794802
UEXXXX10.1177/0042085918794802Urban EducationBrown et al.
research-article2018
Article
Moving Culturally
Relevant Pedagogy From
Theory to Practice:
Exploring Teachers’
Application of Culturally
Relevant Education in
Science and Mathematics
Urban Education
1–29
© The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918794802
DOI: 10.1177/0042085918794802
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Bryan A. Brown1, Phillip Boda1 ,
Catherine Lemmi1, and Xavier Monroe1
Abstract
This article reports on urban elementary teachers’ understandings of cultural
relevancy and the practices they enacted after a professional development
on culturally relevant education (CRE) and cognitive apprenticeship. Focus
group interviews support that participating teachers understood some
principles of CRE but did not always match the theory to practice before our
professional development. After training, video data of teaching support that
this divide was mediated. These findings point to a need to engage in explicit
theory-to-practice research about cultural relevancy in urban science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching. Implications are
provided relating to teachers planning lessons purposefully to infuse cultural
relevancy into their STEM classrooms.
Keywords
science, scale construction, mathematics, identity, teacher development,
urban education
1Stanford
University, CA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Bryan A. Brown, Stanford University, 520 Galvez Mall, CERAS #228, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Email: brbrown@stanford.edu
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Introduction
American schools continue to blossom with diversity, but as diverse students
populate today’s classrooms, instruction needs to reflect distinct cognitive
and cultural nuances. For years, scholarship praising the virtues of culturally
relevant and culturally responsive instruction has served as a solution to
meeting the needs of our nation’s growing diversity in schools (Aronson &
Laughter, 2016; Gay, 1980, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995, 2014).
Unfortunately, the importance of cultural relevancy in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning is among the
least studied areas of research. Thus, there remains the need to address the
interdisciplinary bandwagon of STEM education that is prevalent in many
current educational policies (McGuinn, 2012) for effective urban education.
Even as new analyses are being published on the influence of culturally
relevant tenets in science education (Brown, 2017), the importance of culture
and its influential role within the fundamental way students learn STEM is
lacking and liminal (Rodriguez, 2015). With some exceptions (e.g., Emdin,
2010; Milner, 2011; Rodriguez, 2001), STEM education remains stagnant to
infuse cultural relevancy within its urban education research. While English
education researchers have long argued the benefits of teaching students literacy practices while allowing students to appreciate their own culture
(Duncan-Andrade, 2007; Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2002), STEM education has been slow to follow suit.
In an effort to address this concern, we adopt Christine Sleeter’s (2012)
argument for applying cultural relevancy in education that suggests researchers provide evidence-based assessments of academic impact of cultural relevancy principles to compliment the research highlighting its positive affective
impact. We add onto this framework by also studying how culturally based
tenets of teaching and learning can be fostered within STEM teachers through
a professional development designed to help them adopt this paradigm into
their practices.
While data support that research can be enhanced by the inclusion of theory-to-practice studies of culturally relevant principles (e.g., Adjapong,
2017), the literature on urban STEM teacher learning about these principles
is sparse. Thus, this research article reports on two intentions to address this
lack; namely, (a) what teachers know about using culturally relevant education (CRE) in their STEM teaching and (b) how teachers apply this knowledge. Given that this research draws on Gloria Ladson-Billings’s theory of
culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and Geneva Gay’s articulation of culturally responsive teaching (CRT), we adopted Aronson and Laughter’s (2016)
argument about CRE to ground both foundational theories within the purpose
Brown et al.
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of this study, the professional development given, and the conceptual framework used to analyze collected data. Three research questions then informed
our inquiry:
Research Question 1: What do elementary teachers know about cultural
relevancy in STEM teaching?
Research Question 2: How do elementary teachers envision applying
cultural relevancy in STEM teaching?
Research Question 3: After participating in a professional development,
what principles of cultural relevancy did teachers actually apply in their
urban elementary classrooms?
Literature Review
In a recent review of research on cultural relevancy, Aronson and Laughter
(2016) challenged researchers to translate our knowledge of CRP to teachers
in an effort to better serve diverse student populations. They conclude,
If we truly wish to teach our diverse students populations effectively, we need
to invest in quality teachers prepared and equipped with necessary tools to
promote student success and counter educational reforms that consider
students’ education secondary to return on investment. (p. 199)
Their argument assumes that all teachers have the preparation to reach urban
students, but that is not always the case in STEM. Scholars have reported the
positive impact when teacher education programs utilize cultural relevancy
to educate new elementary STEM teachers (Ramirez, McCollough, & Diaz,
2016), and research on CRE within STEM has shown promise to highlight
the power of adopting culturally relevant tenets for teaching diverse students
(see Brown, 2017, for a recent metasynthesis). In much of the existing STEM
education research, however, CRE involves small-scale case studies of
teacher practices (Adams, 2016; Emdin, 2010; Rodriguez, 2001; Rodriguez,
Jones, Pang, & Park, 2004).
In a study that integrated science, mathematics, and critical literacy, A.
Adams and Laughter (2012) used activities requiring students to analyze a
fictitious text that integrated science and mathematics, showcasing student
insights about bias as a component of scientific research. Others, like
Rodriguez et al. (2004), studied a social transformative constructivism framework that called for students to construct knowledge in ways to feel empowered to use scientific knowledge in their own community. Dimmick (2012)
also provides another study of environmental justice to engage students in an
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empowering science and mathematics education by designing projects to
help them draw a connection between environmental science and mathematics and their own learning. Thus, STEM education research has found that
cultural relevancy has the potential to allow students to gain a rich understanding of STEM and its connection to their local communities.
Turning to STEM teacher education, while some scholars focus on teachers’ ideologies about teaching and learning, Johnson, Brown, Carlone, and
Cuevas (2011) offered a framework for teaching STEM at the university level
that called for CRE that improves students’ understanding of STEM inside
and outside of the classroom. These authors’ Transformative Professional
Development framework attempted to help faculty rethink science and mathematics to build relationships between students, faculty, and the community.
While apparently being pushed at the undergraduate level, the poignancy of
this call for cultural relevancy is not sufficiently heard within K-12 STEM
teacher education research base.
