McNair Research Journal - University of St. Thomas

Professions
pronouns, or subject in a sentence. To confront the problem, I used a
bilingual approach. I wrote a sample sentence in Russian and translated it
into English. She acknowledged to have understood the approach and
clearly understood how the two sentences made sense in different
languages. This brings us to the discussion about the importance of
bilingualism in our educational system.
Sonia Nieto is Professor of Education in the cultural diversity and
curriculum reform program in the School of Education University of
Massachusetts, Amherst. Sonia critiques the educational system for failing
to include language issues in their conceptual framework. She specifically
points to the fact that part of the reason for the exclusion of language issues
is related to the lack of relevant terminology. Until recently no term
existed to describe language discrimination, which doesn’t mean it’s nonexistent,
as she puts it. She further argues that when the term linguicism
surfaced, it was understood as some form of language discrimination. She
tries to investigate the impact of linguistic differences on student achievement,
using the case of bilingual education. She indicates that there are
many ways to approach language differences in the classroom, and bilingual
education is just one. She acknowledges that bilingualism represents a
positive and empowering approach to deal with language differences in
the classroom, even though, federal, state, county, and local school boards
think bilingual education is expensive. Research has shown that it’s an
important input that needs to be addressed, among several others, to meet
21st century challenges and helps accelerate visioning in the classroom.
(Squires & Bliss, 2004, p.158) define visioning as, “a process that provides
a structure for expressing and examining existing beliefs.” This teaching
concept according to educational scholars helps prospective teachers
construct and articulate their images, or vision, of an ideal classroom.
According to these authors, visioning is an important pedagogical tool
because they represent teacher’s personal definitions of good teaching
(Hammerness, 2001). As such, teacher visions capture moral elements of
teaching and shape their understanding of and practice within classrooms
(Borko & Putnam, 1996, Calderhead, 1996). Teacher visions are considered
a new but critical concept in literacy teacher education. Visioning is
important for two principal reasons. First, they reflect teacher’s hopes and
dreams for themselves, their students, and even sometimes their communities
(Hammerness, 2004, p.34). In this sense, vision can serve as a
source of personal strength and professional integrity for all teachers given
that they are passionate about good teaching and are empowered to stay
the course in the midst of conflicting demands, mixed messages, and
increasing pressures from local and state mandates (Duffy, 2002;
Hammerness, 2004). Secondly, empirical research suggests that culturally
responsive teachers are committed to designing and implementing
instruction that strongly supports literacy learning because they hold
visions of success for diverse students rather than images of deficiency and
failure. (Delpit, 1995, Gay, 2000; Ladson. Billings, 1994).
(Gomez, Mary & Grant, Carl. 1996) in their book, Making School
Multicultural. Campus and Classroom have proposed four guidelines that
can be helpful in transforming a classroom to one that is culturally
responsive with respect to issues of race, class, gender, disability, and
sexual orientation. She posits four approaches to integrating cultural
content into school curriculum. These approaches to multi-cultural
curriculum reform are: (1) the contribution approach, in which content
presented about ethnic and cultural groups is linked, for the most part, to
holidays and celebrations; (2) additive approach, in which the cultural and
ethnic concepts, content, and themes included in the curriculum do not
modify the basic goals structure of the classroom activity and characteristics.;
(3) the transformation approach, in which the structure of the
curriculum is changed to provide students the opportunity to examine
concepts, problems, events, and issues from the perspective of different
ethnic and cultural groups; and (4) the social action approach, in which
students investigate social issues and problems and take civic action to
further learn about concepts and events that they may have studied.
She further underscores the importance of a well-stocked library and
classrooms with books of varying levels, genres, and topics; collaborative
literacy activities, including reading aloud, peer writing sessions, and
University of St. Thomas McNair Research Journal
Ransom Fobanjong
Culturally Responsive Teaching
literature circles; access and exposure to high quality multicultural literature
and high level of societal interaction and connectedness. Gomez et al
have recommended that it is the sole responsibility of educators to create a
vibrant reading community that can motivate diverse learners to read. To
that end, they identified classroom practices, such as providing opportunities
for students to make choices (90%), developing personal relationships
with other students (70%), and connecting with students through
literature (60%). As one educator at Higher Ground Academy explained,
“These student’s can sometimes be overlooked or marginalized in today’s
classrooms.” As such, the teachers also viewed culturally responsive literacy
instruction as a critical means of supporting student’s active literacy
learning. One teacher observed that, “As a teacher it is extremely important
to understand different cultures. Children from diverse backgrounds
will not learn successfully if they don’t feel valued. If they feel respected,
then they will take more risks and they will be motivated to read.”
Therefore literacy research on teaching students from culturally diverse
backgrounds supports these ideals (Gomez et al, 1996).
There was overwhelming consensus amongst the teacher’s vision statements
about the importance of classroom management and its role in
effective literacy instruction. According to one teacher at Henry High
school, “Classroom management is an important factor in creating a
reading community. Teachers should be encouraging and nurturing rather
than authoritarian. This will help kids from all backgrounds to become
readers.” Another teacher asserted that, “Classroom management is
important in providing a productive learning environment for everyone.
Students should know and understand their roles in the classroom and
what they should be doing during different subjects. My policies on
classroom room management are fairly basic and simple. Students should
respect each other and the teacher, act appropriately, and spend their time
on learning.”
Over half of the teachers in the study about 60%, believe that if they were
enacting culturally responsive literacy pedagogy, classroom management
problems would be nonexistent. This group of teachers assumed that if
they implemented the mechanisms of culturally responsive pedagogy, such
as respect for culture and emphasis on classroom community, the management
issues in their classrooms would be negligible. As one teacher puts it,
“If I have been successful at establishing a reading community, many
issues of classroom management are likely to take care of themselves.
Students who want to read and discuss books are far less likely to exhibit
disruptive behavior.” Yet a close analysis of the statements made suggests
that several teachers in this study made this assumption. For example,
classroom management did not receive as much attention as the other
areas of focus within their vision statements. Some of the teachers offered
vague management plans for their classroom. Six teachers in the five
schools I visited did not address the issue of classroom management at all
in their vision statements, and their lack of awareness and attention
provide further evidence that classroom management was indeed a blind
spot within their future plans for culturally responsive practice.
(Howard, 1999) is president and founder of the Reach Center for Multicultural
Education in Seattle, Washington. He has researched extensively
in the field of multicultural education and came up with some findings.
He believes that social dominance theory offers a third research strand
that can help inform educational practitioners who are concerned with
issues of equity and social justice. He outlines four basic assumptions of
social dominance theory: (a) human social systems are predisposed to
form social hierarchies, with hegemonic groups at the top and negative
reference groups at the bottom; (b) hegemonic groups tend to be disproportionately
male, a phenomenon that social dominance theorist call the
“iron law of andrancy;” (c) most forms of social oppression, such as
racism, sexism, and classism, can be viewed as manifestations of groupbased
social hierarchy; (d) Social hierarchy is a survival strategy that has
been selected by many species of primates, including Homo sapiens. He
further argues that by way of definition within social dominance theory,
“hegemonic groups” are those that tend to be disproportionately represented
at higher positions of authority within social institutions, whereas
“negative reference groups” are those that least likely to be represented
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