Let Our Students Be Our Guides

Abstract

This case study examines the PreK-16 schooling experiences of nine McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program Scholars from a large, urban university in the southeast with respect to culturally relevant teaching. This study highlights the experiences of the McNair Scholars in an effort to assist educators in creating spaces that allow culturally diverse learners to thrive. Using students’ experiences to guide this study, the authors discover that the McNair Scholars were successful in their educational pursuits despite some barriers. Furthermore, the authors discuss implications at the micro- and macro-levels concerning culturally responsive learning environments for ethnically diverse students.

Keywords

culturally relevant teaching teacher education Ronald McNair Program urban education

Introduction

The number of diverse students¹ in U.S. classrooms is increasing at a rapid rate (Ladson-Billings, 2001). Given this trend, the educational experiences of culturally diverse students have been researched by scholars in the field from Pre-K–graduate school (see, for example, Cleveland, 2004; Delpit, 2006; Tatum, 2003; Valenzuela, 1999; Villalpando, 2003). The research literature regarding diverse student populations often reports on the hardships they experience as students of color (see, for example, Bennett, McWhorter, & Kuyendall, 2006; Valenzuela, 1999). Despite these difficulties, however, culturally diverse students attain exceptional educational achievement outcomes. Furthermore, there are diverse students who have a desire to pursue the doctoral degree,² and some of these scholars elect to participate in the Ronald McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, referred to as the McNair Program throughout the remainder of this manuscript. This study explores the PreK-16 schooling experiences of nine of these scholars from an urban southeastern university in light of culturally relevant teaching.

The McNair Program is a national program designed to prepare underrepresented undergraduate students for doctoral studies. The program provides undergraduate participants who exhibit high academic potential with educationally enriching scholastic experiences that help to prepare them to enter graduate school and complete the PhD degree. To qualify for the McNair Program, participants must adhere to the following criteria: (a) be enrolled in an undergraduate degree–granting program at an accredited college or university and (b) be low-income, first-generation college students or come from underrepresented diverse groups who are not low-income, first generation. Students from culturally diverse groups in this program are academically successful across academic disciplines, and the program has rigorous academic demands for these students. As such, we seek to capture the experiences of these high-achieving McNair Scholars who have traversed in this current educational climate.

As mentioned beforehand, this study represents nine McNair Scholars who completed the McNair Program at an urban university in the southeastern United States. Consequently, these McNair Scholars have been successful in negotiating and navigating their educational spaces and have aspirations to obtain a terminal degree. With the goal to learn from high-achieving culturally diverse students in the education pipeline, we examine the PreK-16 educational experiences of nine McNair Scholars in an effort to understand their experiences as diverse learners with respect to culturally relevant teaching during the course of their academic tenure.

While the scholarly literature has reported on nuances to better prepare teachers for culturally diverse student populations (see, for example, Gay, 2010; Howard, 1999; Ladson-Billings, 2001), little research attention has been paid to work that draws from the voices of culturally diverse students themselves. With this in mind, this empirical research study is significant because it aims to describe attributes of culturally relevant educators and to discuss the factors that promote culturally responsive learning environments from the perspectives of these McNair Scholars. In addition, we seek to add to the scholarly literature by highlighting the voices of diverse students who have achieved in the education system. We hope to offer insights to the broader educational community about meeting the needs of culturally diverse learners.

In so doing, we first discuss the research literature regarding culturally relevant teaching from two leading scholars in the field. Next, we describe the methods used to analyze the educational experiences of the nine McNair Scholars. Then, we share the results of our work through four extracted themes from the data. The themes were type casted into the following four broad categories: (a) linkage to prior experiences and community, (b) lack of clarity in academic settings, (c) achievement in spite of low expectations, and (d) knowledge about diversity and connections to diverse students for educators. After delving into the themes, we shed light on discussion points and implications of this work. Finally, we conclude the article by urging education researchers to capitalize on their students’ culturally diverse knowledge systems to inform their work.

