Culture, Education, and Culturally Responsive Teaching

A Quantitative Exploration of School Counselors’ Evidence-Based Classroom Management Implementation: Investigating Culturally Sustaining Practices and Multicultural Competence

“…Next, while the SCCMI contains a subscale explicitly focused on culturally sustaining practices, most of the inventory's 19 items, overall, were also highly consistent with the extant K-12 educational literature on culturally sustaining classroom management practices (e.g., Fallon et al, 2021aFallon et al, , 2021bGay, 2006;McDonald et al, 2022;Siwatu et al, 2017;Weinstein et al, 2004). For instance, a range of SCCMI items (e.g., "I utilize various peer engagement techniques…"; "I create a sense of community within the classroom"; and "I seek feedback from family members…") aligned with items from Siwatu and colleagues' (2017) scale on culturally sustaining classroom management (e.g., "modify lesson plans so that students remain actively engaged throughout the entire class period or lesson"; "structure the learning environment so that all students feel like a valued member of the learning community"; and "develop a partnership with parents from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds").…”

“…That is, K-12 education has a history of culturally neutral practices, which have served to reinforce power and privilege structures that benefit some identities (e.g., identities given dominant status: White, middle class, English language speaking, and heterosexual) at the expense of other historically oppressed identities (e.g., Black, Indigenous, and people of color [BIPOC]; Fallon et al, 2021a). To interrupt these oppressive systems, serve all students, and ensure schools are welcoming environments that sustain and extend student and family members' cultures, culturally responsive practices are foundational aspects of K-12 education, including classroom management (Fallon et al, 2021a(Fallon et al, , 2021bGay, 2006Gay, , 2013McDonald et al, 2022;Siwatu et al, 2017;Weinstein et al, 2004). Weinstein et al (2004) described the critical aspects of culturally responsive K-12 classroom management: "(a) recognition of one's own ethnocentrism; (b) knowledge of students' cultural backgrounds; (c) understanding of the broader social, economic, and political context; (d) ability and willingness to use culturally appropriate management strategies; and (e) commitment to building caring classrooms" (p. 25).…”