Deconstructing Teacher-Student Interactions in Culturally Diverse Urban Low Achieving Elementary Classrooms

Abstract

Based on the growing cultural diversity in United States public schools, the first focus of the present study was on deconstructing observation logs in culturally diverse, urban, low-achieving elementary school classrooms in the Midwest. The observation logs detailed the teacher-student interactions that occurred in one elementary school during the 2014-2015 school year while teachers received culturally responsive teaching training based on Gay’s research. The present study was founded on the premise that due to the varying needs of culturally diverse learners, it is necessary to explore what the teacher-student interactions are in urban, low-achieving elementary schools.The second focus of the present study was to determine if the themes that emerged from the deconstruction of observation logs were reflective of Gay’s (2000) culturally responsive teaching (CRT) model. Previous researchers who focused on observing effective teacher-student interactions have outlined several teaching practices that have been found to yield positive academic achievement and social development of students. Some of the effective practices include providing classrooms that are well organized and managed, and emotionally and instructionally supportive. Gay’s culturally responsive teaching model describes effective teaching of culturally diverse students. Gay’s model includes six characteristics: validating, comprehensive, multidimensional, empowering, transformative, and emancipatory.A qualitative phenomenological research design methodology was used in this study. The deconstruction of the data involved the affinity diagraming process as described by Tague (2004). Five themes emerged from the deconstruction of the data and those themes were compared to Gay’s CRT model. This comparison illustrated that teacher-student interactions involving language development of linguistically diverse students in culturally diverse, urban, low achieving, elementary classrooms were reflective of effective culturally responsive teaching practices.