Review of the Literature

Culturally responsive teaching is a pedagogical framework that recognizes and affirms the diverse cultural backgrounds, histories, and experiences students bring to the classroom space (Gay, 2010). This cultural knowledge extends to students’ familial and community knowledge systems, and culturally diverse students’ rich cultural proclivities are used as a catalyst for learning across the content areas. Ladson-Billings (2009) defines culturally relevant pedagogy as one that “empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (p. 20). In another vein, Gay (2002) defines culturally responsive teaching as “using the cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching them more effectively” (p. 106).

Ladson-Billings (2009) describes culturally relevant teachers as those who do the following: see teaching as an art, view themselves as a part of the community, view teaching as giving back to the community, encourage their students to give back to the community, believe that all students can succeed, seek to draw out knowledge that students possess, and assist students in making connections “between their community, national, and global identities” (p. 38). With culturally relevant pedagogy, teacher–student relationships are fluid and reach beyond the classroom into the community. In addition, culturally relevant teachers establish a connectedness with each individual student, advance the idea of establishing a community of learners, and expect for students to teach and learn from one another. As a result, culturally relevant teachers understand the role of culture and promote collaborative modes of learning among students and community to utilize students’ unique cultural backgrounds as a foundation for learning.

Gay (2010) uses six descriptive characteristics for culturally responsive teaching. She describes culturally responsive teaching as validating, comprehensive, multidimensional, empowering, transformative, and emancipatory. She goes on to explain that culturally responsive teachers are caring, supportive, pleasant, passionate, and flexible, while simultaneously having high expectations of academic excellence for themselves and their students. Thus, culturally responsive pedagogy affirms, liberates, and empowers culturally diverse students.

The concept of culturally relevant pedagogy has received attention from teacher educators, researchers, and other education professionals inside and outside of urban settings. The work of Ladson-Billings (2009) and Gay (2010) provides the foundational lens for this study. Arguably, these sources are seminal works in the field and provide the underpinnings from which recent scholarship in culturally relevant teaching, multicultural education, urban education, and the like is grounded. Coupling culturally responsive teaching with the experiences of the McNair Scholars yielded several implications for educators as it pertains to meeting the educational needs of diverse learners, which is shared later in this manuscript.

As it stands, this area of research is timely given that contemporary researchers are responding to the call for prospective and practicing teachers to be responsive to the needs of culturally diverse learners in the research literature (see, for example, Jett, 2012; Lemons-Smith, 2013; Leonard, 2008; Nieto, 2010). We have found, however, that there is a gap in the research literature in terms of drawing from the voices of culturally diverse students themselves. As mentioned previously, our work draws from the voices of students of color regarding their experiences and insights about negotiating educational spaces with respect to culturally relevant teaching. More specifically, the McNair Scholars “guide” us (i.e., the authors as education researchers and teacher educators) on our journey to become more effective in our charge to better prepare teachers for diverse classrooms and to simultaneously ensure equitable learning outcomes for culturally diverse students.

Method

This empirical study employed a qualitative case study methodological approach based on Merriam’s (1998) model. Case study research is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 2003, p. 13). The case study approach was used for this research project as an effort to probe, in-depth, the kinds of interactions, activities, and experiences that these McNair Scholars experienced. This methodological approach was employed to describe and analyze thoroughly these events as they relate to providing essential educational experiences necessary for culturally diverse students to achieve at optimal levels.

Over the course of the summer research institute, the second author conducted a series of research workshops for the 25 McNair Scholars enrolled in the program. The purpose of the workshops was to introduce the scholars to the process of conducting scientific research. Observations of the students during the research sessions and discussions in the workshops provided an overview of the scholars’ group dynamics. Out of the 25 scholars enrolled in the program, 15 scholars volunteered to participate in this study. In all, 9 scholars of the 15, however, completed the entire study during the summer institute, and Table 1 provides a profile of these nine McNair Scholars. In Table 1, the scholars’ names (pseudonyms), ethnic identities, academic classifications, and majors are shared. It also includes their personal symbol that identifies their personalities and/or life’s purposes as well as the title of their research papers completed during the summer research experience.

Table 1.

Profile of McNair Scholars.

