Elementary Teachers' Self-Efficacy for and Perceptions About Culturally Responsive Teaching

• In Event: 32.082 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 32.082-3 - Multicultural/Multiethnic Education: Culturally Responsive Teaching and Instruction

Abstract

Culturally responsive teaching is recognizing and utilizing students’ “cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles” (Gay, 2010, p. 31), in order to help them “achieve academically…demonstrate cultural competence, and…understand and critique social order” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. . 474). The purpose of this study, which used interviews and surveys, was to examine elementary teachers’ self-efficacy for culturally responsive teaching. Preliminary analysis revealed that teachers with high self-efficacy scores shared several characteristics including having participated in a culturally responsive teaching professional development in the previous year, teaching a total of 10 years or more, and having a master’s degree or higher, while the interviews revealed that collaborative planning and experiences with diverse students were most meaningful in self-efficacy development.

Authors

• Hannah Carter, Boise State University

• Melissa J. Bedford, University of Nevada - Reno