Culturally Responsive Teaching

By Kaira Wheeler

This issue of NASET’s Classroom Management series was written by Kaira Wheeler. Culturally responsive teaching refers to a style of teaching that takes into account a learner’s background, language, and world experience in order to create more valuable and relatable learning opportunities. Research has shown that culturally responsive teaching is effective in improving educational outcomes and creating life-long learners in the community. Teachers using this model encourage students to relate course content and standards to their own cultural context. This approach is necessary and important in an increasingly diverse public school population. There is also a clearly disproportionate amount of students of color inaccurately labeled as disabled. This paper will examine what culturally responsive teaching is, why it is important, as well as strategies for implementation. Recommendations for future steps and training will also be made.