Participant	Ethnicity	Classification/Major	Symbol	Research paper topic
Ashley	African American	Junior/Economics	Music	“The Effects of Degrading and Non-degrading Music on Young African American Women”
Ayana	Ethiopian	Junior/Chemistry	Scales	“Cloning and Eukaryotic Expression of Mouse CD47.”
Jennifer	Colombian	Senior/Psychology	Dove = Freedom	“The Bystander Role in School Bullying Behavior.”
Lisa	African American	Senior/Literacy Studies	Tree of Life	“The Heroism of Phillis Wheatley: She Wore the Mask.”
Karen	Jamaican	Junior/Early Childhood Education	Heart necklace (with a charm)	“The Impact of the D.R.E.A.M.S. Program on Urban African American Male Students’ Academic Efficacy.”
Maria	Honduran	Senior/African American Studies	Water Pitcher (with water being poured out)	“Renewable Energy and Economic Development: A Comparison of an African and African American Community Initiative.”
Patricia	African American	Junior/Psychology	Layers (surrounding a cross)	“African American English and Early Language in Literacy Skills.”
Rachel	African American	Junior/Psychology; Sociology (minor)	Sankofa- Helping Hands-“Know Your Destiny”	“Phonological Representations Among 2^nd Grade Good & Poor Readers Who Speak African American English”
Tonya	African American	Junior/African American Studies; Spanish (minor)	Butterfly (with an orange sun)	“‘God Damn America’: An Analysis of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Media Bias.”

For data collection, four data sources were used to probe the participants about their experiences as diverse learners and their perspectives concerning the education system in the United States. The four data sources included structured, individual interviews, observations in research workshops, students’ oral and visual research presentations, and student-generated educational artifacts. Only interview data were used as the source of data for the discussions in this article because the interview data undergirded the themes that were extracted. Using coding as our data analysis technique, we worked collaboratively to categorize the data into various themes (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). We highlight interview data from the scholars in the results section to support the extracted themes.

With regard to data analysis, we began to analyze the data immediately after data collection. We followed Glesne’s (2006) advice to search for patterns in the data, articulate explanations for different phenomena, and create hypotheses, to name a few. Then, we engaged in analytic coding as a means to sort through the data (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). We coded the data through a culturally relevant lens. Moreover, we used all the data sources to substantiate our claims for the project while analyzing the data.

All three authors approached this research study with vested interests in the success of culturally diverse students, unique passions concerning culturally relevant teaching, and strong links to the McNair Program. The first author was a McNair Scholar and credits his McNair experience as being the stepping stone for making the doctorate attainable. In his role as a mathematics teacher educator, he brings issues concerning meeting the needs of culturally diverse students to the fore in his teaching, research, and service (see, Jett, 2013). The second author is a culturally responsive teacher educator who has worked extensively with pre-service and in-service teachers to better prepare them for urban settings. She has facilitated professional development seminars regarding multicultural education both inside and outside of the academy. The third author has a daughter who has been involved with various McNair efforts and has taught diverse students in the middle grades for approximately two decades who have gone on to become McNair Scholars. Currently, she works with teachers in an urban school district to scaffold, anchor, and support culturally relevant teaching practices. Notably, we (i.e., all three authors) have worked closely with pre-service teachers, practicing teachers, administrators, instructional leaders, parents, teacher educators, and community members to address aspects of culturally relevant teaching. We bring a unique collection of experiences that shed light on this area of research similar to what the McNair Scholars bring to this area of inquiry.

We recognized that our commonality as researchers of color assisted with our credibility for this project. Likewise, we were aware that this notion assisted us with establishing rapport with the McNair Scholars. We recognized, however, that this could also lead to potential research bias. Although we had close proximity to the topic, we sought to minimize personal bias in our findings. To reduce researcher bias, we engaged in numerous conversations as a research team to ascertain our own biases about the proposed study before, during, and after the study. In addition, we conducted the interviews in a systematic manner being cognizant of and limiting facial expressions, verbal cues, and so on, which might influence or steer the research participants in a different direction.