STEM teacher education is often seen in elementary contexts within the
novel use of technology such as robots and game design with weak ties to
culturally relevant principles (e.g., Kim et al., 2015; Leonard et al., 2017), but
the focus is on STEM as a culture of indoctrination rather than the culture of
the students’ lives as valuable areas of inquiry. These inquiries lack interrogation of students’ cultures in STEM teacher education and actively avoid
recent calls for embracing cultural relevancy (Young, Young, & Paufler,
2017) and social justice–oriented goals (Sondel, Koch, Carrier, & Walkowiak,
2017) in STEM teacher education. Moreover, it neglects the positive effects
reported by diverse urban K-12 students when this latter, more critical, application of cultural relevancy is incorporated into STEM learning environments (e.g., King, 2017) and the nature of identity formation as a function of
STEM education structures that have been highlighted as crucial for studying
urban students’ identities vis-à-vis belonging in STEM fields as directly connected to racialization (Nasir & Vakil, 2017).
To this end, we, like Christopher Emdin (2010), have drawn insight from
critical literacy studies and call on teacher educators to extend their notions
of STEM teacher education. Emdin (2009) has argued for a more complex
understanding of diverse urban contexts as sites where hybrid cultures
emerge. Indeed, our view as researchers of the term “urban” is akin to
Emdin’s (2016) argument where urban is a coded term for poor Black and
Brown youth that “white folks” struggle to connect with because their practices mask existing power relations and deny the realities borne and fostered
within urban classrooms. Given the small number of studies on cultural relevancy in STEM teacher education research must consider how to draw connections between the interdisciplinary field of STEM education in an effort
Brown et al.
5
to educate teachers to bridge the theory-to-practice divide. It is here where we
turn to emphasize the literature base of mathematics education to guide the
infusion of cultural relevancy in STEM teacher education with the additional
integration of cognitive apprenticeship.
Cultural Relevancy in Mathematics: What We Know About
Pushing Theory to Practice
Research on cultural relevancy in mathematics education has been more progressive compared with its scientific counterpart (Enyedy & Mukhopadhyay,
2007; Tate, 1995; Timmons-Brown & Warner, 2016). For example, Tate’s
(1995) seminal article focused on the need for teachers to bridge the theory to
practice relationship between CRP and mathematics that revealed a richly
nuanced appropriation of mathematical reasoning, creation of algorithms,
and statistical reasoning that were rooted in African American culture.
Scholars have also integrated culturally relevant principles into mathematics
in pursuit of social and cultural contexts that offer an empowered alternative
to students (Moses & Cobb, 2001). Moreover, Civil and Khan (2001b) found
that allowing students to use math in the context of family conversations and
experiences with gardening projects enhanced their appreciation of both their
community and the math discipline. Others, such as Nelson-Barber and Estrin
(1995), have also outlined how Native American culture and epistemic
frameworks were deeply rooted in rich mathematics culture.
Ultimately, CRP mathematics education research has identified the synergies between the cognitive activities of mathematics and the nuanced cultural
existence of students of color, which has provided valuable insight for understanding how to train mathematics teachers. To approach STEM teacher education in relation to cultural relevancy, though, requires a different approach
due to its devotion to interdisciplinary practices for students to learn particular skills. This required the notion of cognitive apprenticeship to inform our
own research project.
Cognitive Apprenticeship
One consideration in response to the critique suggesting CRE needs to better
incorporate learning integrates cultural relevancy within contemporary learning frameworks such as cognitive apprenticeship (i.e., Collins, Brown, &
Newman, 1988). This approach to teaching provides a paradigm for explaining how learning occurs in the context of meaningful interactions. Originally
framed as an extension to constructivist theories, Collins et al. (1988) argued
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that the contextualization of learning through meaningful tasks allows students to be aware of their own learning process:
To make real differences in students’ skill, we need both to understand the
nature of
expert practice and to devise methods that are appropriate to learning that
practice. To do this, we must first recognize that cognitive strategies are central
to integrating skills and knowledge in order to accomplish meaningful tasks.
They are the organizing principles of expertise, particularly in such domains as
reading, writing, and mathematics. (p. 2)
Although STEM was left out of their original framing, their paradigm is useful when thinking about how to educate urban teachers to respond to the realities of their students’ lives to foster fruitful STEM learning. Their position
advocated for the placement of apprentices (students) in situations where
they could become aware of their learning and acquire knowledge as a requisite component of engaging in meaningful tasks. Given that this theory of
learning was articulated in the abstract, they also provided practice-based
phases that teachers and researchers could use to track the emergence of cognitive apprenticeship within real-world contexts.
The first phase of this framework was rather than teaching concepts in the
abstract, students should be taught in the context of meaningful problems.
The second phase of learning involved Modeling, or teacher-centered activities. In the third phase, coaching, the teacher shifts the activities toward student-centered activities where the master helps the apprentice in “choosing
tasks, providing hints and scaffolding, evaluating the activities of apprentices
and diagnosing the kinds of problems they are having” (Collins et al., 1998,
p. 3). Finally, this approach closes with the set of activities that scaffold learning goals pushing students to refine their thoughts with a teacher’s aid. The
idea here is to allow the student to become expert by enabling them the time
to do it on their own. In the context of teaching, this would involve students
having the opportunity to be involved in explanation, evaluation, and careful
argumentation about a phenomenon.
The cognitive apprenticeship framework has been colloquially described
as the “I do it, We do it, You do it” approach to teaching; however, the cognitive apprenticeship framework finds its inclusion for this research in how it
describes the importance of students being aware of the value of their learning in apprenticeship contexts. Ultimately, research on learning in this fashion has affirmed both the efficiency of learning (Chi, Leeuw, Chiu, &
LaVancher, 1994; Collins, 1991) and the relevance of the content for students
(Aronson & Laughter, 2016; Esposito & Swain, 2009). The question that
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7
remains unexplored is what is gained by integrating of CRE within cognitive
apprenticeship (CA)?
