Culturally Responsive Practices

What’s Inside:

Dimensions that influence culture.

The importance of culturally and contextually adapting classroom practices.

Ways in which you can adapt your classroom practices to make them more culturally responsive.

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Dimensions that Influence Culture:

Race
Gender
Socioeconomic status/class
Immigration Status
Language

Ethnicity
Sexual orientation
Exceptionality/Disability
Religion
Nationality

The Importance of Culturally & Contextually Adapting Classroom Practices:

Culturally and contextually adapting classroom practices involves taking proactive and ongoing actionable steps to consider students’ culture or to promote students’ success in learning, behavior, and development. Adapting the five priority strategies listed in this article (classroom expectations, personal greetings & check-ins, opportunities
to respond, praise, and effectively responding to rule violations) to meet your students’ interests and cultural backgrounds, can lead to improved student outcomes. School personnel are encouraged to first obtain information from students, families, and community members and then listen to their values, needs, and suggestions before making adaptations (Sugai et al., 2012; Fallon et al., 2012; Fallon et al., 2018).

Classroom Expectations

Post, teach, review, monitor, and reinforce expectations

How to Adapt:

Ask caregivers to share about important rules and values in their family
Encourage students to participate in defining classroom expectations

Greetings & Check-Ins

Enhance student-teacher relationships.

How to Adapt:

Ask students how they would like to be greeted; individualize greetings to help each student feel welcomed and safe
Learn more about each student’s identity and culture via personal check-ins; do check-ins equitably across all students

Opportunities to Respond

Actively engage students in the learning process

How to Adapt:

Use teaching materials to reflect the cultures and interests of all students
Include languages, images, and messages to represent different cultures in your lessons and classroom decorations

Praise

Proactively acknowledging appropriate behaviors

How to Adapt:

Deliver praise equitably across all students; use variety to match your praise to student preferences
Identify rewards for appropriate behaviors that reflect students’ interests

Responding to Rule Violations

Effectively responding to inappropriate behaviors

How to Adapt:

Understand how some students may be disproportionally at-risk for disciplinary practices
Consider language and learning histories when responding to behaviors
Differentiate response to facilitate students’ skill development

Internal resources:

Engaging in a Self-Reflective Process to Address Biases
Talking with Your Class about Cultural Differences and Racism
Additional Resources to Culturally Adapt Instruction & Lesson Plans