Findings

The purpose of this study was to ascertain how culturally diverse students envisioned culturally responsive teaching and learning environments as well as how they critiqued their educational experiences based on their definitions. A close examination of the interview data revealed four overarching themes. First, the McNair Scholars drew upon their previous experiences to inform their aspiring career and research goals. Second, the McNair Scholars expressed that the lack of clarity offered by some teachers and embedded in some educational contexts hindered academic success. Third, they articulated messages about overcoming in spite of low expectations of culturally different students in various educational environments. And finally, the McNair Scholars expressed that successful teachers of diverse students should (continue to) research ideas about what cultural diversity entails and use this knowledge to make connections with their culturally diverse students. What follows is a discussion of each theme along with the scholars’ voices being the guide to support their articulated sentiments of each extracted theme.

Linkage to Prior Experiences and Community

First, the McNair Scholars made explicit links to their prior experiences to articulate their developing culturally relevant research agendas. The scholars viewed their status as McNair Scholars as a means to reflect on their previous experiences with the hope of rectifying various social issues in their community. At the beginning of the summer research workshops, scholars were asked to provide some information about their background experiences. From those personal experiences, the scholars traced the roots of their developing research interests and directions to their prior academic and community experiences. Some of the scholars were even moved to tears as they explained how they view their research and future status as researchers enabling them to contribute to a more equitable society as well as educational community for their people.

Essentially, the McNair Scholars articulated visions of rectifying issues that were endemic to them and their communities. Rachel’s affirmation illustrated this characteristic. She pointed out,

Yeah, I definitely think that life experiences shape those things that you’re most interested in, the things that happen to you of course, uh, the people that you’re around. With anybody, that’s going to make you more, uh, how should I say it, you’re more drawn to that. That’s what’s closer to you; that’s what you identify with. (Rachel, Interview)

Rachel noted how individuals’ exposure to community people and diverse experiences led them to identify with different issues. During her interview, she later went on to explain how her own previous educational experiences have led her to conduct psychological research in the field of education.

Taken together, the scholars framed their purpose for doctoral attainment as a means to give back to their schools, communities, and so on, so that other students from similar backgrounds might have better experiences than they did. This ideological framework is similar to Ladson-Billings’s (2009) description of culturally relevant teachers who “see themselves as part of the community, see teaching as giving back to the community, and encourage their students to do the same” (p. 41). Furthermore, several McNair Scholars cited their teachers of color as being instrumental in their desires to give back to their communities, which is a characteristic of culturally relevant teachers as highlighted in the research literature.

Lack of Clarity in Academic Settings

Second, the McNair Scholars’ interview data indicated that a significant barrier to academic success is the lack of clarity, both verbally in academic communication and directionally in academic guidance from some teachers they described and/or identified as poor. Particularly those students who study the natural sciences (i.e., astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, and so on) expressed that they would often forgo full understanding of a concept if it meant they had to keep asking for further explanations or ways they could get involved to better understand the work. Examples were shared from students’ K-12 and undergraduate experiences alike. Ashley’s example portrayed one example of a lack of clarity in an undergraduate natural sciences course. She shared,

She (the instructor) was just horrible. She didn’t know how to explain things, and she’d even ask us, do you understand? We’d be like no. Then she’d be like well, we’ll just move on to the next concept; you’ll get it later. (Ashley, Interview)

In this case, Ashley expressed that her teacher would ask if the students had a conceptual understanding of the phenomena being presented. Even when students shared that they did not understand the content, the instructor continued on to the next lesson. Ashley later shared that she believed the teacher was more concerned about finishing the course’s syllabus as opposed to students’ understanding and learning of the material. Ashley also maintained that those foundational concepts were usually built upon in subsequent chapters. As a result, she said that she was more confused as the semester progressed because all of the information seemed to compound and overwhelm her, hence contributing to a lack of clarity with regard to the subject matter.

