Equity

We will focus on removing systemic inequities, increase opportunities and implement culturally responsive practices to eliminate achievement disparities.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

Before the session watch The Danger of a Single Story (19:16)

What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

This article is based on Geneva Gay’s theory of culturally responsive teaching. These six principles provide a framework for evaluating classroom environment, learning and teaching to ensure cultural responsiveness. 

A Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching (specifically, scroll down and review items in Figure 1. Four Conditions Necessary for Culturally Responsive Teaching)

The Art of Teaching

Take a few minutes and read the first two pages of this handout.

Sample Curriculum/Lesson Plans

Transforming the Mainstream Curriculum (Banks 1994)

Summary:

Teaching from a range of perspectives will prepare students from diverse groups to work together in a truly unified nation.

The idea is to move away from a “coerced assimilation” which does not work very well. “Multicultural education tries to create equal educational opportunities for all students by ensuring that the total school environment reflects the diversity of groups in classrooms, schools, and the society as a whole.”

They break up the dimensions of Multicultural Education into 5 categories: content integration; knowledge construction; prejudice reduction; equitable pedagogy; and empowering school culture. These categories are also cited by other authors as accepted practice.

In an analysis of these practices (2008) the researcher writes:

Conclusions: The empirical research reveals that all five components of multicultural educational practice outlined by Banks to have a strong, positive impact on the educational outcomes of students of color and to improved intergroup relations, although research has been stronger in some areas (e.g., prejudice reduction and some equity pedagogies such as cooperative learning) than others (e.g., the specific effects of content integration and knowledge construction).

The evidence suggests several additional conclusions:

(1) Multicultural educational practice has benefit for the academic outcomes of all students, not just students of color.

(2) Multicultural educational practice is most effective when implemented with careful attention to issues of race and power.

(3) The academic and intergroup relations outcomes are linked, such that efforts designed to improve one improve the other. Implications for future research on the effects of multicultural educational practice on students, as well as teacher and administrator education programs, are discussed.

The researcher asserts that:

    • multicultural educational practice is only effective to the extent that issues of race and power are explicitly and thoroughly addressed;

    • multicultural educational practices benefit all students;

    • improvements in student outcomes and intergroup relations are linked

Research indicates that: students who experience a multicultural curriculum gain greater academic confidence; and improved critical thinking skills; leads to less stereotyping and prejudice.

One study referenced in this paper stated that:

“Long-term outcome studies revealed that compared with students in the control group, students in the intervention group reported being more attached to their school and committed to education throughout their school career (Hawkins, Guo, Hill, Battin-Pearson, & Abbott, 2001). Intervention group students were more likely to graduate from high school and more likely to show positive emotional functioning and were less likely to engage in risky adolescent behaviors than were control group students. These positive effects of the intervention were stronger for students of color.”

This meta-analysis seems to be a thorough review of the available materials up to the time of its writing.

Zirkel, Sabrina. “The Influence of Multicultural Educational Practices on Student Outcomes and Intergroup Relations.” Teachers College Record 110.6 (2008): 1147-181. Mills College. Web. <http://www.mills.edu/academics/faculty/educ/szirkel/ zirkel%202008%20tcr.pdf>.

Additional Resources