SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR TRAINING A CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE FACULTY
Christine Johnson McPhail and Kelley L. Costner
Many community colleges are struggling to find ways to train faculty to
work with their diverse student populations. However, many institutions
continue to employ traditional modes of faculty development and may be
inadvertently creating potentially harmful learning environments for all
students, and particularly for African-American learners.
While many community colleges offer a session on diversity and culture
during faculty-development days or promote African-American scholars and
literature during Black History Month, some community colleges have not
integrated culture into the curriculum at a meaningful level. To include all
learners, community colleges must do much more to assist faculty in
recognizing the importance and the connection between culture, teaching, and
learning. A one- or two-day workshop is not enough to put new structures and
attitudes in place.
The Seven Principles for Training a Culturally Responsive Faculty were
designed to shift from the student-deficit model to exploring the need for
the institutions to change the way they facilitate learning. These
principles were carefully developed based on the responses of community
college faculty noted on the modified Teaching African-American Students
Survey (Costner, 2003). Culturally responsive professional development
principles promote the inclusion of culture into faculty's pedagogical
methods and curriculum, a step that has been proven to help AfricanAmerican students succeed.
PRINCIPLE 1: Structure Professional Development Activities That Focus on
Cultural Responsiveness
In conducting presentations and training sessions, one of the first
questions we ask of participants is, “Do you notice the race of your
students when they walk into the classroom?” The response is consistent:
Ninety to 95 percent of the participants proudly exclaim, “No!”. Before
moving on, we ask you, the reader, “Do you notice the race of your students
when they walk into the classroom?”
Professional development activities should train educators to place
students and their cultures at the center of learning, and to acknowledge,
respect, and build on the knowledge, beliefs, and experiences that students
bring with them to the classroom (McPhail & McPhail, 1999).
Community colleges can offer professional development to help faculty place
culture at the center of learning; and to identify their concerns about
working with diverse learning, creating an environment where all
stakeholders feel comfortable dealing with diversity, and institutionalizing
a commitment to inclusion of diversity at all levels
within the institution.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. Do the professional development initiatives at your institution train
faculty members to place the students' culture at the center of learning?
How?
2. Do the professional development initiatives at your institution allow for
an open and honest discussion about race? How?
3. Are professional development initiatives at your institution an ongoing
and continuous effort?
4. Do the professional development initiatives at your institution train
faculty members how to effectively teach African-American learners?
PRINCIPLE 2: Ensure That All Faculty Respect the Culture of Their Students
Once faculty members become comfortable acknowledging the race of their
students and accept their cultural differences, faculty members are better
equipped to teach African-American learners. Community colleges can use
professional development to provide an avenue that allows faculty members to
assess their attitudes and beliefs toward teaching African-American
learners. Institutions may administer instruments or hire a consultant to
facilitate the administration of this type of assessment. Once this
assessment is complete, strategies can be developed to train faculty to
become more culturally responsive. Colleges can also provide professional
development initiatives that educate faculty about the culture of the
African American, including, for example, learning styles, cultural
heritage, norms, beliefs, and practices. Providing meaningful professional
development programs to help faculty deal with their beliefs and attitudes
about teaching diverse learners will help to ensure that the learning needs
of all learners are addressed.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. Do your professional development activities provide faculty with a means
to evaluate their own attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions about African
Americans? How?
2. Do you acknowledge your students' racial identities? Are you comfortable
doing so?
3. Do you think that acknowledging the race of your students makes you
racist or prejudice you in some way? Why?
PRINCIPLE 3: Value and Celebrate Culture – Promote Cultural Sensitivity
Valuing a student's culture in the classroom is another frequently cited
factor for successfully teaching African-American learners. Culture
determines how one thinks, behaves, and believes, and this in turn affects
how faculty teach and learn. Faculty who are cognizant of their own thoughts
and behaviors in cross-cultural interaction are better prepared to respond
in ways that will improve teaching and learning in culturally diverse
classrooms.
Cultural sensitivity involves the acceptance that African-American students
have a distinct culture and learning style that should be valued, promoted,
and embraced in the classroom. Culture is at the heart of what all faculty
do in the name of education, whether it is curriculum, instruction,
administration, or performance assessment (Gay, 2000).