Ashley’s example of her undergraduate science education experience worked in direct contrast to the attributes of culturally responsive educators as highlighted in the research literature (Gay, 2010). As noted earlier, culturally responsive teachers are flexible and hold high expectations for academic excellence for their students. They build upon the fundamental knowledge students bring into learning spaces, use that knowledge as a catalyst for learning, and employ different culturally affirming pedagogical strategies to explain various concepts, especially examples that stress the unique ties and contributions of diverse cultural groups to the content being taught. Ashley’s example emphasized the importance of providing clear, concise instruction in the sciences, especially given current efforts to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; Espinosa & Rodríquez, 2013).

A different example that seemed to run rampant in the McNair Scholars’ experiences centered on a lack of academic guidance from teachers and counselors alike during their K-12 schooling experiences. Several scholars expressed frustrations concerning both their teachers and counselors’ failures to share pertinent information that would academically benefit diverse student populations. Jennifer’s case illustrated the essence of these sentiments. She passionately disclosed,

I didn’t have the support that I wish I would have had as far as I didn’t have anybody to turn to for questions or things like that. Like if I wanted to look for schools for college, I didn’t have somebody to say well, okay, this is what you need to do, these are the steps. There’s not a lot of guidance out there as to how to navigate the high school years. At least for me in my experience, there wasn’t a lot because a lot of things are taken for granted. They take for granted that you know the SAT and how it works and stuff. But for me as a foreigner, I had no idea what they were talking about. (Jennifer, Interview)

Jennifer communicated throughout her interview how she had to learn the American educational system. Being that she was a student from Colombia who came to the United States after her 10th grade school year, she was not familiar with many of the processes and procedures to gain access to higher education. She later went on to express how her many attempts to seek this guidance from school personnel went unfulfilled. Jennifer explained that she had no idea what a Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was and that she had to work “overtime” to find out many things American students were already privy to. Jennifer affirmed that guidance from any teachers or counselors would have benefited her throughout her process to obtain information regarding seeking college admission.

With regard to the research literature, Jennifer’s arguments are in sync with attributes of culturally responsive teachers. Gay (2010) purports that culturally responsive teaching is comprehensive. In other words, culturally valued knowledge is integrated into curriculum content, so that students “acquire an ethos of success” (p. 32). This aspect was also noted in the work of Ladson-Billings (2009), whereby the class community functioned as an extended family providing support mechanisms and resources to each other to promote educational excellence.

Achievement Despite “Low” Expectations

Given this group of McNair Scholars’ status as culturally diverse students, they were keenly aware of deficit ideological perceptions, narratives, images, stereotypes, and so on, which seek to frame culturally diverse students as unintelligible. These narratives, they argued, have caused some educators to lower their expectations for students of color. Often, it was from that position that the scholars strove to excel. They recognized many of the real barriers (i.e., race, social class, language, gender, and so on) that have historically stood and currently stand in their way as ethnically diverse learners. Maria’s encounter with her Advanced Placement (AP) English teacher in high school exposed her to the deficit perspectives of some teachers. Maria described,

And she’d (AP English teacher) make us get up and she’d say, I want y’all to be very clear about being in my classroom, the history that I’ve dealt with. She’d have everyone stand up. Now those of you who are non-White, sit down. And then the White ones would remain (standing). Then after the White ones that would remain, she’d be like the girls, if you didn’t have on pants, sit down. Because back then it was only like skirts, skirts had to be like so long or whatever . . . So it’s like at the end of the day, it was like only three of the White males would be standing, and she’d say, that’s what I’m used to teaching. That is my standard, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. So it was like we went into it, like hey, this lady is really prejudice and letting us know that this is how it is. (Maria, Interview)

Maria’s AP English account reified how one particular educator articulated and even showed her students firsthand that the “White male” was the standard for which she felt compelled to teach. Later in the interview, however, Maria expressed that her AP English teacher helped her despite what she perceived to be her blatant racism toward her students. Nonetheless, this episode caused us to ponder how spaces, such as the one described where educators are culturally insensitive and have preconceived notions and lower expectations for diverse learners, continue to exist and even thrive in America’s classrooms.

