This hermeneutic phenomenological study emerged from concerns about the ways
teachers’ pedagogical practices are affected by growing diversity in their classrooms and
continuous education reform. Drawing on the perspectives of critical pedagogy and
postcolonial literary theory, this study also explored the tension that exists between what
students ought to learn in schools and what they actually learn. Data was gathered
through two interviews and a classroom observation with each of eight high school
language arts teachers in South Florida to gain an understanding of how they use their
pedagogical practices to navigate changes that occur in the practice field and create
spaces to utilize culturally responsive pedagogy in their implementation of the current
secondary school English/Language Arts curriculum. Teachers’ reflections on their
experiences, descriptions of the climate of their practice and how teachers create spaces
for culturally responsive pedagogy were analyzed to consider how their pedagogical practices conform to or challenge the structural and normative assumptions of the
practice field.
Findings revealed that despite the constraints imposed on their pedagogy by
education reform, including standardization of their practice, all teachers used culturally
responsive pedagogy in their classrooms to achieve state mandated goals, albeit at a
foundational level. While teachers unencumbered by standardized testing expressed
higher levels of freedom to make pedagogical choices in their classrooms, all participants
suggested that prescribed curriculum and resources could do more to represent students’
needs and growing diversity in schools rather than standardized assessments.
Furthermore in their implementations of culturally responsive pedagogy, teachers
continue to use students’ voices to represent standardized curriculum and universal
literary themes rather than establishing them as curriculum in their own right. As such,
this study’s findings extend discussions by educational and postcolonial literary theorists
regarding whose knowledge has legitimacy as a part of curriculum especially in a
practice field that emphasizes student performance at state mandated levels above all
else. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_40740 |
| Contributors | Leichtman, Anala (author), Schoorman, Dilys (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), College of Education, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 183 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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