Over the last 30 years, the racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity of school-aged children in grades PK-12 has drastically changed in the United States. This demographic shift in the student population has prompted a concern among teacher educators about how to best prepare teachers to meet the needs of Black and Latino student populations in the classroom. Training teachers to be culturally responsive educators is an especially pressing need given that 86 percent of teachers (Kena et al., 2015) are White, and student demographics continue to become more racially, ethnically and culturally diverse. With research revealing that racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse students, particularly those of African and Latino decent, continue to experience an inequitable education and show large discrepancies in academic achievement when compared to their White peers despite the availability of resources in their academic communities, alternatives have been explored to meet their needs, engage them further, encourage student advocacy, build critical consciousness and provide a more equitable education. One alternative to the traditional pedagogical practices of teachers is the integration of culturally relevant arts across content areas. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop a notion of culturally relevant arts and compare how literacy and teachers of the arts from a district in “need of improvement” in New Jersey may integrate culturally relevant arts in their classrooms to create an environment that lends itself to student achievement, student advocacy and the critical exploration of content for their students who are predominately Black and Latino. Specifically, I explored how an administrator, an English literature teacher and a teacher of the arts understood, defined and implemented culturally relevant practices across the curriculum. Centered in arts and culturally relevant pedagogy, a major finding that emerged from the interviews was the importance of connecting with students. Being from the community, a similar community or having a deep understanding of the community; being someone that the students could identify with; building caring relationships with students; keeping content relevant and making connections to their lives, staying current with pop culture; ensuring that art and content areas are integrated; allowing students to question and think out of the box are examples of the ways in which teachers are able to make genuine connections with students. Through the use of educational strategies, teachers saw that they were able to engage and empower their students, even in an era when the district is undergoing a lot of change that makes it difficult to effectively educate students through the visual and performing arts and liberal arts ideology.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Teacher Leadership
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Culturally relevant pedagogy
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TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_8846
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (x, 103 p.)
Note (type = degree)
Ed.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Jhanae E. Wingfield
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School of Education Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore10001500001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.