In like manner, Rachel spoke about her experience of being the only African American student in her elementary class. She recounted,

When I was younger when I was in the 4^th grade, I was the only Black student in one of my classes . . . I remember feeling, uh, like an outcast. And I wasn’t paid, I don’t feel like the teacher (a White teacher) paid me much attention, and I remember trying to get her attention, so I would do certain things to, to try to get her attention. So I would act out . . . It was a bad experience for me, feeling outcast or not, the teacher not paying me any attention; it really affected me. (Rachel, Interview)

Rachel’s experience is not uncommon; students of color have experienced similar encounters in which they expressed that they were basically ignored, made to feel invisible, silenced, or subjected to proving their intelligence (see, for example, Cleveland, 2004; McGee & Martin, 2011). Rachel conveyed that students of color need to be aware of the preconceived notions teachers have about diverse students.

All nine scholars were clearly aware of societal low expectations of them as students of color. These low expectations were also extended in the classroom community by some educators who were “trained” to meet the educational needs of learners. Interestingly, all of the McNair Scholars cited instances in which environments were sustained that expected less than or mediocre work from culturally diverse students. This theme speaks to the critical need for culturally responsive educators who have high expectations for racially diverse students.

Knowledge About Diversity and Connections to Diverse Students

Finally, the scholars indicated that making a personal connection with diverse students and finding out about their cultural proclivities were important attributes of culturally responsive teachers. We chose to cite another experience with Maria to validate this claim. This experience focused on her high school AP sciences teacher not seeking to establish a relationship with her. Maria reflected,

So I always wanted to sit up in the front (in AP sciences). But despite my wanting to be involved and be in class, you know, like build a relationship with the instructor, she would ignore me. I mean, I’d be like, I mean like to the point where I actually withdrew out of that AP class . . . And went into, well, she was like the only AP sciences, so it was like I either had to deal with her or I had to go back to like standard sciences. And because of her, I actually dropped out of AP and went back to regular and after that I never went back to AP sciences; I just stayed with regular. So it was like she in a sense got me up out of her classroom by ignoring me and making me feel completely not wanted . . . I think that it’s very strategic by the public school systems to make sure that we can’t relate to our educators because (of) that we lose interest. (Maria, Interview)

Maria confessed she believed her teacher did not seek to establish an authentic relationship with her because she was a student of color. She expressed how her AP sciences teacher ignored her similar to Rachel’s account in the previous section. Imagine what learning outcomes might have been attainable had these teachers established culturally meditated rapport with these students.

In the preceding interview narrative, Maria also provided a critique of the public school system generally noting the stark difference between the teacher racial make-up (i.e., majority White female) as opposed to the student racial make-up (i.e., predominantly diverse population). This cultural mismatch is evident in several schools and school systems as documented in the research literature (Ford, 2013). In her interview, Maria argued that the educational system is strategically tailored to keep diverse students from maintaining interests in academics because of the predominate number of teachers placed in diverse classrooms who are not culturally competent.

During the individual interviews, all of the McNair Scholars were asked questions centered on preparing teachers for urban spaces with culturally diverse students. Given this study’s focus on issues related to culturally relevant teaching and culturally responsive learning environments, the scholars were prompted to offer advice to practicing teachers as well as prospective teachers concerning working with diverse students. Below, we recount two of the McNair Scholars’ closing statements:

They need to be open to all different cultural backgrounds and understand where people are coming from . . . cause it’s different for everybody. I guess we all have to adapt to, I don’t know, I guess the whole world knows about American lifestyle or whatever. And it’s difficult for people to transition and adapt to this school system and everything, so you need to be hopeful and very helpful. (Ayana, Interview)

Well, clearly they should already know that everybody’s different, and that uh, you know, some students might be more reserved because of their background. Might be scared to speak because you know, they might be really intelligent or students might be really smart and they’re not applying themselves because they don’t feel challenged. Like I guess kind of going back to what I said before, like you really need to get to know them. Like consider them all individuals instead of this is my class . . . Instead of saying this is English (class). No, this is Amy, this is Justice, this is Justin kind of thing. (Ashley, Interview)

