Redefining Instructional Coaches as Cultural Brokers

• In Event: Bridging Multiple Worlds: Innovative Partnerships to Educate Diverse Democracies Within Culturally and Socioeconomically Diverse Communities

Abstract

Objectives
The objectives of this study were to describe and analyze how two instructional coaches acted as cultural brokers for teachers learning to use effective dialogic strategies to connect new information to students' previous experiences. In this study, teachers’ cultural backgrounds differed from those of their students, and their initial misunderstandings and difficulties in implementing this model of building cultural compatibility were evident.

Theoretical Framework
The theoretical frameworks grounding this study were Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory and Cooper’s (2011) Bridging Multiple Worlds (BMW) Theory. Consistent with the pedagogical model of teachers’ contextualizing their instruction by Tharp and Gallimore (1988), Cooper (2011) asserted that in situations in which teachers and students do not share common backgrounds, educators may serve as cultural brokers to effectively bridge cultural understanding. Thus far, BMW research has focused on bridging students’ worlds. However, this study extends the BMW framework to teachers who experience cultural mismatches with their students. We also used Spivak’s (1985) concept of othering, in which people or groups define themselves against the position of other groups, to understand how teachers bring this concept into classrooms and the problems their doing so creates.

Methods
The participants in this study were two instructional coaches and 29 teachers: 14 working with one coach and 15 with the second. Coaching data, including lesson plans, reflections, and observational notes, were analyzed with Spivak’s (1985) concept of othering. In the analysis, we examined data across coaches and teachers to identify themes about (a) teachers’ initial misunderstandings about the pedagogical model, and (b) strategies that instructional coaches used to assist teachers in leveraging their students’ cultural and linguistic resources.

Results
Even after learning about Tharp and Gallimore’s pedagogical model, teachers continued to hold misunderstandings about their roles, as seen in their teaching in a whole-class setting with language development activities primarily occurring through exploring standardized word lists. Further, teachers took only their own cultural perspectives when trying to make lessons relevant to their students. These misunderstandings were attributed to teachers’ cultural understanding of students as “others” and their own roles in this conceptualization.

Over time, however, the instructional coaches supported teachers’ ultimately successful understanding of the pedagogical model by focusing on increasing their proximity to students and encouraging joint teacher-student productive activity. Once teachers became co-participants in learning, they shifted language development activities to small group interactions and began developing deeper intersubjectivity with their students that allowed the teachers to contextualize lessons more effectively.

Significance
The findings of this study advance the work of Tharp and Gallimore (1988), whose cycle of social sorting helps explain not only how students develop intersubjectivity with culturally diverse others, but also teachers’ own development in this domain. It also advances work with Bridging Multiple Worlds Theory by explaining how professional developers can serve as cultural brokers with teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Finally, this study proposes the concept of “co-creator” as useful for teachers to consider in thinking about their relationships with students, who can also contribute as cultural brokers.

Authors

• Tasha R. Wyatt, Georgia Regents University

• Elizabeth Brook Chapman de Sousa, University of Hawaii