Culturally Responsive Teaching
Culturally responsive teaching focuses on the learning needs of students from various cultures and requires that teachers integrate multicultural perspectives into the curriculum (Banks, 1994; Gay, 2002). As the demographic differences in K-12 student population continue to increase, teachers will need to become more aware of the cultural backgrounds of their pupils. Although integrating the culture of each cultural group in America would be difficult, teachers can integrate cultural content into their subject’s curriculum using the cultural groups of their students. Teachers must include students’ cultural characteristics to change how classroom activities engage students’ participation (Banks, 1994). Teachers should be culturally knowledgeable, culturally competent, and culturally sensitive to the …show more content…
Banks (1994), Gay (2002), Ladson-Billings (1994) contend that including students’ cultural backgrounds in the curriculum is important because it increases learning for all students. The themes of CRT are: a) integration of student cultural background into the curriculum, b) teachers high expectations, c) culturally responsive teaching strategies to teach and assess students, d) building caring relationships, e) social justice and equitable classroom practices. These themes are critical in understanding teachers’ lived experiences and their use of culturally responsive teaching strategies to meet the learning needs of culturally diverse urban high school