Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, National Culture, and Online Instruction: Leading to Learning

Introduction

In introducing any chapter on culturally responsive pedagogy, it seems appropriate to first clarify what is meant by culturally responsive and what is understood by pedagogy. A starting place might be found in the definition that Gay (2010) gives for culturally responsive teaching—a teaching practice which uses “the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them” (p. 31). This definition addresses issues relevant to cultural responsiveness surrounding learning encounters, but what are learning encounters—more specifically, are learning encounters, teaching, and pedagogy synonymous?

Some have noted that the constructs culturally responsive pedagogy, culturally relevant pedagogy, and culturally compatible teaching are used interchangeably in the literature and by practitioners (Brown-Jeffy & Cooper, 2011; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Sobel & Taylor, 2011). However, in this present chapter, it is understood that teaching and pedagogy are quite different in their assumptions and approaches, and that pedagogy is always situated within a cultural matrix that may, or may not, be appreciated by practitioners (Zyngier, 2016). It is further argued that the relative success or failure of any pedagogy depends on the degree to which it recognizes, appreciates, and navigates the cultural context within which it is situated. This is reflected in the definition offered by Alexander (2008):

From a cultural perspective—and this is our central theme—it is important to recall that the word “pedagogy” is itself embedded in a set of cultural assumptions and practices that have shaped the ways in which it has been historically expressed and which shed light on how it might be presently expressed. The word originally came from the Greek (pais +agögos) and can be translated as “leading the child”. It was the custom among the Greek upper and middle classes to entrust their children to a servant (pedagogos) who would lead them to a place where their learning took place. Later, when the term was incorporated into English usage, the role of the pedagogos was mistakenly understood to be that of a teacher—often a rather uncompromising and pedantic teacher: the pedagogue. In the original Greek, however, no instruction was involved: there was only the act of leading the learner to where his or her learning would occur. It is contended that this historic and culturally mediated notion has a still has relevancy and resonance in our own times. Pedagogy was focused, and should continue to focus, on the act of leading—leading learners towards learning—and should not to be conflated with acts of instructing or teaching (Smith, 2006).

In the very language that we use, there are culturally embedded relics that continue to shape behavior and expectations—either distancing the activities of teaching from learning, or seeing them as essentially the same but involving different actors, efforts, and outcomes. In culturally homogenous environment, differences in the roles or assumed priorities of teachers and learners might be simply taken for granted and have little pragmatic consequence. However, in situations of cultural diversity—whether between instructors and their students, or among students themselves—there is at least a pressing invitation to reconsider pre-existing cultural assumptions, to challenge them, and to find new meanings (or perhaps old resurrected meanings) in these new contexts.