Making a course culturally relevant involves intentionally designing the curriculum, teaching methods, and assessment practices to reflect and honor the diverse backgrounds and experiences of students. This approach aims to not only educate, but also resonate deeply with students by making the course relatable and applicable to their personal, educational, and career goals. Deeper learning occurs when students understand the importance of a subject and how it relates to them, making culturally relevant approaches a key teaching and learning tool.

Disproportionate impact occurs when a subset of students based on student characteristics, such as age, race and gender, are unjustifiably experiencing lower outcomes compared to the total student population” (CCCCO, 2017). The current threshold for a group to be disproportionately impacted is 80%. This means that when a group of students performs at a level that is only 80% of the highest performing group, they are disproportionately impacted.

As you design your class, always keep equity and accessibility in mind. A class activity or resources is only effective if all students can access it and relate to it.

Make it Relevant and Inclusive

Remember that adult learners need to understand how the course content is relevant to their lives and their goals to engage with the material and the learning to be impactful. Be specific about how the course content is relevant to student goals and create opportunities for students to share how they will use the content/skills in the future. Include learning goals for all lectures and assignments. With each class session, guide and help students to see how the course content covered that day in lecture, discussions and from the day’s reading assignments, fit into the broad aims of the course. Avoid assuming the connection is “obvious.” It never is and always needs to be stated.

Representing Diversity and Multiple Viewpoints

• Be culturally relevant and affirming—help students see themselves in the course content and its relevance in their lives and their goals

• Be mindful of the cultural examples you use:

  • • Do not communicate negativity or hostility towards people of marginalized backgrounds

    • Portray diverse cultures, ethnicities, histories and nationalities without stereotypes, generalizations and assumptions

• Be mindful of the selection of course content you use, avoiding the dangers of a single narrative:

  • • Provide multiple viewpoints and perspectives from cultural, ethnic, gender, age, sexuality, and physical abilities

    • Focus on the dignity and contribution of diverse race, classes, gender, abilities and sexual orientation, faiths and other belief systems

    • Include multigenerational viewpoints and perspectives that lead to greater understanding between age groups

    • Acknowledge and examine power and privilege from viewpoints of individuals who have been historically oppressed and silenced

    • Highlight non-dominant populations by showing their strengths and contributions as assets to our broader community and society 

• Be mindful of the images you use:

  • • Use images that are culturally-affirming and reference different ethnic and cultural traditions, gender, sexuality, ages, and physical abilities

• Remember that adult learners need to understand how the course content is relevant to their lives and their goals to engage with the material and the learning to be impactful

Examples and Best Practices:

• Create an inclusivity statement 

• Include learning goals for all lectures and assignments 

• Help students to see how the course content, such as reading assignments, fit into the broad aims of the course

• Have a social presence in your classroom—one way to achieve this is arrive at your class a few minutes early to greet students and ask how things are going

• Be relational and demonstrate authentic investment

• Humanizing yourself and the classroom environment

• Create opportunities for students to build trusting relationships with one another

• Create assignments that place value on a pluralistic, diverse, multicultural society

• Encourage students to recognize the flaw of reducing peoples to stereotypes and generalizations

• Encourage students to promote equity and combat inequity within their broader community and society

• Mentor students on how to critically examine disinformation and misinformation in social media, in popular culture, and in online news and other websites

RESOURCES

Books:

• Banks, J. A., and C. A. G. Banks. 2019. Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives. 10th ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

• Gay, Geneva. 2018. Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. 3rd Edition. Teachers College Press.

• Hammond, Z. 2014. Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

• Tatum, B. D. 2017. Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? 2d ed. New York: Basic Books.

Articles and Websites:

• ASCCC OERI Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Framework

• Boston University Antiracism Center

• California Community College Chancellor’s Office Call for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• Culturally Responsive Teaching Organization 

• Diversify Chemistry

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Biology

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Math

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Physics

• How Implicit Bias and Lack of Diversity Undermine Science

• Ibram X. Kendi

• Inclusive Pedagogy Old and New: A Handbook for Inclusive Teaching Strategies in the Chemistry History Department (Amherst) 

• Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491. 

  • ----. (2014). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the Remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84.

  • ----. (2018). But That’s Just Good Teaching! Thinking About Schools, 107–116. 

• Mayorga, E., and B. Picower. 2017. Active solidarity: Centering the demands and vision of the Black Lives Matter movement in teacher education. Urban Education 53.2: 212–230.

• Morrison, K. A., Robbins, H. H., & Rose, D. G. (2008). Operationalizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Synthesis of Classroom-Based Research. Equity & Excellence in Education, 41(4), 433–452.

• Navarro, O., C. L. Quince, B. Hsieh, and S. L. Deckman. 2019. Transforming teacher education by integrating the funds of knowledge of teachers of color. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 41.4–5: 282–316.

Paris, D. (2012). Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97

• Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit

• Racelighting

• Racelighting Workshop Video with Drs. Harris and Wood

• Toolkit for “Mathematics in Context: The Pedagogy of Liberation”

• Why a Culturally Responsive Curriculum Works by Eugene Butler Jr. (2019)

• USC Race and Equity Center