Melding CA and CRE. As described above, one of the long-standing critiques
of CRE involves its connection to learning outcomes (Sleeter, 2012). Given
the years of research on the impact of cognitive apprenticeship instruction
and its connection to learning (Collins, 1991; Dennen & Burner, 2008), an
integration of cognitive apprenticeship with culturally relevant principles
may influence how STEM education can be situated beyond a theoretical
realm of learning and be contextualized within students’ lived realities and
their communities.
In other words, as students are being provided problems that create the
necessity for learning, an integrated framework would cast these problems in
culturally relevant ways because would teachers toggle back and forth
between the teacher-centered “Modeling” phases and the student-centered
“Coaching” phases, all the while asked to create CRP versions of modeling
and coaching activities. Finally, to integrate these two phases, the
“Scaffolding” portion of these types of lessons would require the teacher to
use a diversity of formative and summative assessments that would allow
students to explain phenomenon in socially and culturally relevant ways.
We adopted an integrated model of cultural relevancy and cognitive
apprenticeship to emphasize within a professional development program provided for elementary teachers that were being asked to teach STEM. For
example, as our participating teachers attempted to design lessons plans, they
did so with the intent of creating lessons that were both culturally relevant
and designed to create learning central to cognitive apprenticeship teaching.
In doing so, we focused on the tenets of cultural relevancy and cognitive
apprenticeship highlighted above to guide our professional development purpose and modes of inquiry. Given that we use Aronson and Laughter’ (2016)
framework, below we provide our own conceptual framework interpretation
of CRE to clarify our meanings and uses of the term in relation to our professional development model, research design, and data analysis.
Conceptual Framework
As a paradigm, teaching that is culturally responsive focuses on instruction
that is committed to student empowerment. Similarly, CRP was designed to
enable students to transition from passive recipients to acquiring meaningful
knowledge that allows them to see themselves as social justice agents. While
complementary, there are distinct nuances pertinent for understanding their
uses in this project. Below we offer our interpretations.
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Gloria Ladson-Billings’s (1994) landmark text and associated studies
(Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2014) called educators to understand CRP, which
asked educators to use pedagogy that used the content to empower students
socially, intellectually, and politically. As students gained academic skills,
they were to simultaneously gain a rich understanding of their role as agents
of change. Geneva Gay (1980) offered a similar framework on teaching,
which she named culturally responsive teaching (CRT) where her more practice-oriented approach encouraged teachers to use instruction to validate students’ culture—as similar theoretical ground seen currently in asset-based
pedagogies (Paris & Alim, 2014). Gay’s scholarship asked teachers to use
transformative teaching that would show students the value of their own culture, while simultaneously teaching them the content. Aronson and Laughter’s
(2016) recent review of CRE synthesized these to frameworks in a way that
we propose using the nuances of each of these theories in our analysis.
For the purposes of this study, we adopted Aronson and Laughter’s (2016)
idea of combining the macro-scale and paradigmatic thinking of CRP with
the classroom-focused CRT into a theory-to-practice framework: CRE. In
short, to be effective in the classroom, we posit that urban STEM teachers
must develop a deep understanding of how the content impacts the culture of
their students (CRP), while also understanding what pedagogical moves they
must make to improve student learning in relation to students cultural and
linguistic practices that are brought into the classroom to be subsequently
leveraged by the teacher (CRT). It is through the infusion and integration of
these two elements that we found a clarity in how Aronson and Laughter’s
(2016) proposition for CRE could make sense in terms of our project. This
integrated framework is how we as researchers have approached both the elements of CRP pertinent to our professional development program and the
analysis of the data collected for this project. We now turn to elaborating on
the research design.
Method
This qualitative study integrated interview and video data to explore what
teachers knew about and did with cultural relevancy in teaching. To gain a
perspective that was capable to assessing both theory and practice, we used a
one-shot case design with two analysis methods (interviews and video analysis). Figure 1 provides an overview of our research project.
To get a clear sense of the teachers’ understanding of CRE and their practice, we followed a group of teachers over a course of a year to gain insight
about how they understood and used cultural relevancy in their urban elementary teaching.
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Figure 1. Overview of study design.
Participants
This project followed the teachers of the Dashawn Holloway School.1 The
school is a STEM charter school for Grades K-5. The school is located in a
large metropolitan city in Northern California with a population of more than
400,000 people. The school served a 100% African American male student
population, as it was a charter school designed to get African American males
involved in STEM opportunities. At the time of this study, the school was
nearing the end of its first academic year. The participating teachers were
from a variety of different backgrounds and professional preparation experiences. As seen in Table 1, eight of nine participating teachers were of African
American decent. They also brought to the classroom a variety of training
experiences (see Table 1). Most were either from Teach for America (TFA) or
graduates from the local State University’s elementary education program.
This variety of experiences provided a rich participant pool for our professional development.
The Professional Development
The school founders asked the first author to provide professional development about cultural relevancy for the school’s teachers. This author agreed to
provide this development within the CRE paradigm elaborated in the conceptual framework section above with no compensation. The school and teachers
agreed to be the subject of this research study as a component of this professional development. Each of the teachers in the study indicated they participated in previous instruction about culturally relevant teaching. Their
previous training involved instruction about CRE in their teacher training
programs (both traditional and TFA). They also participated in a school-sponsored training about CRE instruction for the school. Despite these training
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Table 1. Overview of Research Participants.
Grade
Pseudonym
M/F
1
Chloe Butler
F
1
Lisa Bettis
F
3
Barry Malcolm
M
4
Ray Maxwell
M
3
Jordan Nance
M
K
F
4
Serrita
Patterson
George Randle
M
2
Sallie Mason
F
Coach Clark Canton
M
Race
Background
African
5th-year teacher. Served as
American
one of the founding teachers.
Credentialed at local university.
African
Former 4th-grade teacher. Taught
American
for 3 years. Credentialed at local
university, new to the area.
African
1st-year teacher. Working in TFA
American
first year program.
Caucasian 1st-year teacher. Working in TFA
American
first year program.
African
1st-year teacher. Working in TFA
American
first year program.
African
25-year veteran teacher who was
vital to the design of the school.
American
African
14-year veteran teacher who was
American
credentialed at a local university.
He was hired to serve as a mentor
teacher for the younger teachers.
African
7-year veteran teacher. Who was
American
credential through a local teacher
educational program.
African
Teacher specialist.
