For the past 7 years in a public Midwestern school district, 75% of the English learners (ELs) in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades have performed below proficiency on the state examination. To address the declining academic achievement, district administration required that K-5 teachers attend professional development (PD) that featured culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR) instructional practices for ELs. Despite district wide PD, school administration did not monitor implementation of these practices and student achievement continued to decline. This qualitative bounded case study was grounded in Vygotsky's constructivism and Krashen's second language acquisition theories. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' perceptions and use of CLR instructional practices when teaching ELs. Data were collected via 23 individual interviews with and 22 observations of teachers, who had taught ELs within the last 3 years. Data were analyzed using typological analysis and a priori codes were established based on the typologies. Teachers reported they were using academic language and native language in class, but these instructional practices were not supported in observation data. Furthermore, teachers reported that using the student's native language, incorporating language and content, lack of instructional time, and a need for further training in how to teach ELs were barriers that affected implementation of CRL instructional practices. Based on the findings, a 3-day professional development was created to increase teachers' knowledge of how to develop ELs' academic language, to use ELs' native language in the classroom, and to overcome classroom barriers. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change when administrators provide teachers with CLR instructional practices, ELs may increase their academic performance.

The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to describe the teachers' perceptions of pedagogy and examine their cross-cultural strategies regarding culturally responsive teaching of K-12 students. Indigenous students of the Northwest Territories (NWT) face academic challenges in a Eurocentric educational system. Tribal critical race theory and Eurocentric diffusionism provided the conceptual framework in this study. Six participants were interviewed and their narratives were triangulated by a 5-member focus group. The research questions focused on the teachers' strategies for building bridges between the Eurocentric and Native ways. Participants were interviewed and their responses created individual stories, which added to the meaning making. Fifteen themes were identified using open and axial coding. The findings showed a teacher proclivity for pedagogy infused with Indigenous thought, and an understanding that residential schooling was intrusive to Indigenous life. Participants presented an anti-Eurocentric diffusionist stance, advocating for schooling that matches Indigenous life and is devoted to a dynamic home-school culture directed at closing the achievement gap with the rest of Canada. This study contributes to social change by providing supporting evidence for the need to involve Indigenous students in the development of their education.

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Discrimination occurs against underrepresented and misrepresented cultures in the United States of America. Hate crimes, racism, and stereotyping are not only against adults but also students in the educational system. These actions are causing division within our nation. There is a movement for transforming the classroom into one that is culturally inclusive for everyone. These Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) methods can help to unite our nation by celebrating diversity. One very effective method to achieve this is by using multicultural literature in classrooms as a way for students to see themselves as if looking in mirrors, understand their peers as if looking through windows, and empathize with other cultures as if stepping through a sliding glass door into the other culture (Bishop, 1990). Arab Americans too often are experiencing discrimination at the same or worse levels than other underrepresented and misrepresented cultures. The goal of this study was to find quality books by and about Arab Americans as multicultural literature is an effective means for creating a culturally inclusive classroom. My first step was to locate any and all books I could find that were written by or about Arab Americans. Then using specific parameters, I narrowed my findings to list only the quality literature I found within the last ten years. These findings are listed for teachers to use and access with ease. While reading these books in the classroom, it is important to initiate conversations with and among the students. Therefore, I created a list of general guiding questions that pair with the literature for teachers to use in their classrooms to get their students talking and thinking about the multicultural books they are reading. These discussions can help move classrooms into ones that celebrate individual cultures, embrace diversity, and instill empathy among the students.

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The purpose of this research was to investigate ways classical composers of African descent have been included in the mainstream academic canon. I examined the insights of four scholars who have been committed to including classical composers of African descent throughout their music careers. The initial research questions of this study were: 1) How do participants describe their frameworks for making the commitment to include classical composers of African descent throughout their careers? 2) What have been the challenges and benefits associated with their commitment? 3) What might contemporary scholars view as strategies for integrating classical composers of African descent into the mainstream academic canon? Four musicians, who have contributed to the scholarship related to classical works by composers of African descent in very different ways, participated in this qualitative collective case study: Dr. Ysaye Maria Barnwell, a composer and performer; Dr. Dominique-Rene de Lerma, musicologist; Dr. Anthony Thomas Leach, educator, conductor, and organist; and Mr. Hannibal Lokumbe, composer, trumpeter, and visionary. Through two in-depth interviews with each of the four scholars, a related question emerged: How have the participants contributed to the inclusion of classical composers of African descent throughout professional careers and personal lives? I transcribed the interviews, returned them to the participants for member checks, and prepared final, revised transcripts based on their feedback for analysis. I examined the interview data to obtain a collective representation related to the research questions. I analyzed the data for emerging codes, categories, and themes until details considered substantive to the research emerged. Themes that emerged focused on the need to identify the importance of seeing the contributions for classical composers of African descent from an Afrocentric as well as a Eurocentric perspective; the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on how each participant engaged the music throughout their lives; the importance of informal and formal education and the roles family, community, and school played in their relationship with the music they shared; and, the significance of creating access to their works through publications and professional associations. / Music Education

