultural references in all aspects of learning. It aims to provide equitable access to education for students from all cultural backgrounds by acknowledging, respecting, and using students’ identities and backgrounds as meaningful sources for learning. Here is a summary of common concepts found in culturally responsive pedagogy, drawn from open educational resources (OER) and textbooks:

1. **Cultural Competence**: Teachers are encouraged to develop an understanding and appreciation of the cultural backgrounds of their students. This involves recognizing the cultural assets students bring to the classroom and integrating these assets into teaching practices. Cultural competence is about more than awareness; it’s about actively engaging with and valuing diverse cultural perspectives.

2. **High Expectations for All**: Culturally responsive teaching insists on high expectations for all students, challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations that can sometimes prevail. It emphasizes the belief that all students can learn and succeed when provided with the appropriate support, resources, and opportunities.

3. **Culturally Relevant Curriculum**: This involves the integration of cultural references in the curriculum and learning materials. The curriculum should reflect the diversity of the students, including histories, texts, values, beliefs, and perspectives of people from different cultural backgrounds. This relevance makes learning more engaging and meaningful for students.

4. **Student-Centered Learning**: Culturally responsive pedagogy promotes teaching methods that are responsive to the learning styles of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. This might include collaborative learning, storytelling, role-playing, and other strategies that align with the cultural learning preferences of students.

5. **Critical Consciousness**: Teachers and students are encouraged to critically examine the curriculum, teaching practices, and institutional policies for biases and to challenge inequities in education. Culturally responsive pedagogy seeks to empower students by developing their ability to recognize, critique, and challenge social injustices.

6. **Building Relationships**: Strong relationships between teachers and students are foundational in culturally responsive pedagogy. Teachers are encouraged to learn about their students’ lives outside of school, understand the challenges they may face, and build trust and respect in the classroom.

7. **Family and Community Engagement**: Recognizing that education does not happen in isolation, culturally responsive teaching involves partnering with families and communities. This can include inviting community members to share knowledge and experiences, as well as engaging families in the educational process.

8. **Linguistic Diversity**: This approach values students’ native languages and cultures as assets in the classroom. It supports the development of students’ academic language proficiency in their first language, alongside the acquisition of English, where relevant.

These concepts are foundational to culturally responsive pedagogy and are discussed in various OER textbooks and resources dedicated to education, diversity, and equity. Such resources aim to provide educators with the knowledge and tools to implement culturally responsive teaching practices that support the learning and success of all students, regardless of their cultural background.

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice^[1]

Zaretta Hammond recommends three strategies for Culturally Responsive Course Design [Blogpost]:

• Gamify It: Incorporate games into your activities and assignments will allow students to solve puzzles, experience repetition, and make connections between otherwise unrelated concepts. This draws on oral traditions common in many non-Western cultures.
• Make it Social: Give students opportunities to share their experiences, develop trust, and build a strong social presence in their course community.
• Storify It: Ask students to build narratives about concepts, topics, or processes, as “stories are a straw to the brain,” according to UDL and Antiracism curriculum expert Andratesha Fritzgerald.

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