Culture
Accommodating Cultural Diversity
Cultural diversity is about acknowledging that society consists of many different groups with different interests, skills, talents and needs. It also means that people can have different religious beliefs, ethnicities and racial differences that need to be accommodated by societies (Wikipedia).
The question that comes here, is what to do about students’ diversity? How is it going to be accommodated? How are teachers going to turn these ethnic, racial, and gender differences into a resource rather than a challenge?
Well, students are different according to many factors including their cultures, ethnicities and languages. For example, some students can be bilingual, with dissimilar educational achievements that depend on their fluency in each of their two languages.
Other students differ according to culture and their language determines their thinking and responses to what they are learning. This is reflected in how they take turns speaking, eye contact, social distance, their wait time, and the way they form and ask their questions. Some of these differences in practice stem from cultural differences in attitudes about self-identity.
Diverse Pedagogy Theory
It is a set of principles that highlight the natural connection between culture and cognition (Sheets, 2005). In other words, educators need to understand and acknowledge the important role of diverse cultures to achieve optimal learning for their students.
To identify cultural skills and competencies with the children, culturally inclusive teachers observe the students’ cultural behavioural patterns over time. This allows them to decide what activities and teaching practices they can use and how to adapt their instruction (Spring, 2009).
Culture and Cognition
Diversity Pedagogy Theory DPT links the students’ cognition to their culture. A deep understanding of the part culture plays in the social and cognitive development of children plays an important role in classroom practice (Sheets,2005). Based on Bandura’s social cognitive theory, cognitive conceptions in relation to behaviour are shaped by the external environment (Bandura,1997). Culturally responsive teaching is a similar concept that uses DPT which is described as utilizing the cultural knowledge, previous experiences, frames of reference and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning outcomes more relevant to and effective for them.
References
References
Banks, J. A. (2015). Cultural diversity and education: Foundations, curriculum, and teaching. Routledge.
Civitillo, S., Juang, L. P., & Schachner, M. K. (2018a). Challenging beliefs about cultural diversity in education: A synthesis and critical review of trainings with pre-service teachers. Educational Research Review, 24, 67-83. https://https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2018.01.003
Civitillo, S., Juang, L. P., & Schachner, M. K. (2018b). Challenging beliefs about cultural diversity in education: A synthesis and critical review of trainings with pre-service teachers. Educational Research Review, 24, 67-83.
Gay, G. (2013). Teaching to and through cultural diversity. Curriculum Inquiry, 43(1), 48-70.
Jackson, R. (2003). Citizenship, religious and cultural diversity and education. International perspectives on citizenship, education and religious diversity (pp. 1-25). Routledge.
Pange, J., Lekka, A., & Toki, E. I. (2010). Different learning theories applied to diverse learning subjects A pilot study. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 800-804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.12.237
Kim, Y. Y., & Bhawuk, D. P. (2008). Globalization and diversity: Contributions from intercultural research. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32(4), 301-304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2008.06.001
R. Sheets . (2009). What is Diversity Pedagogy Theory? the Creative Writing Section of Multicultural Education Magazine https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ847137.pdf