These two McNair Scholars as well as the others mentioned being open and recognizing and honoring differences. Assuredly, the scholars communicated similar ideas of educators seriously seeking to obtain knowledge about diversity and using that knowledge to engage and form authentic relationships with culturally diverse students. Their narratives are consistent with Au’s (2009) scholarship, which suggests that multicultural education be grounded in students’ cultural backgrounds. These narratives also align with Gay’s (2010) work asserting that teachers should be students of their students. We believe Ayana’s word choice of “hopeful” speaks to the promise and potential we see among teachers and teacher candidates to acclimate students from diverse backgrounds to our educational system, while simultaneously honoring and affirming students’ cultural identities. Moreover, we believe Ashley’s acknowledgment of individual differences in the classroom is the aim of diverse (multicultural) education and empowers students to feel compelled to engage in the teaching and learning dynamic. That is, culturally responsive education should welcome cultural difference, celebrate and affirm that difference, and use those unique differences as a springboard for teaching and learning in all academic disciplines, especially in urban settings.

Discussion and Implications

This study of McNair Scholars has many discussion points and implications for culturally relevant work generally and urban education spaces more broadly. First, the McNair Scholars expressed seeking and researching efforts to rectify community issues that were influenced by their life and educational experiences. This proposition implies that educational practices should (continue to) be established to teach for social justice, community activism, and the like. These findings suggest that teachers must work to ensure culturally diverse students view themselves as individuals who are vested in community and can critically analyze their prior experiences with the hope of improving and sustaining community (Ladson-Billings, 2009). In her text, Delpit (2012) asserts, “True culture supports its people; it doesn’t destroy them” (p. 7). Similarly, culturally responsive education supports communities and its inhabitants; it does not allow negative societal and deficit orientations to thwart the education of its children. Furthermore, these findings suggest that formal learning environments that support the academic success of diverse students should be intentionally established to facilitate meaningful connections between students’ lived/community experiences and their academic requirements.

Second, the scholars maintained that there is a lack of clarity in content knowledge along with other areas regarding the academic process. As such, teachers of diverse students should seek to incorporate cultural referents in their pedagogical practices and be attuned to the varying needs of diverse student groups (Ladson-Billings, 2009). At the micro-level, individual occurrences such as Ashley’s experience with her undergraduate natural sciences instructor moving hastily through the science content and Jennifer’s experience seeking to learn the American educational system provide examples of how some spaces operate void of culturally relevant practices and demonstrate the critical importance of meeting the needs of diverse learners.

Next, the McNair Scholars in this study were well aware of society’s expectations of them and the limited access to educational opportunities granted to culturally diverse students. As they expressed, these low expectations were infiltrated in the classroom. Maria shared her encounter whereby her teacher articulated who she felt compelled to teach (i.e., White male students). In light of her scenario, we pose the following questions: What sorts of messages were sent to the “other” students concerning this teacher’s expectations of them? How did this exercise affect Maria as well as the students of color in the learning process? If students of color are subjected to this sort of treatment in educational settings, then what are the implications of continuing in the educational pipeline under these constraints?

Interestingly, all of the McNair Scholars expressed that they had limited access to teachers from culturally diverse backgrounds and/or teachers who were culturally sensitive to the needs of culturally diverse student populations. While we recognize that there are teachers who embrace and execute culturally relevant teaching practices, we found that this was the exception in the case of these nine participants. Most of these McNair Scholars’ educators in K-16 were not attuned to the culturally, linguistically diverse needs of their students. The data in this study confirm that there is still a need for some teachers to be more welcoming and supportive of the needs of diverse learners as well as affirming of their cultural identities (Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2009). Importantly, the scholars did not pinpoint a particular race with regard to voicing their needs for culturally sensitive teachers. As such, teachers who are prepared to deliver empowering, liberatory culturally responsive instruction can come from any racial group (Gay, 2010).

