STUDENTS ’ AND TEACHERS ’ PERCEPTIONS OF CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING: A CASE STUDY OF AN URBAN MIDDLE SCHOOL

Curtin, Ellen Mary, Students ’ and teachers ’ perceptions of culturally responsive teaching: A case study of an urban middle school, Doctor of Philosophy (Curriculum & Instruction), December 2002, 297 pp., 7 tables, references, 229 titles. This was a qualitative study that used the procedures of case study design while incorporating ethnographic techniques of interviewing and non-participant observation in classrooms with six selected students, six teachers, and eight interviews of selected administrators and staff members in one middle school in a large Texas urban school district. The purpose of this study was to understand the educational experiences and perceptions of selected immigrant students and their mainstream teachers. Following the method of case study design, the educational experiences of English Language Learner (ELL) students were examined in the naturally occurring context of the school and the classroom. Because the goal of case studies is to understand a given phenomenon from the perceptions of the participants (referred to as “emic ” perspective) all participants were interviewed in-depth in order to understand their unique perceptions. The study took place during a five-month period in the spring of 2002. Data were analyzed concurrentl