American
opportunities, the teachers noted that the professional development never
addressed how to apply CRE instruction to mathematics and science teaching. Thus, the first author was asked to offer a STEM specific professional
development about CRE.
The professional development involved four stages: First, the teachers
participated in prefocus group interviews in teams of three to discuss what
they knew about CRE; second, the teachers participated in a professional
development program that taught them about CRE and cognitive apprenticeship teaching approaches.
For the CRE training, the teachers were involved in a day-long session
that explored the principles in the readings reviewed, sample videos, and
concluded with the establishment of working groups for teachers to apply the
training techniques. For the second day of training, held a week later, teachers were taught the four-stage cognitive apprentice teaching approach.
Participants were taught to organize their lessons into four components: (a)
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establishing a problem, (b) modeling activities, (c) coaching, and (d) scaffolding activities. Similar to the first session, this 8-hr training involved
teachers working on applying these principles in small groups. The third
phase of lesson planning involved the teachers delivering a draft lesson plan
to the research team for review. Fourth, and finally, the teachers allowed the
research team to visit their classroom the day they taught the CRE lesson.
The videos were coded and analyzed using event map analysis methods
(Bleicher, 1994; Green, Camilli, & Elmore, 2012).
Data Collection and Analysis
Research Questions 1 and 2—Interviews. These semistructured interviews
involved 10 questions about the CRE approach using the prompting strategy
outlined by Kvale (1983). The interviewer asked each group the same questions and used prompts for clarification (Basch, 1987; Miles & Huberman,
1994). Next, the interviews were transcribed and reviewed for accuracy.
After the initial review, we engaged in a two-tiered analysis of the data using
a domain analysis approach (Spradley, 2018). In domain analysis, the
research team codes the distinctions between themes based on theoretically
significant themes. In our case, the focus was identifying patterns and reasoning patterns associated with CRE. After initial analysis of the data, we coded
the primary categories into subcomponents based on emerging patterns. This
two-tiered analysis served as the foundation of our interview analysis.
Research Question 3—Event mapping. To explore what practices teachers used
in their analysis, we used a video analysis method known as event mapping
(Green et al., 2012; Hammersley, 2003). In event mapping, the video is converted into code-ready data by creating a map of the events in the classroom.
Event mapping is a multiunit coding process that focuses on analysis classroom
video using a four-category coding system. The basic unit is a Sequence Unit.
A sequence unit is marked by changed in topic, speaker, or tone of voice. Each
time a new sequence is identified, the coder created a new time stamp and also
created a code summary of the video activity that was coded by type. The second tier of the video coding process involved identifying clusters of sequences
that combined to achieve a given end. For example, if a series of sequences
were used to review homework, the macro analytical category of the Phase
Unit would be added to label the series of sequences. After one member created
the maps, a second team member reviewed video and the event map for reliability. After the initial review, the team met to review discrepancies in the
coding. Using event maps, we were able to create an index of the language used
throughout the lessons (Bleicher, 1994; Green et al., 2012).
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An event map has three components: time, phase units, and sequence
units, each of which will be elaborated on after Table 2 below provides an
example of this process.
In the time column, the research tracks and indexes how each interaction
was framed by classroom talk. The sequence units are summarized versions
of the video transcript and are delineated by changes in the speaker, changes
in topic, and changes in the tone or direction of conversation. Using the event
maps as our primary video data source, we began our taxonomical analysis of
the teaching practices used by the teachers. After identifying phase units and
sequence units, we engaged in a detailed taxonomical analysis of the types of
sequence units. We grouped the sequence units into categories based on similarities. For instance, a sequence where the teacher explains a culturally relevant problem to start a cognitive apprenticeship lesson would be put into the
“CRE Establish a Problem” category. Engaging in this iterative process of
creating event maps and coding the types of sequence units used provided us
a map of the ways teachers organized their lessons.
Coding reliability. To ensure the reliability of the coding process, we conducted
a similar reliability review for both research methodologies. In both cases, we
assigned individuals to review the original video files (interview and classroom) and match them with the transcripts. In the case of the interview, we
cleaned the interview transcript by listening to the video and then edited misspelled or misunderstood words. In the case of the event maps, the maps were
created and then reviewed by watching the video along with the event maps
to correct for errors. For the videos, we coded using HyperResearchTM software using an inductive method. After an initial review, a second reviewer
examined each code and marked errors. We then calculated use randomizer.
org to produce a subset of 25% of the codes. We reviewed these codes for
accuracy and calculated the coder interrater reliability of 93.0%. In a similar
fashion, we coded the resulting video categories from the event map and met
to discuss discrepancies. We reviewed the video coding by examining 100%
of the coding and identified a coder reliability of 82%.
Findings
In our exploration of teachers’ understanding of how to use CRE, we learned
that although all teachers were familiar with the construct, few understood its
pedagogical implications. Although teachers understood CRE principally, few
could describe how CRP provided a contrast to other instructional approaches.
After engaging in a professional development about CRE, we used event mapping video analysis to understand how teachers applied what they learned.
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Table 2. Sample of an Event Map.
Day
Time
Phase
description
1
0:00-0:08 Pre-Class
Activities
0:08-1:48
1
1:49-6:55
1
6:5613:22
1
13:2315:16
1
15:1723:05
1
23:0633:33
Modeling
Activities
Coaching
Activities
Sequence description
Video begins
Students come into
classroom. Students walk
in and sit in their desks.
Introduction to topic
subtracting decimals in
the context of buying
shoes for a birthday
present with a gift card.
Watch video and fill in
blanks about decimals.
T asks class to list the
steps to subtracting
decimals, calls on Ss to
answer.
T writes sample problems
on whiteboard, calls on
volunteers to come to
board to work out the
problems.
Ss pick groups and work
in groups to solve the
subtraction problem
Notes
Relates to student’s
knowledge of
shoes. Establishes
problem.
Students are using
handout to write
answers.
Student wants to
contribute, may be
influenced by video.
This video analysis revealed two primary applications of CRE for STEM
teaching. First, when teachers designed their lessons, they used a cognitive
apprenticeship approach to apply CRE by focusing on teaching new content in
the context of racially specific phenomenon. Second, teachers readily used
CRE in their formative and summative assessments by focusing on racially
and culturally specific topics to create relevant contexts for students.
