Applying Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to Higher Education: Exploration of Afghan Student and Midwestern Faculty Perspectives

• In Event: Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: Division J Section 6 Roundtable 8

Abstract

In this mixed methods study, the researcher employed a concurrent mixed model design to simultaneously study the curriculum at a Midwestern university from two angles: (1) the experienced curriculum through the lens of three Afghan international students and (2) the enacted curriculum through lens of 68 university faculty members. The culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student biography (e.g., Herrera, 2010; Herrera & Murry, 2005; Herrera, Murry, & Cabral, 2007), which incorporates the sociocultural, linguistic, cognitive, and academic dimensions of students’ backgrounds, served as the guiding theoretical framework for the investigation of students’ experiences, as revealed through semi-structured interviews. An online faculty survey allowed the researcher to explore the degree to which faculty members approached instruction from a culturally responsive perspective.

Author

• Melissa Ann Holmes, Kansas State University