Date of Award

Winter 1-29-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

First Advisor/Committee Member

Nyaradzo Mvududu, EdD

Second Advisor/Committee Member

Julie Antilla, PhD

Third Advisor/Committee Member

Jorge Preciado PhD

Keywords

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning Achievement

Abstract

Over the last decades the United States demographics reflect an increase in student diversity and multilanguage learners have changed the landscape of the education system. Educators are having a difficult time connecting, reaching, and teaching many of these diverse and multilingual learners. As a result, culturally and linguistically diverse students are not successful in school and are pushed out of secondary schools at an alarming rate. The United States educational system faces a glaring discrepancy of teacher and student demographics. In America 84% of teachers are White not Hispanic, only 6% of teachers are Latino/Hispanic, 8% are Black and less than 1% are Asian. In contrast only 46% of students are White, 28% percent of students are Hispanic/Latinx, 15.6% are Black and 4.8% are Asian. (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2022).

The purpose of this research study is to further explore the effects of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) on culturally diverse students and their academic achievement in intermediate students when their teachers have high cultural competence. Culturally responsive teaching centers the learners’ culture, racial identity, language, and ways of being in their instruction, curriculum, and assessment practices. The researcher conducted a quantitative causal-comparative retrospective research study to find relationships and differences between teachers’ cultural competence and percentage of students meeting standards on the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA). Third through fifth grade teachers were surveyed to measure their cultural competence using the Educators Scale of Student Diversity (ESSD) instrument. Teachers scored into one of two groups: group one, high cultural competence, and group two, low cultural competence. Next, a series of independent samples t tests and Pearson r correlations were performed to determine if there was a difference in teachers’ cultural competency and student performance. The overarching hypothesis was that if teachers have high cultural competence students will pass the SBA at a higher percentage. No significant differences or relationships were found between teachers’ level of cultural competency and student performance.

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