Masters Thesis

Making Culture Relevant: Implementing a Culturally Responsive Curriculum in a Faith-Based School

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to develop and implement a unit of culturally responsive curriculum in a faith-based setting and identify the problems and issues that might arise with the intersection of faith-based directives and culturally responsive curriculum. Procedure: Student feedback was an important element to the success of this project. Before the unit design began, demographic information in the form of a survey was collected from the students. The unit itself was designed with tenets of culturally responsive pedagogy as a guide. Throughout the teaching of the unit, data was collected through formative assessments, summative assessment, text engagement strategies, and both small and large group discussions. At the culmination of the unit, a student focus group was formed and using a question and discussion format; students responded to the ideas presented in the literature and their thinking about those ideas. Findings: Choosing content that reflected the ethnic and cultural diversity of the class was important not only because students saw themselves in the curriculum but because it provided students with knowledge of people and cultures different than themselves. Combining that content with text engagement strategies and discussions taught students to listen, ask questions, look for evidence, and carefully choose their words. One issue that arose was the need to deliberately connect social justice themes of inclusion and acceptance with religion. Another issue was the need to apply a faith-based qualified approach. Conclusions: While a faith-based setting easily lends itself to cultural competence and academic success, teachers in that setting might feel constrained in their approach to sociopolitical consciousness by the religious dogma of the sponsoring church, and even though a “qualified approach” might be necessary, culturally responsive teaching in a faith-based setting is still important as it prepares students to function in a diverse world because children, immersed in the religious values and morals of their home culture and educated to question the inequities of the world, will fight for social justice.

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