Enactments of culturally responsive teaching in schools and classrooms A case study

Despite the fact that the student population in the U.S. is quite diverse, the teaching force is very homogeneous. Almost 90 percent of U.S. secondary and postsecondary teachers are Caucasian, and some teachers have a limited understanding of cultures that are different from their own. It is imperative that all teachers be prepared to facilitate effective teaching for all students, no matter how culturally similar or different students are from teachers. This case study examines the teaching practices of four in-service teachers in four different classrooms at one multicultural school to observe, discuss and reflect on culturally responsive teaching. Furthermore, the study examines how the students responded to the four teachers' enactments of teaching. The cultural context in which this study took place is significant, as the community at large, and the school in particular, had a Latino majority, while the teaching force was mainly White. The teachers' racial difference from the students in this study is an example of how systems of domination in education operate, and how they are created by and embedded in the structures of power and privilege in society. This study documents the journey of the four White teachers as they learn about themselves as teachers, their students, and their students' communities. Five main conceptual themes were identified: instructional strategies, adapting curriculum to students, student engagement through cooperative learning, connecting to parents and family, culturally responsive caring, and teacher reflection. Critical theory is used in the discussion of critical pedagogy, critical multiculturalism, and culturally responsive teaching, and also as the theoretical framework for analyzing and discussing the White teachers' understandings of their own pedagogical practices. This study shows that teachers must be able to construct and critically reflect on pedagogical practices that have relevance and meaning to students' social and cultural realities. This can be done by obtaining a critical and reflective understanding of the students' cultural capital and habitus, which builds on concepts that are familiar to the students' prior knowledge, experiences and beliefs