"Culture refers to a dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, worldviews, and beliefs used to give order and meaning to our own lives as well as the lives of others" (Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991).

Geneva Gay (2000) explains that even without our being consciously aware of it, culture determines how we think, believe, and behave, and these, in turn, affect how we teach and learn.

As Young Pai (1990) explains, "There is no escaping the fact that education is a sociocultural process. Hence, a critical examination of the role of culture in human life is indispensable to the understanding and control of educative processes" (p. 3).

Diversity – The physical and symbolic presence of multiple identities, backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, abilities, socio-economic statuses, genders, languages, ethnicities, and cultures that impact our collective way of knowing and being in a particular space and context. 

Equity – Fairness and justice for everyone, where dignity and respect are preserved, and where supports are adjusted to account for any imbalances based on each individual's background and experiences.

Inclusion – A continuous action where all participants feel physically and emotionally safe, welcomed, called in, and have equal access to participate in the community and utilize its resources in a way that works for them.

Culturally Responsiveness – Mindfully and intentionally respecting, including, and engaging in individuals' cultures, experiences, beliefs, and practices in all spaces and conversations, such that there is systemic and individual capacity to identify, respond to, and iterate/make change to expressions of culture within and in the context of the organization

Equity-mindedness – Consistently using equity as the frame for service delivery, relationship building, and decision making, while being prepared to take personal and institutional accountability for our practices, policies, and pedagogies.

White Fragility – Individuals who identify as 'white' lacking strategies for constructively dealing with issues of race and finding it difficult to separate systemic racism - and its impacts - from their personal identity, which leads to defensiveness and is typically associated with a strong emotional response.

Have others? Share your definition or term to-be-defined on the Courageous Conversations Padlet. And join an upcoming Courageous Conversation to engage with your colleagues!

Geneva Gay (2000) explains how Cultural Diversity is a strength:

Cultural diversity is a strength—a persistent, vitalizing force in our personal and civic lives—although this may not be realized. It is, then, a useful resource for improving educational effectiveness for all students. Just as the evocation of their European American, middle class heritage contributes to the achievement of White students, using the cultures and experiences of Native Americans, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, Latino Americans, and African Americans facilitates their school success.

Boykin (1994) notes that formal education has been...

"....about learning how to read, write, and think . . . in certain prescribed ways consistent with certain beliefs, prescribed vantage points, value laden conditions and value laden formats. These prescribed ways of educating, these certain vantage points, conditions, proper practices and inherent values are the materials and texture of a profound cultural socialization process that forms the very fabric of the medium through which schooling is done (pp. 245–246)."

Geneva Gay (2000) explains how cultural responsiveness is one path to begin shifting away traditional vantage points that focus on middle-class, Eurocentric ideologies.

“Teaching is a contextual and situational process. As such, it is most effective when ecological factors, such as prior experiences, community settings, cultural backgrounds, and ethnic identities of teachers and students, are included in its implementation. This basic fact is often ignored in teaching some Native, Latino, African, and Asian American students, especially if they are poor. Instead, they are taught from the middle class, Eurocentric frameworks that shape school practices.”

Gay (2000) pulls together the concepts addressed above to explain how we can be Culturally Responsive Teachers.

"Therefore, a very different pedagogical paradigm is needed to improve the performance of underachieving students from various ethnic groups—one that teaches to and through their personal and cultural strengths, their intellectual capabilities, and their prior accomplishments. This does for Native American, Latino, Asian American, African American, and low income students what traditional instructional ideologies and actions does for middle-class, European Americans. That is, it filters curriculum content and teaching strategies through their cultural frames of reference to make the content more personally meaningful and easier to master."

For examples on what this looks like in practice, please review Culturally Responsive Teaching in Practice  from Gay's (2000) book, Culturally Responsive Teaching.

Diamond and Moore (1995) identify three key roles and responsibilities for teachers: Cultural organizers, cultural mediators, and orchestrators of social contexts.

1. As cultural organizers, teachers must understand how culture operates in daily classroom dynamics, create learning atmospheres that radiate cultural and ethnic diversity, and facilitate high academic achievement for all students. Opportunities must be provided for students from different ethnic backgrounds to have free personal and cultural expression so that their voices and experiences can be incorporated into teaching and learning processes on a regular basis. These accommodations require the use of various culturally centered ways of knowing, thinking, speaking, feeling, and behaving.
2. As cultural mediators, teachers provide opportunities for students to engage in critical dialogue about conflicts among cultures and to analyze inconsistencies between mainstream cultural ideals/realities and those of different cultural systems. They help students clarify their ethnic identities, honor other cultures, develop positive cross ethnic and cross cultural relationships, and avoid perpetuating prejudices, stereotypes, and racism. The goal is to create communities of culturally diverse learners who celebrate and affirm each other and work collaboratively for their mutual success, where empowerment replaces powerlessness and oppression
3. As orchestrators of social contexts for learning, teachers must recognize the important influence culture has on learning and make teaching processes compatible with the sociocultural contexts and frames of reference of ethnically diverse students. They also help students translate their cultural competencies into school learning resources. Spring's (1995) definition of a cultural frame of reference can be helpful in achieving these teaching learning synchronizations. He defines it as "those elements that cause a cultural group to interpret the world . . . in a particular manner" (p. 5), or the filter through which impressions of, experiences with, and knowledge of the outside world are ordered and made meaningful.

Faculty hoping to be equity-minded “need to consider equity in connection with historical and political understandings of [racial] stratification” Bensimon, 2016). The authentic exercise of equity and equity-mindedness requires explicit attention to structural inequality and institutionalized racism and demands system-changing responses” (Bensimon 2018, p. 97).

“To examine equity effectively, practitioners must understand how racism and a pervasive belief in the hierarchy of human value have shaped our systems, policies,  and practices” (McNair, Bensimon, & Malcom-Piqueux, 2020).

During the 2022-2023 Academic Year, we will be having a series of Courageous Conversations aimed defining, understanding, learning, and growing our equity-mindedness at NLU. These will start as sessions focused on self-reflection and transition to transformative sessions; where faculty, staff, and administrators learn how to regularly and consistently engage in equity-minded practices. A key first step in this process will be our examination and revision of our University definitions of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Those will be published here, when completed.

We all have a responsibility to educate ourselves about diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is the first step to self-reflection. After all, how can we reflect, if we don't know what we're looking for? When we surveyed faculty regarding impactful resources on the topic of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, here are the resources and books they identified. Many of these resources are available to the NLU community from NLU's Library. Your NLU credentials may be required to view them.