The importance of creating a learning environment where faculty members are
comfortable dealing with all barriers to the learning process cannot be
overstated. A firm foundation in culturally responsive teaching creates an
environment that responds to the influence of the learner's culture on the
way the learner learns.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. Does your institution promote an environment where faculty members can
value the cultural experiences African Americans bring to the classroom with
them? If yes, how? If no, do you as an individual faculty member value the
cultural experiences African Americans bring to the classroom with them?
2. Does your institution promote cultural sensitivity continuously through
programs and services? How?
3. Do you consider or address African-American students' needs when you are
designing your course content? How?
PRINCIPLE 4: Embrace an Empowerment Culture
Our analysis of enrollment trends in the nation's community colleges
suggests that faculty in the future will encounter even greater numbers of
diverse student populations. Thus, community colleges will need to
accelerate their pace in creating faculty development training to address
this reality. Community college staff and curriculum developers can look at
various cross-cultural faculty training models to assist with professional
development of faculty. We believe that professional development programs
could be responsive to African-American and other underserved learners by
incorporating McPhail and McPhail's Empowerment Culture into their faculty
development programs. The Empowerment Culture (McPhail & McPhail, 1999)
targeted community colleges that are attempting to transform their classroom
practices to meet the needs of African-American students. Community college
faculty can cultivate an empowerment culture by
* Learning more about the culture of African-American students,
* Listening to the voices of learners,
* Weaving the realities of learners' lives into the curriculum,
* Including positive representations of the African-American cultural
heritage in the curriculum, and
* Extending and reformulating the theory of cultural mediation into
instruction.
By focusing on the culture of the learner along with analysis of the
scholarly research on cultural responsiveness in the classroom, community
colleges will have a viable strategy for improving the learning experiences
of the African-American learner.
PRINCIPLE 5: Communicate the College's Commitment to Cultural
Responsiveness
Many institutions and faculty are quick to proclaim they are committed to
addressing the needs of their African-American learners. This commitment
must extend to helping faculty become committed to infusing culture into the
curriculum, thereby benefiting the African-American learner and the college
as a whole.
Community colleges can train faculty to infuse culture the curriculum by
using these strategies:
* Committing human and budgetary resources to infusing culture into the
curriculum
* Displaying the institution's dedication to infusing culture into the
curriculum
* Offering incentives for faculty to infuse culture into the curriculum
* Helping faculty to evaluate their own consciousness and awareness about
race in order to remove barriers
* Creating pressure for transformation of the instructional delivery
system, holding faculty accountable for using the culture of their students
in the classroom and placing the culture of students at the center of the
learning experience.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. How does your institution show commitment to the incorporation of
culture into the curriculum?
2. Does your institution offer any type of training to its faculty, staff,
and administrators that specifically focuses on cultural training?
3. Do you believe that infusing the students' cultural experiences into the
curriculum is important?
4. Do you believe that all students can benefit from the infusion of
culture into the curriculum?
5. Is the college's commitment to diversity written in the strategic plan?
PRINCIPLE 6: Take Away Barriers that Impede Progress
The barriers that many African-American students encounter are not always
visible. They can come in the form of hidden curriculum such as
purposefully ignoring African-American students' contributions to class
discussions; forcing students to learn in an environment that does not
support their learning style; showing negative personal attitudes and
beliefs; constructing courses that minimize the levels of interaction with
students, which limits discussion; and expressing increased differential
expectations. Eliminating barriers is an exercise of both mind and method.
It takes time and involves institutionwide commitment. We also believe that
it is not an option, but an opportunity to add a deeper meaning to the
mission of the American community college.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. What visible or invisible barriers are in place at your institution and
in your classroom that may hinder the academic success of African-American
learners?
2. Are there faculty members or administrators at your institution who
openly oppose incorporating culture into the curriculum? What is being done
to help these faculty members or administrators recognize the benefit of
this practice?
3. Do you require students to modify their behaviors to accommodate your
classroom environment? If yes, why?
PRINCIPLE 7: Help Faculty to Use Effective Pedagogical Methods for Teaching
African Americans
The pedagogical practices we will describe are not meant to be an
exhaustive list of methodologies, but a means to introduce institutions and
individuals to some pedagogical practices that have demonstrated success in
teaching African-American students.