Analysis, Research Question 1: Unpacking Teacher’s CRE
Knowledge via Interviews
Our initial analysis of the teacher’s use of CRE focused on gaining an understanding of the teachers’ thinking prior to the academic year. Through focus
group interviews, we coded the teacher’s response into four macro domains
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(Table 3 summarizes the findings). One such code descriptor, “CRE
Knowledge,” was found when participating teachers shared their knowledge
of CRE teaching practices. Teachers also described how CRE impacted
changes in their STEM lesson plans, which were coded with the descriptor
“CRE Lesson Applications.” A number of teachers described their history
applying CRE approaches in their teaching that we coded with the descriptor
“CRE teaching experience.” Finally, the last macro domain of analysis captured instances of talk where teachers expressed confusion or concern about
how CRE could be applied to STEM teaching. We described these instances
with the code descriptor “CRP Misunderstandings.” Collectively, the variety
of responses help shed light on what teachers knew about CRP teaching in
STEM education.
The majority of the focus group’s discussion of CRE centered on conceptions of what constituted cultural relevancy in STEM education. Chloe, a
kindergarten teacher explained, “I think [CRE] means the curriculum focuses
or centers learning around their experiences, culture, and what they understand.” Clark shared a similar perspective but placed greater emphasis on
ethnic identity as he described CRE teaching by saying, “I think it means
instruction relevant to their background and their culture. Their ethnicity and
teaching and showing them how it is put in real life.” Jordon, though, adopted
an approach focusing more on pre-assessment emphasizing how the teachers
needed to understand how to make the curriculum relevant. He explained,
So, I would just say at first I think it comes from understanding your students.
Knowing your students, and who they are. It’s about understanding their
cultural background and what interests them and draws them in. Asking and
finding out what engages them in terms of just being culturally relevant.
Indeed, this idea of assessing and understanding students’ interest was
shared broadly. Many of the participating teachers described how CRE
required teachers to assess student culture and design instruction to impact
the lives of students. Despite the seeming uniformity of definition, others
offered warnings about being too prescriptive of what constituted the notion
of “culture.” Sallie, a veteran teacher, challenged her focus group as she
explained,
And at the same time, just knowing that there’s just not one monolithic culture.
Even though you’re dealing with a demographic of people, that culture can still
be wide ranging. So, for me to make it relevant means making it something that
students are familiar with and important to them. It has to be something they
value. It has to be something they see themselves in the pedagogy.
Table 3. Overview of Descriptions of CRE STEM Teaching.
Code
Code description
CRE Knowledge
These are instances of talk in which the
teacher explains what he or she knows
about Culturally Relevant Education
or gives his or her own definition of
Culturally Relevant Education.
CRE Lesson Applications
These are instances of talk in which a
teacher explains how he or she changes
his or her lesson plan to be culturally
relevant or gives examples of a culturally
relevant lesson plan.
These are instances of talk where
teachers explain their experience
teaching CRP in urban schools.
CRE Teaching Experience
CRE Misunderstanding
These are instances of talk in which the
teacher responds to a question by
saying that he or she forgot the answer.
Example
Chloe: Okay. What I think Culturally Relevant
Education means is . . . instruction that the
students can relate to. And I think it means
a curriculum that focuses or centers learning
around their experiences and their culture
and what they understand.
Amy: I always try to use real life examples
when I teach [science and mathematics]. I try
to find example in real life that they can relate
to.
Jordan: I have been teaching for 14 years. I have
always tried to teach CRP in a self-contained
classroom. And so [science and mathematics]
wasn’t a core subject so I mixed it in with
other things.
I forgot I do not remember how social justice
teaching and CRP relate. I am not sure.
Note. CRE = culturally relevant education; STEM = science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; CRP = culturally relevant pedagogy.
15
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Urban Education 00(0)
Her explanation framed the challenge of CRP teaching in STEM as making
sure the students are able to see the connection between science and mathematics and their own lives and community.
Analysis, Research Question 2: Application of CRE to STEM
Teaching
To dig deeper into the teachers’ understanding of how to apply CRE teaching
in STEM, we conducted a secondary analysis of our primary code “CRP
Knowledge.” We coded these responses into four sub codes: “Student
Experiences,” “Student Culture,” “Students Prior Knowledge,” and “Student
Ethnicity.” The four sub-codes provided insight into how participating teachers adopted the CRE approach in STEM.
Several of our teachers described how their approach to using CRE
involved teaching content that was rooted in the experiences of their children.
Sallie explained, “The science and mathematics has to be something students
are familiar with.” Chloe agreed and elaborated, “The science and mathematics has to center around their experiences.” Later, Chloe explained that when
she taught STEM using a CRE approach, “the science and mathematics lesson has got to center around their culture.” Jordan also added, “I always try
to use real life examples when I teach science and mathematics. I try to find
examples in real life that they can relate to.” Although vague, his explanation
matched many of his other colleagues who discussed how they attempted to
connect STEM with students’ culture. Still others chose to take a more
knowledge-focused approach. One teacher described that, “[science and
mathematics] has got to be based on things they already understand.” Finally,
some teachers placed greater emphasis on understanding students’ ethnic
identity. Serrita made this point as she explained, CRE focus on science and
mathematics by sharing: “Instruction has to be relevant to their ethnicity and
it has to be in real life form.” Whether the teacher explained CRE as being
associated with students’ experience, culture, ethnic identity, or prior knowledge, none of the teachers explained how CRE was associated with a particular instructional practice, which led to a more fine-grained analysis.
The struggle with CRE applications. As described above, teachers expressed
awareness of the concept of CRE in STEM but offered little explanation
about teaching techniques. Later on in the interview protocol when attempting to elicit these applications, Chloe explained, “I always try to use examples. Real life examples.” Others focused more on the location of the lessons.
For example, Serrita offered, “I make sure my lessons involve more than just
being in the classroom” while George, a veteran teacher, discussed the
Brown et al.
