by Kimberlie Harris
What role, if any, does culture play in education? How is culture defined and how should it be used in educational settings? People have been asking variations of these questions since at least 1976 and here we are in 2022 still asking them and being no closer to agreed upon answers.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, culture is defined as “ the customs and beliefs, art, way of life, and social organization of a particular country or group.” Considering this definition, it becomes apparent that culture is already embedded in education, but what starts to become obvious upon closer inspection is that only specific cultures are included and that unfortunately culture is not usually presented in a whole, authentic or balanced way.
Pick up any Math, Reading, Science or Social Studies book. Cultural references jump off the pages. You will quickly see a trend with the names, experiences, food, traditions and people that are most heavily mentioned. There will be a sprinkling of other cultures, depending on when and where the book you’re looking at was made, but there is little doubt about the cultures that dominate most educational settings. Many educational researchers and teachers believe that this imbalance in the use of culture in education plays a big part in why most students, who don’t belong to the dominant cultures represented, struggle to succeed in school. These students who are not well represented in the educational material feel disconnected from lessons and don’t view them as relevant to their lives. This often leads to poor performance and low grades.
Many efforts and movements have occurred in education in an attempt to fix the imbalanced use of culture in education. Multicultural education, culturally responsive education and culturally competent teaching are a few of the most recent movements and initiatives that have been used to try to create more balance in the cultures that are represented within education. Each has tried to explain the importance and value of all groups seeing themselves well represented within settings. This led to name changes in reading material and Math problems, updated illustrations and more complete historical accounts that mentioned the contributions of people who before went unnamed.
Countless studies have proven that these changes are crucial. In simple and direct terms, children respond better to educators and lessons that consider and use their cultural norms and values. In fact, the last several years in education have been dominated by a move to include as many positive references to different “cultures” as possible in education. Classroom lesson plans in many areas now require teachers to add a relevance section, the reason why children should care about what they’re being taught, to their plans. The relevance portion of the lesson is meant to show children how the lesson applies to their daily life or to their future plans thereby giving the child a reason to want to pay attention and learn what is being taught.
Unfortunately, attempts to correct the cultural imbalance in education have been met with resistance. Opponents see efforts to portray more cultures positively and to balance the way that culture is currently used as an attack on the dominant culture, since its references had to be reduced in order for other cultures to be shared. What should be seen as a correction to a problem that should never have existed and that was damaging to so many other groups is typically seen maliciously.
In June 2014, I completed my dissertation. The purpose of that research was to determine if the achievement gap, especially for diverse students, could be closed by using culturally relevant teaching practices. Loosely translated: Do students learn better if teachers acknowledge and use what they know about a student’s cultural differences and background.The results were shocking, even to me and and the results were true in both of the two groups of teachers that were studied (American born and foreign born -a teacher who was born and raised outside of the United States). Overwhelmingly students performed better with the teachers, irrespective of their identified culture or background, if that teacher got to know them and their culture and used it in lessons. It didn’t matter the subject that was being taught nor did it matter the type of institution (elementary school or high school) being considered. What mattered most and what helped students learn was having the information presented using themes, ideas and a framework that showed value of their cultural background and norms. In some situations that meant teaching Reading lessons through popular music, using known concepts in Math equations or exploring Scientific topics through real life items that students could relate to.
All of this begs the questions: What is good teaching? Shouldn’t good teachers be able to use all the resources at their disposal to help children learn? Most teachers and educational researchers agree that good teaching relates unknown concepts by using known concepts. Imagine trying to learn a nee language without being able to use pictures or known words. This is the educational experience for diverse students who don’t belong to the dominant culture. With this in mind, it again should become apparent that the cultural imbalance and sometimes cultural ignorance or intolerance which exists in most educational settings leaves a large group of children, typically the majority, out in the cold. These students have no bridge to access the new, unknown materials and topics being shared by their teachers. Viewed in this way, these students are doomed to fail before they begin.If diverse children are to have a chance to succeed, then their culture has to be learned, acknowledged, represented and used.
“Culture.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2022, https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/culture_1#:~:text=noun-,noun,%2FAfrican%2FAmerican%2C%20etc.. 18 September, 2022.
