Fostering Culturally Relevant Teaching Through Family Visits (1)

• In Event: Advocacy for Equitable Education in the 21st Century: Opportunities and Obstacles

Abstract

"Classroom teachers often seek ways to engage more deeply with their students’ families, communities, and cultures; yet do not know how. Culturally relevant and asset-based pedagogies provide a frame from which teachers can learn to center families and communities in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to consider if engaging in the practice of family visits could help teachers learn to be more culturally relevant in their pedagogy, thus engaging more deeply with families, communities, and cultures.

Ladson-Billings (2009) explained that the primary goal of culturally relevant pedagogy was “to assist in the development of a “relevant black personality” that allows African-American students to choose academic excellence yet still identify with African and African-American culture” (p. 20). She described that successful culturally relevant teachers used student culture to frame how they “impart[ed] knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (p. 20).

Family connections have repeatedly been shown to improve outcomes for students. Auerbach (2009) examined how culturally responsive leaders engaged disenfranchised families through community outreach projects, including family visits. Kronholz (2016) followed a teacher who engaged in family visits that helped her better understand her students and families.

This study considers if the practice of family visits can be a means for learning more about student culture and thus becoming more culturally relevant in the classroom.

This data in this study come from two different professional development research projects that engaged teachers in family visits. One, from a dissertation project where teachers chose to participate in a professional development course on culturally sustaining pedagogy in the elementary classroom. An optional part of this course was to engage in the practice of family visits. The other study presented here was a professional development after-school book club where the teachers also had an option to engage in family visits.

The study employed a basic qualitative design with data sources such as transcripts of discussions and visits, interviews, and participant journals. I used qualitative coding methods (Glesne, 2016) to code my data set, looking for moments that reflected a change in practices. I coded based on attributes from the literature on culturally relevant teaching; ideas such as “reduce prejudices” (Banks, 2016), “hold high expectations” (Gay, 2000), “create relevant Black personality, adapt teaching, and use student culture to frame lessons” (Ladson-Billings, 2009).

Results of this study will show that engaging in family visits did lead to more culturally relevant teaching in the classroom, specifically these three main findings: teachers validated and legitimized students’ family practices; teachers adapted their teaching practices; and students were more empowered. However, results also show that the learning was perhaps not deep enough to enact large scale changes nor disrupt power structures at hand.

This study implies that engaging in the practice of family visits can have direct benefits for teachers who wish to become more culturally relevant.
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Author

• Laura Szech, University of North Carolina - Wilmington