"Increasing Teachers' Cultural Competence to Promote Improved Student Performance

1
"Increasing Teachers' Cultural Competence to
Promote Improved Student Performance

• Dr. Helen R. Stiff-Williams
• Professor
• Regent University

Abridged Version April 21, 2006
2
Session Objectives

• By the end of the session, participants will
• recognize the importance of cultural competence
• have considered to what extent they perceive
  themselves to be culturally competent
• understand how teachers cultural competence
  contributes to culturally responsive teaching
  that positively impacts student learning
• understand how creating culturally responsive
  schools will increase the achievement of all
  students.
• demonstrate increased sensitivity, deepened
  understanding, and improved abilities to teach
  for social justice in a diverse society.
• know some steps that can be taken to increase the
  academic performance of low performing students
  in their schools.

3
Why Culturally Responsive Schools?The Problem

• An achievement gap between majority (White) and
  minority students (Black) in Americas schools.
• Disproportionate representation of African
  American students in Special Education Programs
• Low SES students receive inequitable educational
  services.
• Low representation of minority students in GT
  Programs
• English Language Learners receive inequitable
  educational services.
• High dropout rate of African American male
  students
• High percentage of Black male students whose
  educational experiences is negatively impacted by
  disciplinary actions in schools

4
The Problem Disproportionality

• Disproportionate representation is defined as
  the extent to which membership in a given group
  affects the probability of being placed in a
  specific education category (Oswald, et al.
  1999).
• The disproportionate placement of students of a
  given ethnic group in special education programs,
  means that the percentage of students from that
  group in such programs is disproportionally
  greater than their percentage in the school
  population as a whole (NCCRESt, 2003).

5
The Need for Culturally Responsive Schools
(1)
Students
(2)
(3)
Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices
6
Cultural Proficiency

• Cultural proficiency is defined as knowing how
  to learn and teach about different groups in ways
  that acknowledge and honor all people and the
  groups they represent (Lindsey, Roberts,
  Campbell-Jones, 2005).
• Individuals who are culturally proficient have
  behaviors that enable them to effectively
  interact in a culturally diverse environment.

7
Race

• Race describes a political and social construct
  that is most often important in societies with a
  history of oppressing specific groups.
• Racial descriptions are based on generalized
  conceptions of skin color (e.g., Black or White).
• From its inception race was a folk idea that
  became an important mechanism for limiting and
  restricting access to privilege, power, and
  wealth.
• Smedley, A. Smedley, B. (2005) Race as Biology
  is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem is Real
  Anthropological Historical Perspective on the
  Social Construction of Race. American
  Psychologist January, 2005/v 60, No.1 p 22

8
Ethnicity

• Ones geographical origin.
• Ethnicity may or may not have a strong influence
  on ones identity.
• Many people are of multiple ethnicities.

9
Culture

• Codes of behavior, values, and social norms, or
  the way we do things here. Art, music, food,
  literature are culture made visible. Ethnic
  groups have cultures, but so can businesses and
  neighborhoods. Ones culture is dynamic and
  changes over time. Each person is a member of
  many cultures.

10
Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

• Two individuals can be of the same race for
  example, White yet of different ethnicities,
  such as Italian American and Irish American.
• Additionally, two individuals can share the same
  ethnicity and still be very different in terms of
  their culture, such as Latinos from Mexico and
  those from Puerto Rico.

11
Activity Cultural Proficiency Continuum

• Cultural
  Cultural
  Cultural
• ?Destructiveness
  ?Blindness
  ?Competence_____________
• ?Cultural
  ?Cultural
  Cultural?
• Incapacity
  Precompetence
  Proficiency

12
The Cultural Proficiency Continuum

• Cultural Destructiveness. See the difference,
  stomp it out. Negating, disparaging, or purging
  cultures that are different from your own.
• Cultural Incapacity. See the difference, make it
  wrong. Elevating the superiority of your own
  cultural values and beliefs and suppressing those
  of cultures that are different from your own.
• Cultural Blindness. See the difference, act as
  if you dont. Acting as if the cultural
  differences you see do not matter, or not
  recognizing that there are differences among and
  between cultures.
• Cultural Precompetence. See the differences,
  respond inadequately. Recognizing that lack of
  knowledge, experience, and understanding of other
  cultures limits your ability to effectively
  interact with them.
• Cultural Competence. See the difference,
  understand the difference that difference makes.
  Interacting with other cultural groups in ways
  that recognize and value their differences.
• Cultural Proficiency. See the difference and
  respond. Honoring the differences among
  cultures, viewing diversity as a benefit, and
  interacting knowledgeably and respectfully among
  a variety of cultural groups.

13
Valuing Culture and Ethnicity

• Peoples religion, culture, and ethnicity often
  are not just facts about them, but are central to
  their self-definitions. People are not just
  persons who happen to be Christians, women, or
  African Americans. These characteristics are ot
  possessions, like clothing, that can be shed or
  changed at will. Instead, people are Christians,
  women, or African Americans. If so, then one
  reason that can be given for respecting diversity
  is that to fail to do so is to reject who people
  are. It is to deny their worth. It does an
  especially insidious kind of violence to them
  (Strike, Haller, Soltis, 2005).

