Culturally Responsive Education

Culturally responsive schools exhibit the following traits:

• The curriculum content is inclusive, meaning it reflects the cultural, ethnic, and gender diversity of society and the world.

• Instructional and assessment practices build on the students' prior knowledge, culture, and language.

• Classroom practices stimulate students to construct knowledge, make meaning, and examine cultural biases and assumptions.

• Schoolwide beliefs and practices foster understanding and respect for cultural diversity, and celebrate the contributions of diverse groups.

• School programs and instructional practices draw from and integrate community and family language and culture, and help families and communities to support the students' academic success.

Adapted from Strategic Teaching and Reading Project Guidebook. (NCREL, 1995, rev. ed.).