Culturally responsive education has been an actual topic in teacher education for decades, but most teachers still finish their education without appropriate knowledge and skills for teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Providing quality education to diverse learners remains a challenge, particularly in the fields of mathematics and sciences. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to describe intervention programs preparing in-service and pre-service math and science teachers for teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, and the outcomes of such programs. A search for scholarly journals evaluating such intervention programs has been carried out in several databases, resulting in nine articles included in the analysis. Intervention programs described in these articles covered several important aspects of culturally relevant education and had a limited success in developing cultural responsiveness of teachers. The construct of culturally relevant education is complex and multi-layered, and thus hard to measure without simplifying it to measurable constructs. Limitations of the study and implications for the future research and practice are discussed.

Recent research suggests that culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices have the potential to increase student educational outcomes, as well as to reduce unnecessary or inappropriate placement referrals. Examination of the core components in CRT, teacher efficacy and cultural competence, is proposed to be a critical step to reduce unwarranted referrals of culturally and linguistically diverse students. However, there is limited empirical support for the relationship between CRT and instructional referrals, and even among existing studies there is inconsistency regarding the relation of these constructs. The purpose of this study is to examine teacher factors (i.e., teacher role, degree earned, years of teaching, ESL certification held, language proficiency and ethnicity) as a predictor of teacher competence, and the role these factors play in teachers’ referral decision making. To investigate these relationships, a national sample of elementary teachers (N = 258) completed a survey addressing their background, profession endorsements, sense of teaching efficiency, and the instructional decisions they would make in the scenarios presented. The results of this study revealed that teacher role (i.e., general, ESL or special educator) and ESL certification were important predictors of teacher competency. A statistically significant mean difference in teacher competency was found between teachers with and without ESL certification, indicating ESL certification as an important factor in deciding the level of teacher competency. Finally, teacher competency was found to improve teachers’ instructional decision making in scenarios in which the students displayed linguistic difficulties. The findings provide valuable insights to teacher training programs and other professional development entities regarding how to prepare educators to work more efficiently with ESL students.

abstract: One of the major issues confronting education in Arizona and across the United States has been the consistent low performance of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in comparison to their peers as evidenced by the disparity of the achievement gap at every level in the educational pipeline. A contributing factor has been the lack of teacher preparation focused on teaching CLD students. Preparation focused on a culturally responsive curriculum about dispositions and pedagogical knowledge and skills as well as field experience placement with CLD students have been previously identified areas to consider when training preservice teachers (PSTs). Therefore, this study examined how a Culturally Responsive and Linguistic Teaching (CRLT) Framework would raise preservice teacher’s critical consciousness about teaching CLD students. The CRLT Framework focused on two specific areas; (a) a culturally responsive curriculum and (b) a team-based service-learning experience. The CRP curriculum included lessons designed to increase PSTs understanding about how their sociolinguist views influenced their pedagogical knowledge about teaching CLD students. In addition, the team-based service-learning approach, as a community of practice, provided experiences for PSTs to apply theory to practice. A mixed method analysis was employed to collect and analyze the quantitative data (surveys) and qualitative data (interviews and photovoice). Results from this study suggested increases in PSTs’ knowledge, self-efficacy, and perceptions of usefulness of CRP in their future practices. The team-based, service-learning component, which was based on a community of practice framework, enhanced the learning experience by allowing students to move from theory to practice and served as an important contributing factor to the overall results. Given the findings of this research study, it appeared that an introductory course focused on a culturally responsive and linguistic teaching influenced PSTs’ dispositions, knowledge, and skills. Thus, providing an introductory course, earlier rather than later, has the potential to change the trajectory of preparing PSTs so they were more prepared to teach CLD students as they continued through their program of study. Results showed effective work with CLD students was about so much more than ‘just good teaching.’ / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2019