14
The Culture of Power

• Delpit (1995) states that the culture of power
  is made up of the codes or rules that relate to
  linguistic forms, communicative strategies, and
  presentation of self, that is, ways of talking,
  ways of writing, ways of dressing and ways of
  interacting. The rules of the culture of power
  are a reflection of the rules of the culture of
  those who have power (pp. 24-25).

15
White Privilege Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

• I think whites are carefully taught not to
  recognize White privilege, as males are taught
  not to recognize male privilege. I have come to
  see white privilege as an invisible package of
  unearned assets that I can count on cashing in
  each day, but about which I was meant to remain
  oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible
  weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps,
  passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and
  blank checks (McIntosh, pp. 10-12).

16
Culturally Responsive Teaching

• Providing instruction that acknowledges that
  culture is central to learning and encourages
  students to learn by building on the experiences,
  knowledge, and skills they bring to the classroom.

17
Culturally Responsive Teaching

• Rigorous Curriculum
• High standards
• Standards-based
• Higher-order thinking skills
• Support for struggling students
• Equitable access resources
• Opportunity to learn (may include extended
  time)
• Instructional adaptations (differentiation)

18
Culturally Responsive Teaching

• Relevance to students lives
• Instructional materials that reflect cultural
  diversity and the contributions of many cultures
• Instructional strategies that recognize and
  respect cultural differences
• Students have voice and choice
• Learning activities that connect to students
  experiences and life in the community
• Culturally relevant examples that illustrate
  concepts

19
Culturally Responsive Teaching

• Caring, trusting relationships
• Extend beyond the classroom into the community
• Show concern for personal and academic needs
• Help build resilience by conveying high
  expectations and providing opportunities for
  active learning

20
What Research Supports Culturally Responsive
Teaching?

• Numerous studies, both qualitative and
  quantitative, support culturally responsive
  teaching as a approach to close achievement gaps.
  The Center for Research on Education, Diversity,
  and Excellence (CREDE) has conducted many
  studies. These studies are available on their Web
  site at www.crede.org.
• Edvantia also conducted a research study in
  2003-2004 that indicates the positive effects of
  culturally responsive teaching on student
  engagement and achievement.

21
Culturally Responsive Schooling Practices

• Those elements of a school - in addition to
  instruction - that shape the school experience of
  students
• School leadership
• School policies and practices
• School-community-parent interactions
• Extracurricular activities
• Student-teacher relationships
• School values as expressed in its traditions,
  celebrations, and symbols

22
A Simple Formula for Equity Auditing
Teacher Quality Equity
Programmatic Equity
Achievement Equity
EXPLANATION This process involves the
examination of two components on the left side of
the equation. The results of the examination of
the two components should be equivalent to the
one component on the right side. If inequity
exists in the system, then the findings on the
right side of the equation will NOT be
equivalent to the findings on the left side of
the equation. The auditing process aims to
identify inequity in the system so that data
driven changes can be made to improve student
achievement
23
School Leadership Conduct an Equity Audit
For illustrative purposes only
Hispanics
African Americans
Caucasians

• A superintendent might wonder if the mathematics
  instruction in his district's schools is being
  delivered in a manner that treats males and
  females equally. In other words, is math being
  presented in an equitable manner at his school?
  If the results of the analysis point to a pattern
  of males receiving higher scores in mathematics
  on standardized tests, the principal may want to
  look more closely at classroom instruction to
  determine if perhaps instructional strategies can
  be altered to address the equity issue.

Males
Females
24
Conducting an Equity Audit

• Data analysis in schools involves the collection
  of data and the use of available data to improve
  teaching and learning. Schools regularly collect
  attendance data, transcript records, discipline
  referrals, quarterly or semester grades, norm-
  and criterion-referenced test scores and other
  useful data. Rather than complex statistical
  formulas and tests, it is generally simple
  counts, averages, percentages and rates that we
  are interested in.

25
School Leadership Equity Auditing

• School leaders must formulate decisions based on
  data. The effective use of data must play a major
  role in the development of school improvement
  plans. It helps us identify students who are
  improving and those who are not and helps to
  identify the reasons.
• Meaningful information can be gained only from a
  proper analysis of data rather than intuition and
  gut feelings. The administrator can serve as
  instructional leader as data-driven decision
  making and instructional leadership go hand in
  hand.

26
Does your school have high expectations for all
students?
African American and Latino students who
participated in an ethnographic study by Lee
(1999) stated that teacher-centered classrooms
perceived racism and discrimination patterns and
expectations and lack of personalized, caring
teacher-student relationships were contributing
factors to their school failure.
See the questionnaire in the appendix of this
handout.
27
Outcome of the Equity Auditing Process

• Data driven recommendations
• for changing teaching assignments
• and educational programming to
• attain increased student achievement in schools.
• Increased learning on the part of ALL students in
  the school setting
• Increased graduation rates
• for all students
• Fulfillment of requirements for NCLB
• Closed achievement gaps

28
About this Presentation

• As a consultant with Edvantia (formerly AEL),
  this presenter, Dr. Helen Stiff-Williams, was
  authorized to use customized training materials
  on Culturally Responsive Schools to prepare and
  deliver this presentation. Based in the research
  and publication of Mrs. Rebecca Burns, Mrs.
  Marian Keyes, and Dr. Patricia Kusimo, the
  professional development institutes, Levels 1 and
  2, focus upon improving student achievement in
  schools and closing achievement gaps by creating
  culturally responsive schools.
• For additional information www.Edvantia.org