17
necessity of making topics “concrete.” Still others focused on text. Barry
elaborated that, “it is all about being purposeful about, you know the text you
are reading. It is about being purposeful about knowing what their interests
are. You have to find out what fires your students up.” Finally, Ray called for
a shift away from standards-based teaching to make the content culturally
relevant. He capitalized on this notion by stating,
I think it has to be more on culture and less on the standards-based academic side.
It has to be more on the social side. I feel like it has a lot more to do with how you
carry yourself and how you interact with each other. I am not totally sure.
Ray and others like him reflected upon the fact that although the teachers
were teaching in a school based on CRE teaching, their application of the
framework was overtly theoretical and lacked detailed descriptions of alterations to instructional practice. The results of this first analysis highlighted the
complexities of preparing teachers to adopt CRE teaching in STEM.
Analysis, Research Question 3: Video Analysis of CRP Lessons
In our video analysis, we moved away from the teachers’ descriptions of
practice toward documenting the teachers’ actual implementation of practice.
Using event maps as our primary source of data, we coded the teacher’s
instructional segments by type. The data suggest that the teachers applied
some of these CRE practices to STEM lessons, but not uniformly. One of the
practices that the teachers adopted from the CRE professional development
involved the use of the four-phase approach to teaching based on a cognitive
apprenticeship model (Establish a Problem, Model, Coaching, and
Scaffolding). Several teachers were able to adopt a CRE application of the
teaching approach in the STEM lessons, while others struggled with this
application. For example, Sallie taught a math lesson on subtracting using
two decimals in the context of gift cards and “Gucci ‘Swag’ Shoes.” While
this example could be seen as superficially integrating culture vis-à-vis
“shoes” as a real-world connection, its connection to the specific interests of
the students provides an example of the “weak cultural ties” needed for further connection from an outsider of the cultural group of the students (Baron,
2000). To provide a context for the lesson, she introduced the concept in the
following way:
Teacher: Torian read the title for me
Torian: Mr. S.G.’s Birthday Surprise
Teacher: Right, Mr. S.G.s Birthday Surprise. Let me tell you guys about
Mr. S.G.s birthday surprise. Isaiah, can you read the problem for me?
18
Urban Education 00(0)
Isaiah: Reading inaudibly . . .
Teacher: I need you to put your head up and then we can all hear you.
Thank you, scholar.
Isaiah: Ms. Sallie needs your help. Today is Mr. S.G.’s birthday. Ms. Sallie
wants to buy him a new pair of shoes. The shoes cost $157 dollars and
90 cents ($157.90). But Ms. Sallie only has $78.50 on her gift card. Ms.
Sallie needs your help to find out how much more money she needs to
pay. (Establish a problem sequence 3:47-5:39)
Sallie followed this introduction by a series of activities that integrated CRE
with the Cognitive Apprenticeship (CA) approach to teaching (Establish a
Problem, Model, Coaching, Scaffolding). In Sallie’s particular case, she followed the problem with a brief animated video explaining how to subtract
two-digit decimals. The students watched the brief video and wrote down the
“rules” for adding and subtracting two-digit decimals. This was taught in the
context of making decisions about buying shoes that were appropriate for
their families. When shifting to a more student-centered approach (modeling), students were asked to create and exchange problems. They worked on
generating and solving problems in a small group setting. Finally, to give
students an opportunity to explain the concept (scaffolding), Sallie asked students to record a video of them presenting an explanation of how to use math
(subtracting two-digit decimals) to determine whether it is wise to buy expensive shoes. See Table 4 for a summary of the findings.
Data also support other teachers adopted each of the cognitive apprenticeship phases in their STEM lesson while taking a culturally relevant focus, as
well. Table 5 provides an overview of how teachers, like Sallie, applied both
CRE and CA, with each section described in more depth thereafter with
exemplars provided for the reader.
Establishing a Problem
One of the practices taught in the professional development involved building a synergy between science and mathematics concepts and the students’
culture. Many teachers designed their lessons based on what they deemed a
CRE problem. The teachers started their lessons by creating problems that
provided students with the need to learn the content within a context that was
pertinent to the students’ lives. All of our participating teachers applied this
principle in their planning. One example was when, Serrita, in an attempt to
teach about sunlight and energy, taught a lesson about a fictional character
named “Melanin Man.” The problem that served as the foundation for her
kindergarten lesson was that a scholar was crying after being teased for being
too dark. She introduced the lesson this way:
Table 4. Types of Learning Activities for CRE.
Code name
Code description
Cognitive
Apprenticeship
These are phases of interaction in which teacher
uses one or more of the cognitive apprenticeship
strategies “model, coach, fade.”
Formative
Assessment
These are phases of interaction in which teacher
uses formative assessment strategies to judge
or measure student understanding of scientific
concepts or vocabulary.
These are phases of interaction in which teachers
use pedagogical strategies that specifically target
student learning of scientific language.
Language
Learning &
Strategies
Relevant
Content
These are phases of interaction in which teachers
relate content to topics that are relevant to
students’ lives in some way.
Scientific
Practices
These are phases of interaction in which teachers
and/or students engage in scientific practices or
elements of the scientific method.
These are phases of interaction in which teachers
uses other pedagogical strategies that are not
explicitly formative assessment, language learning,
cognitive apprenticeship, relevant content, or
scientific practices.
Non-Categorical
Pedagogical
Strategies
19
Note. CRE = culturally relevant education.
Example
0:00-6:04 Teacher describing going to a zoo in the
fall. Discussion was about Q: What type of shoes
to wear to the zoo in fall? Flip-flops? (Grade 1:
lesson regarding Seasons).
11:03-15:00 Teacher asks students one by one to
say why they think we all have diff skin color.
(Grade K: lesson on melanin and pigments).
27:07-32:27 Teacher asked students to “share
out” one science and mathematics sentence with
a partner that used new words and then asked
them to share with the class.
6:58-10:06 The students worked on
comprehension questions that were connected
to the local drought. They wrote about whether
the “Drought was good or bad?
23:09-28:53 Students were asked to discuss their
favorite seasons by creating a graph.
19:48-23:08 The students were required to create
a story. This story was them explaining how
seasons worked in their lives.
20
Table 5. How Teachers Integrated CRE With CA Lessons.
