Teachers' Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Knowledge: A Constructivist Framework for Teaching Diversified Learners

• In Event: But What the Heck Is a Theoretical and Conceptual Framework?

Abstract

There is a shift in the educational landscape as many students enter learning spaces with differing characteristics and intersectionalities from their culture, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background. These characteristics influence their epistemology— how they perceive, receive, and process information. Despite students' demographic changes and their impact on learning, teachers remain significantly unchanged, with more whites than other races in the workforce. This near homogeneity creates disparities resulting in the Anglo-normative representations and expectations placed on non-white students. To address these cultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic differences, teachers must possess a holistic knowledge base that recognizes learners' individualities and sociocultural influences and how to harness these differences as tools for effective teaching in diversified classrooms.

Author

• Justina Ogodo, Baylor University