An Action Research on “Culturally Responsive Teaching” in Social Studies in a Primary School: An Example of the Immigrants’ Children in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Huang, Yu-ling, 黃玉鈴
• Other Authors: Yen, Pey-ru
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/12099008490402166874

碩士 === 國立臺中教育大學 === 課程與教學研究所 === 99 === The study mainly explored the rationale of “culturally responsive teaching”, analyzed the aspects of “culturally responsive teaching” in practice, developed the action research for the immigrants’ children in the fourth grade of a primary school. Finally, the author provided the suggestions on the practice of “culturally responsive teaching” in the social studies for the fourth-grade immigrants’ children. The study applied the action research method, and collected the data by literature review, interviews, classroom observation, document analysis, feedback sheets and simple questionnaires, etc. This study was aimed at the effects of using “culturally responsive teaching” in social studies in the fourth grade of a primary school. The conclusions of this study were briefed as follows: 1.The aspects of “culturally responsive teaching” in practice (1) There were four aspects to ponder while utilizing the “culturally responsive teaching” in a class, including the teacher’s role, class climate, curriculum design and the instructional strategies. (2)Teachers became more sensitive about the culture diversity through learning multicultural things and through the self-reflection and exploration. (3 )A classroom climate of caring and respect should be created by “developing a multicultural environment,” “setting explicit rules for the behaviors”, “high expectations”, “caring”, and “communicating with students in culturally congruous ways”. (4) Curriculum was scaffolded by cultures, based on the culture analysis, organized in the way of the integrated curriculum and infused curriculum, and designed with the principles of “connecting the authentic life experiences,” “combining the native cultures,” “culturally congruent instructional strategies,” and “frequent feedbacks.” (5) Build a repertoire of instructional strategies that fitted in the students’ learning styles, promoted the interaction between different groups, enhanced critical thinking, and improved weak-trend students’ achievements. 2. Effects of culturally responsive teaching in social studies (1)The “culturally responsive teaching” benefitted the development of the immigrants’ children’s identification of bi-ethnicity while it combined the social studies, transformed the teaching objectives and gave consideration to the local and immigrant cultures. (2)After culturally responsive teaching on social studies, immigrants’ children improved substantially in their attitude and participate toward social studies, but achievements were limited because of their abilities. (3)Culturally responsive teaching could not accommodate all students’ interests and needs in one class, but could enhance all students’ multicultural capacity to respect and tolerate the cultural diversity. (4) Immigrants types in Taiwan were different from those in U.S.A., so immigrants’ moter land culture was too far away from their children’s life experiences. Thus, the enhancement of immigrants’ children’s understanding was limited. (5)The difficulties of applying culturally responsive teaching to social studies were the limits of the writing tests, the teachers’ heavy work, and the lack of time. Based on the above conclusions, some suggestions for teachers and future researchers were made.