Code name
Contextual Problems
Modeling Activities
Coaching Activities
Scaffolding Activities
Code description
These are activities where students
were presented with problems
that embed cultural relevancy.
The problem requires learning the
content to answer the questions
associated with the problem
These are phases of interaction in
which the teacher models for the
class or for individual students how
to do an activity or problem.
These are phases of interaction in
which teacher coaches or helps
students to do an activity or
problem.
These are phases of interaction in
which the teacher fades into the
background, allowing students to
complete a problem or activity on
their own or in groups
Note. CRE = culturally relevant education; CA = cognitive apprenticeship.
Example
6:03-7:26 The teacher uses a problem of a Zombie
attack to teach the concept of erosion. He uses the
TV show Walking Dead to craft a scenario where the
erosion of a mountainside housing a safe prison is
quickly eroding.
8:49-13:33 Teacher uses a video to teach the parts of
the plant. Students watch video on plant parts, how
they help plant to get what it needs, T stops video
periodically to re-voice what video is saying.
12:43-32:02 After students were taught math in the
context of purchasing using cash, the teacher had
students work on practice problems to solve money
problems. The teacher was an “assistant.” [grade 5]
1:01-17:20 The teacher had students play a game in
groups of four. Students acted out one of the parts of
a plant and the audience tries to guess what part they
are acting out.
Brown et al.
21
I have a problem and I want you to help me solve my problem. This is a serious
problem. It makes me really sad. It makes me really, really, really sad. The
problem is this. One day, I was walking down the hall. I saw two scholars. One
scholar was crying [begins to act like she’s crying]. It made me sad, because I
don’t want anyone to cry at our school. So, I went to him and asked him why
are you crying? And you know what he told me. He was crying because
someone said he had ugly skin. They said he was too black. I didn’t understand
that because I knew a story about a beautiful black bird. I thought black was
beautiful. So, why would he be crying about that?
The lesson continued by asking the students to explain what they knew
about why people’s skins were dark. Ultimately, the big idea of this lesson
was to have students’ knowledge about melanin become a resource for
learning to value the darkness of their skin. The actual STEM content being
taught that day was a simple lesson about the traveling rays of sunlight, in
this particular context, through the value of having higher levels of melanin
in ones’ skin. Other teachers also adopted this practice in both math and
science and mathematics teaching. One teacher taught a lesson on science
and mathematics habitats by discussing affordable pets and creating inexpensive habitats that would allow animals to thrive. Jordan used the
California drought to talk about the Water cycle; Chloe used a lesson on
buying “Icee’s” to explore properties of matter. Still others adopted a more
integrated lens that allowed the “problem” to open the doors for social justice conversations.
Modeling Using CRP Teaching
A second aspect of the teachers’ CRP/Cognitive Apprenticeship lesson planning involved the use of modeling activities. These modeling activities were
essentially teacher-centered activities where students were engaged in common learning tasks (e.g., reading, video analysis, lecture) that were related to
the problem presented in the section above. For example, Serrita began her
introduction of the concept of sunlight by reading the children’s book
Beautiful Black Bird. She skillfully used the narrative of the black bird flying
close to the sun to introduce her elementary students to light waves. Others,
like Jordan, used a reading activity to introduce the fundamentals of the concept. As seen in Table 6, six of the teachers used videos to introduce the
basics of the concepts. In each case, these teachers used videos to teach the
basics of the concepts and followed those videos with discussions that
referred to the initial problem.
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Urban Education 00(0)
Table 6. Cognitive Apprenticeship Modeling via CRE.
Grade
Teacher
Subject
K
Serrita
Sunlight
1
Lisa
Science and
mathematics—Habitat
4
Jordan
4
George
Science and
mathematics—Water
Cycle
Science and mathematics
Food Chains
4
Barry
4
Sallie
5
Barry
5
Ray
Math—Multiplying
Double Digits
Math—Adding and
Subtracting Decimals
Dividing by 2 digit
divisors
Science and
mathematics—Physical
Features of Earth.
CA-modeling
1. Read the Black Bird Book 7:5514:28
2. Tell the story of Melanin Man
15:26-18:04
1. KWL activity [not recorded]
2. Read Aloud “The Snowy Day”
3. Students do TPS about matter
types in the story.
1. Reading Activity about the water
cycle 12:30-18:20
2. Video Explanation 32:38-33:42
1. Lecture 5:14-7:26
2. Video analysis [Brian Pop] 7:2711:4
1. Lecture 1:55-2:45
2. Video Analysis 0:40-1:26
1. Video analysis 21:00-22:35
1. Group Pair Share 13:23-15:16
2. Video Analysis 6:56-13:22
1. Reading Weathering and Erosion
article 15:55-21:35
2. Video analysis 21:36-33:37
Note. CRE = culturally relevant education; CA = cognitive apprenticeship; KWL = Know,
Want to Know, Learned; TPS = Think, Pair, Share.
Opportunities to Explain: Coaching and Fading
The final stages of the lessons documented in our study involved teachers
creating student-centered activities to promote learning. The activities were
of two sorts: First, teachers used a series of modeling activities; second,
teachers used fading activities where students were provided limited support
in an effort to provide them with practice explaining the concepts. These
activities served both formative and summative assessment roles as they
were designed to allow students practice clarifying the newly learned context
while discussing the CRE problem that was used to frame the lesson. Table 7
summarizes these findings.
Table 7. CRP Coaching and Fading activities.
Grade/
teacher
Subject
K
Serrita
Science and mathematics—
Sunlight & Melanin
1
Lisa
Science and mathematics—
Habitat
4
Jordan
Science and mathematics—
Water Cycle
4
George
Science and mathematics—
Food Chains
4
Barry
Math—Multiplying Double
Digits
4
Sallie
Math—Adding and
Subtracting Decimals
5
Barry
5
Ray
Dividing by 2 digit divisors
Science and mathematics—
Physical Features of Earth.
23
Note. CA = cognitive apprenticeship.
CA—Coaching
(1) Learning and practicing the “Melanin” rap 18:34-24:20
(2) Word review “Melanocyte”
30:39-33:32
(1) Video explaining phase change (Brain Pop).
(2) Class discussion.
