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Classroom management and the learning environment: Culturally responsive classroom management

18 February, 2015 - 14:41
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Even though teachers might believe that consistency is a mark of good classroom management, it is not always true that “one size fits all” when it comes to matching particular management strategies to specific students. A lot of research suggests, on the contrary, that success in classroom management needs to be adjusted to the cultural background and expectations of students. Educators sometimes call this approach culturally responsive classroom management.

Support for culturally responsive management comes a number of research studies. In one study, for example, David Brown interviewed 13 teachers who taught in classrooms from 1st through 12th grade in urban, inner-city schools in several different cities (Brown, 2004). A few of the teachers were themselves culturally diverse one was from Sri Lanka, one was African American, two were Hispanic American but most were white. Although the interviews were lengthy and detailed, they centered on just three underlying questions:

  1. How do you interact with students?
  2. How would you describe your management style?
  3. What works well for you in communicating with students?

The teachers' views could be summarized in several points. First, the teachers considered it important to show students that the teachers cared and respected them: this attitude was significantly more important, they felt, when teaching urban students than when teaching suburban students. The teachers therefore made more effort than usual to be friendly with all students and to get to know them as individuals. To do so, though, the teachers also had to know how the students themselves preferred to be publicly known or acknowledged. In some classrooms with Hispanic American students, for example, the teachers found it wise not to call on individuals during class, because some of the students preferred to be recognized for their relationships with classmates for their membership in the class as a group rather than for their distinctiveness from the group.

Interestingly, “caring” involved more than simple warmth and nurturance. It also meant teachers' asserting their authority to make clear demands on students both for high quality work and for appropriate classroom behavior. Asserting authority indirectly in order to sound polite (like saying “Would you like to sit down now?”) was less effective and was often interpreted by students as a sign of a teacher's indifference. Direct, specific commands (like take your seat”) were more effective, provided they did not also express hostility. The teachers' caring had to be consistent in every way: not only did they have to say friendly things to students, but also they had to look friendly with eye contact and smiles. What made such consistency initially challenging for some teachers was recognizing students' own signs of friendliness for what they were. In some classrooms with African American students, for example, students engaged in a “call response” pattern of interaction: as the teacher gave instructions or explained an idea, some students would say or speak their own feelings or mention their own ideas. The pattern was not meant to interrupt the teacher, however, so much as to show involvement in the lesson or activity, and the teacher needed to acknowledge it as such.

Other educational researchers besides David Brown have found similar results, though some point out that actually practicing culturally responsive management can be harder than simply knowing what it involves (Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, & Curran, 2004). To become skillful with the strategies described by Brown and others, for example, teachers also need to look honestly at their own preconceptions about ethnic, cultural and racial differences, so that they do not misconstrue culturally ambiguous behaviors of students just because students have a background different from the teacher's own. Teachers also need to be aware of how much society-wide prejudice on students' sense of efficacy, since pervasive prejudice and discrimination can stimulate some students to withdraw in ways that may be mistaken for laziness.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of culturally responsive management, however, is for teachers to accommodate to students' cultural differences while also helping them learn how to function well in the s omewhat bureaucratic, middle-class oriented “culture” of school. This challenge is full of dilemmas. How much, for example, should a teacher sacrifice conventional “politeness” behaviors (like using indirect questions) simply because students understand and respect directness more easily? How much should a teacher encourage students to critique each other's or the teacher's ideas even if students' families give higher priority to cooperation and compliance with authorities? And what if a particular class is itself culturally diverse, containing students from many cultural backgrounds in one room? What should a teacher do then?