Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Higher Education: A Collaborative Self-Study

Teaching diversity: a reflexive learning opportunity for a teacher educator

“…I tried to incorporate various exploratory ways to open the dialogue about diversity as well as each of ourselves. [My journal-2012-week 1] This is well aligned with prior studies that identified that relationship building with students is one of the core practices adopted by many teacher educators when teaching sensitive course topics across the discipline (Han et al, 2014;Kitchen, 2005;Reynolds, 2011). In fact, as a result of such positive climate and relationship building, many students felt safe to share their shortcomings or cognitive dissonances.…”

“…For instance, with the topic of race/racism, some white students challenged my qualification to discuss the topic alleging that I do not know what really happened in the US history. Students' both explicit and implicit resistance in diversity courses, especially white students resistance against the notion of privilege, has been found in many prior studies (Boatright-Horowitz & Soeung, 2009;Dunn et al, 2014;Han et al, 2014;Ukpokodu, 2007), and thus it was not surprising for me to experience this. In one extreme case, however, a student fought back in front of the entire class and then eventually dropped out of the program.…”

“…Firstly, when teaching diversity in higher education contexts, teacher educators have widely endorsed building relationship with students, creating a safe learning environment, and being responsive as a critically powerful tool, especially to overcome tensions with students (Dunn et al, 2014;Han et al, 2014;Kitchen, 2005;Reynolds, 2011). I too have highly valued these approaches as pivotal foundations of my instruction.…”

“…In a more recent study by Dunn, Dotson, Ford, and Roberts (2014), four teacher educators teaching multicultural education courses in the US shared their experiences about students' resistance and reflected on how their own identities have been influenced by students' comments. Similarly, Han et al (2014) conducted a collaborative self-study to examine how a group of seven teacher educators define, enact, and navigate their roles as culturally responsive educators across various programs within a higher education institution. Researchers found out that existing culturally responsive pedagogy framework was limitedly geared for P-12 educators, and called for an expanded framework for culturally responsive pedagogy that can be applied in higher education contexts.…”

Culturally Responsive Teaching Knowledge and Practices of Online Faculty

“…Han et al (2014) conducted a collaborative self-study of how seven teacher educators (early childhood education, elementary education, secondary education, educational leadership, and school counseling) defined, enacted, and navigated their roles as culturally responsive higher educators. The finding revealed that the participants struggled to define culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) in higher education.…”