Before We Let Go!: Operationalizing Culturally Informed Education

Abstract

Disparate educational outcomes persist for culturally and linguistically diverse learners despite numerous efforts to encourage pre-service and in-service teachers to adopt culturally relevant education. The operationalization of culturally relevant education, however, remains relatively unexplored as an explanation for teacher resistance. Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) are among the most empirically and practically warranted educational approaches to serve diverse learners. We posit that combining CRT and CRP to create an inclusive hybrid conceptual framework creates a stronger empirical case for utilizing culturally relevant educational practices. The proposed framework would offer new possibilities for increased quantitative research, which remains underutilized to examine culturally relevant education. Despite their uniqueness, CRT and CRP are often applied interchangeably in the literature. Therefore, we argue that a logical step forward would be establishing an approach whereby CRT and CRP are operationalized as instructional approaches and learning outcomes, respectively. We proffer culturally informed education as a conceptual framework that places CRT and CRP in tandem. To this end, we first examine notable challenges to the current implementation of CRT and CRP by examining the literature on teacher resistance to culturally relevant education using the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory. Then we present a merger between CRT and CRP as a new conceptual framework that supports a shared understanding through operationalization.