[Not recorded]
Group of four students act out one of the parts of the plant.
The other students have to guess what part of the plan it is.
1:01-17:20
(1) Drawing a Food Pyramid. 11:41-23:46
(2) Role-Play: Students asked to act out animals and group
categorizes it as carnivore, omnivore & decomposer.
23:47-33:39
(1) Creating poster boards to teach others to do math.
15:17-23:05
(2) Students working on practice problems in small group.
0:00-4:18
(1) Student work in groups to solve an example problem.
29:17-32:13
(1) Reading Comprehension writing task.
2:45-3:29
(1) Student Teach: Students asked to teach each other in a pair
share about erosion and sediment.
Day 2 0:00-9:19
CA—Fading
(1) Students work individually to make their own
Melanin comic book.
5:40-14:50
(1) Classroom writing “story time” about
neighborhood animals and the drought.
[Not recorded]
Food Web Model building (cut outs).
Day 2 13:34-21:27
(1) Creating Food Chains with local foods (Takis,
fruits, vegetables, carne asada).
Day 2 9:33-11:40
(2) Group presentation of food webs and food
chains.
Day 2 11:41-15:29
[Not applicable]
(1) Write script for recording a video for other 4th
graders about dividing with two-digit divisors.
32:14-33:33
(1) Explanatory Lottery Task.
Day 2 0:00-4:33
(1) Students make posters explaining Erosion,
Sediment, Weathering, & Deposition using
Walking Dead scenario.
Day 2 9:20-11:59
24
Urban Education 00(0)
Jordan, for example, offered an example of this when he placed students
in groups of four and asked them to act out the parts of a plant. In a charades
type of game, students were asked to act and explain how the water crisis
might impact the different plant parts. Another example of this approach was
found in Ray’s lesson. Ray asked students to teach each other about the two
primary concepts: sediment and erosion. Ray created a scenario where his
students were asked to work in pairs to explain the concepts, and the model
of the earth, to the fictional character Loki. To ensure the concepts were tied
back to CRE curriculum, he asked the students to explain how erosion could
impact where people could live in the city of Oakland. Given these collective
findings, we are able to make a claim that our training was somewhat successful in its intention to incorporate CRE into STEM elementary teachers’
lessons, but more research is warranted.
Discussion
This study was designed to unpack elementary STEM teachers’ knowledge
and practices associated with CRE. In concluding this work, it is important
to return to the research questions that guided our inquiry. First, we sought
to understand what elementary teachers knew about culturally relevant
STEM teaching. We discovered that ideologically, teachers had a tenuous
awareness of CRE as a construct. However, when pushed to explain how
this construct exists pedagogically, our participating teachers knew little
about how to translate CRE from theory to practice. After the training, we
were able to see these CRE practices come to light in the form of a reframing of cognitive apprenticeship teaching with a CRE focus. Second, we
wanted to understand how these elementary science and mathematics teachers applied CRE teaching in their STEM teaching. As indicated before,
much of their pedagogical focus was on using examples to create a sense of
relevance for the students; however, after the training we noted a more
dynamic application of CRE teaching. The third and final question revealed
how teachers successfully integrated cognitive apprenticeship teaching
with CRE STEM instruction. As they created problems, these problems
focused on cultural problems that reflected students’ backgrounds. As they
switched back from teacher-centered “modeling” activities, to studentcentered “coaching” activities, the teachers continued the narratives of their
cultural examples throughout. Whether they were discussing the value of
melanin in a lesson about sunrays, or the cultural values of fashion despite
a limited budget in a math lesson, the teachers demonstrated a consistency
of application when using the CRE approach. Ultimately, the results of this
Brown et al.
25
study highlight the potential application of effective CRE theory to practice
relationships in STEM.
Limitations
Conclusions and Implications
Despite a limited research base on the impact of CRE-based practices in
STEM, teaching STEM from a CRE perspective is ripe with possibilities. As
teachers plan lessons about science and mathematics ideas, they must develop
a rich understanding of how the concepts they teach apply to the lives of their
students. In our case, teachers used topics like skin color bias, materials, and
students’ love of the TV show The Walking Dead to generate contexts to
teach STEM. As educators continue to focus on improving STEM education
for urban students of color, developing a nuanced understanding of how to
build CRE lessons become vital. With that in mind, extensive professional
development projects of this nature are not always possible, which calls for
educators to rethink our approach to research and training provision.
In reflecting upon what was learned from this project, we identified how
teachers’ desire to improve in their science and mathematics teaching practices could lead to changes in pedagogical practices. What was disconcerting
about this project was that nearly all of the participating teachers, regardless of
their time teaching, never received training about how to apply CRE principles. For them, CRE instruction was an ideology that lived in the realm of
English education and did not have pragmatic STEM applications. This isolationist framework on CRE highlights the necessity to change how we promote
and offer professional development about CRE STEM in urban contexts.
In this current information age, the fact that no free online CRE training
sites are available reflects just how behind the time we are as a field. One of
the most difficult aspects of teaching STEM in a CRE fashion is rethinking it
in culturally specific ways. We can only imagine just how powerful having an
online database of topics, cultural applications, and sample lesson plans
might be for reshaping STEM education in culturally relevant ways for students. Similarly, free online video training websites could change the potential impact of professional development from cohorts of 10 to 20 teachers at
a time to hundreds of thousands worldwide. Ultimately, we learned that when
given product-oriented training and support, with the preparation of CRE
STEM lessons, our teachers were quick to adopt CRE as both theory and
method. The challenge in moving forward is identifying ways to use contemporary resources and technology to provide teachers with the support that
makes STEM instruction accessible for all.
26
Urban Education 00(0)
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.
Note
1.
This is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of the teachers.
ORCID iDs
Phillip Boda
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5797-8139
Xavier Monroe
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9416-3254
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Author Biographies
Bryan A. Brown is an associate professor of science education at Stanford University
who studies how language and culture impact science learning for students of color.
Phillip Boda is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University studying how culture
impacts educational opportunities for marginalized students.
Catherine Lemmi is a graduate student exploring how language and language ideology impact science learners.
Xavier Monroe is a graduate student conducting research on STEM policy.