WISE SCHOOLING
Steele (1992) described a concept called “wise schooling,” which attempts
to dispel the racial vulnerability of African-American students and
stresses their potential to learn. Steele labeled four elements as
fundamental to the achievement of African-American students:
1. If what is meaningful and important to the teacher is to become
meaningful and important to a student, the student must feel valued by the
teacher for his or her potential as a student.
2. The challenge and promise of personal fulfillment, not remediation,
should guide the education of minority students. Their present skills
should be taken into account and they should be moved along at a pace that
is demanding but does not defeat them.
3. Racial integration is a generally useful element in education, if not a
necessity. Segregation, whatever its purpose, draws out group differences
and makes students feel more vulnerable when they inevitably cross group
lines to compete in the larger society;
4. The particulars of black life and culture must be present in the
mainstream curriculum of American schooling, not confined to special days,
weeks, or even months.
NAIROBI METHOD
The pioneering work of Mary Rhoades Hoover resulted in an approach to
literacy instruction for miseducated culturally and linguistically
different African Americans (McPhail and McPhail, 1999). The term
miseducated means that instruction that has proven effective for AfricanAmerican students has not been provided to them, a problem that is caused
by the educational system, not by students.
In the Nairobi method, learners are encouraged to undertake collective
project work as an integral element of learning. For example, integrate
basic literacy with community development activities; integrate basic
skills with income-generating projects; and create partnerships with local
community groups, with successful role models participating in learning or
local businesses working with colleges to identify skill sets.
CULTURALLY MEDIATED INSTRUCTION
Culturally mediated instruction (CMI) is characterized by the use of
culturally mediated cognition, culturally appropriate social situations for
learning, and culturally valued knowledge in curriculum content (Hollins,
1996).
The premise underlying CMI has two components based on the centrality of
the students' home culture in framing memory structures and mental
operations (Hollins, 1996). The first component emphasizes that teaching
and learning are more meaningful and productive when the curriculum and
pedagogical practices include culturally mediated cognition, culturally
appropriate social situations for learning, and culturally valued
knowledge. Second, the authenticity of schooling is validated for students
by the interactions and relationships between adult members of their
community and school personnel. This theory, although focused on K-12
populations, can be implemented and is a powerful alternative for community
college educators committed to designing classroom and instructional
practices that are both multicultural and multicognitive (McPhail &
McPhail, 1999).
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. Does your institution support the use of CMI and other methodologies for
teaching African-American students?
2. Do you think that CMI is a viable means for teaching African-American
students and other students from diverse cultures?
3. Do you think that if an African-American student has a curriculum that
is culturally affirming, that student will be successful? Why?
We envision a nation of community colleges that fulfill their promise to
all learners. Community colleges generally enjoy a positive image with the
students they serve. In too many cases, this image is tarnished by their
track record in promoting the academic success of African-American
students. For example, African Americans and other students of color
continue to experience educational disparities when compared to other
learners. We believe that faculty-student interaction is at the core of the
educational disparities experienced by African-American learners.
Community colleges should consider positioning cultural responsiveness at
the core of their central mission statement, not as something to get around
to when it is convenient or politically correct. We advocate the
elimination of educational disparities between African-American learners
and other underserved learners in the community college, and we believe
that culturally responsive teaching is at the core of the conversation.
REFERENCES
Costner, K. L. (2003). The Struggle Continues: Community College Faculty
Attitudes Toward Teaching African-American Students. Dissertation Abstracts
International, 64 (05), p. 1506 (UMI 3090068).
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching : Theory, Research, and
Practice. New York : Faculty College Press.
Hollins, E.R. (1996). Culture in School Learning : Revealing the Deep
Meaning. Mahwah, NJ : Erlbaum.
McPhail, I.P., & McPhail, C.J. (1999). Transforming Classroom Practice for
African-American Learners: Implication for the Learning Paradigm. Removing
Vestiges, 25-35.
Steele, C.M. (1992, April). R ace and the Schooling of Black Americans. The
Atlantic Monthly, 269 (4), pp. 67-78.
_______________________________________________________________
Kelley L. Costner mailto: kelleycostner@comcast.net is Assistant Professor
of Reading at The Community College of Baltimore County. Christine Johnson
McPhail mailto:cmcphail@jewel.morgan.edu is Graduate Coordinator of the
Community College Leadership Program at Morgan State University.
_______________________________________________________________
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