Cultural Modeling Eco-Cultural, Developmental, and Psychosocial Framework for the Design of Robust Learning Environments

• In Event: Cultural-Ecological Frameworks for Understanding and Impacting Opportunity to Learn

Abstract

This paper explicates the Cultural Modeling Eco-Cultural, Developmental and Psycho-Social Framework for the design of robust learning environments. This framework extends the earlier Cultural Modeling Framework (C. D. Lee, 2007) that focused primarily on scaffolding cognitive processes for academic tasks through related everyday cultural practices. The framework now includes attention to the social and emotional demands of new learning (Ortony & Turner, 1990; Zajonc & Marcus, 1984), the role of learner’s perceptions of the tasks and the setting, and the complications of wrestling with new learning in light of both normative challenges of development and those additional challenges growing from macro-level practices associated with racism, poverty, etc (Spencer, 2006). The framework conceptualizes these multiple demands as they manifest themselves within and across spaces, addressing the demands of navigating such demands across spaces (Tate, 2008).

This framework informed the design of a 4 year longitudinal intervention in an urban, low-income, African-American high school (N=274); academically focusing on teaching literary reasoning as a context for literate skill development and identity wrestling in classrooms (Fernandez, 1977), and focusing on social supports in the school as an organization --- together aiming to socialize competence, engagement, repertoires for resilience, and a sense of self-efficacy among students (Maslow, 1943). The paper presents the framework, the intervention design, and findings on its impact.

Data include videos of instruction, literature assessments, student work, surveys of perceptions of identity, risk, self-efficacy, classroom processes and school climate; case studies of three students and how the designed supports in classrooms and the school were taken up as they navigated the interplay between challenges out of school and in school. Analyses examine the structure of literary argumentation in class discussions through video data along with how such argumentation addressed complex identity challenges; the structure and depth of argumentation in literature assessments; correlations among measures of identity, risk and self-efficacy as predictors of outcomes on literature assessments; among measures of classroom processes and school climate and assessments. Case studies include interviews, ethnographic notes, classroom videos and student work.




Findings:
We identified positive correlations between identity measures, classroom processes, and outcomes on literature assessments. We documented congruences between areas students identified as sources of risk outside of school and the literary texts they read, and as a consequence documented how wrestling with these challenges were taken up in the skill set of how students tackled the literary texts. Case studies document how both the classroom pedagogical supports and the relationship building through school wide supports were taken up by these three students as they navigated intersecting out of school and in school challenges, with resilience.

Significance:
This framework and intervention design expand conceptions of what reform of low-achieving schools must address, moving beyond the chasm between rigorous standards like Common Core and typical restricted pedagogical practices, to address a holistic focus on the multi-dimensional demands of adolescent development as they navigate life in and out of school (C.D. Lee, 2008).

Author

• Carol D. Lee, Northwestern University