Consequently, at the macro-level, educators should provide high-quality education to all students. One pedagogical and theoretical implication of this research is for teacher educators not to pigeonhole multicultural education into a “select few” courses, but to infuse multicultural education and culturally relevant practices into all academic disciplines (Au, 2009). Teacher education programs must have culturally relevant tenets in all courses and provide field experiences that build upon multicultural theory given the call to produce effective culturally conscious teachers for diverse learners (Ladson-Billings, 2009). In addition, the need for educators to be culturally relevant is critically important due to academic achievement, social competence, and critical consciousness being closely related to learning environments that are culturally synchronized (Ford, 2013; Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2009 ; Nieto, 2010). There are many useful resources concerning integrating culturally responsive teaching practices (see, for example, Chartock, 2010; Le, Menkart, & Okazawa-Rey, 2008; Villegas & Lucas, 2002).

Future research is needed in this area, given the increased demographic shift in the United States’ ethnically, culturally, racially, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse student populations, particularly in urban settings. It is projected that by 2040, one out of every three children entering U.S. classrooms will either be an immigrant or the child of an immigrant (Suárez-Orozco, Qin, & Amthor, 2008). Therefore, future studies are needed to address meeting the needs of these students with respect to culturally relevant teaching. In addition, more work is needed on specific (funded) programs charged with preparing culturally diverse students to be equipped with the skills to thrive in variegated academic climates. Future research work should include more critical investigations on programs (i.e., Teach for America) and models (i.e., UTeach Model) purportedly preparing teachers for urban school contexts. This work should also include further investigations of public films that inform the discourse concerning who can be effective educators with urban students (Cann, 2013). Finally, future research should build upon Milner’s (2012) evolving typology of urban education and compare and contrast culturally responsive teaching practices in urban intensive, urban emergent, and urban characteristic schools. These are all hugely underexplored research domains, and there are implications for research, teaching, service, and policy for (teacher) educators and culturally diverse students with this work.

Conclusion

This study examined the educational experiences of students of color in the McNair Program by highlighting their stories with respect to culturally relevant teaching. The qualitative case study approach was chosen as the methodological approach for this work because it allowed for the collection of rich data extracted from these nine McNair Scholars. This student population was significant for study because of their academic success in various educational contexts. Utilizing the culturally relevant teaching literature, we critically examined the data and extracted themes for insights for educators, administrators, researchers, policymakers, and the like. To recap, our data revealed that these scholars linked their future research goals to their prior experiences and communities, expressed a lack of clarity concerning academic requirements, achieved in spite of low expectations, and articulated ideas about educators’ knowledge of diversity as well as making connections to culturally diverse students.

Sleeter (2001) argues, “Students of color tend to bring richer experiences and perspectives to multicultural teaching than do most White students” (p. 94). This assertion should be a reflection point for those working in this area to use the voices of students of color, especially with regard to preparing prospective teachers of diverse students, as “experts” in the dialogue concerning culturally relevant teaching, multicultural education, and urban teacher education, to name a few. We posit that researchers pursue investigations that draw upon the voices of culturally diverse students, especially those who have been successful in matriculating through the education pipeline. Programs such as the McNair Program with a track record of producing academically successful students of color should be research havens, given their unique missions to promote academic success among culturally diverse learners.

In closing, educators must research and stay abreast of innovative cultural methods ad nauseam to ensure students and teachers alike are embedded in, challenged by, and propelled to achieve in culturally responsive contexts (Gay, 2010). In addition, we hope and trust that those who read this research study will continue to challenge existing practices that lend themselves to multicultural education, question (and eradicate) the spaces and programs that do not allow culturally affirming educators and environments to thrive, and contribute to the conversations, actions, and resources to help us provide a better and deeper understanding of how multiple contributors to the field of culturally relevant teaching can achieve high-quality education for all students, especially culturally diverse students in urban contexts. The chief mechanism of making this goal a reality for practicing teachers, teacher educators, and the education community at-large is to let our students be our guides.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Christopher C. Jett is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of West Georgia. His research examines the experiences of African American students using critical race and culturally relevant frameworks.

Kezia McNeal Curry is an instructor in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research expertise utilizes multicultural perspectives in curriculum development, curriculum design, and teacher training more broadly.

Sandra Vernon-Jackson is a district mathematics instructional specialist in Duval County Public Schools. Her research explores the experiences of Jamaican girls in mathematics classrooms.

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