CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING: MEANING, DEVELOPMENT, AND SIGNIFICANCE

Abstract

Earlier, students in school would often feel that their books did not resonate with lifestyle, language, cultural experiences and the society that they lived in. The curriculum was purely based on keeping the culture of majority as centre and hence ignoring or even stereotyping the minority. Their culture was seen as a drawback or a barrier (for example- assuming that a black student would have low IQ, all Asians have slave mindset and cannot run businesses). As a result, students felt a disconnect between their lives and the curriculum, causing dropouts, low academic performance, boredom, achievement gaps between the majority and minority groups. To rectify this, a technique called Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) was created and researched. Its goal was to take the cultural identity and experiences of children as asset, and not as something to look down upon. It said that we cannot separate education from culture, because children learn more when they can relate to what is being taught. In this chapter, we will study this idea in detail, regarding its origin, enforcement, researches and evidence of functioning.