Cultural Considerations in Postsecondary and Vocational Education: A Discussion on Equity and Accessibility

Fundamental Learning Considerations

The idea of college education has shifted, and educational differentiation is now common or best practice. Generally, differentiation is the attempt to provide equal learning opportunities to students by means of instructional practice. Differentiation and intervention refer not only to educational content and teaching but also the resources that universities offer to ensure individual programmatic success and to foster positive academic culture. There are many reasons for these necessary changes, the principal of which is the requisite to satisfy the need to appease and accept learners of various cultures. Researchers agree that, because people are diverse, there is a necessity to satisfy this diversity (Perez et al., 2012). Ultimately, differentiation and intervention are methods for providing equity and accessibility to students of heterogeneous backgrounds. Bruner (1996) claimed that within every context (i.e., an educational institution) not every system or culture places equal emphasis on identical mechanisms. However, it is relevant for an educational institution to consider the culture and meet the needs of its students where they are. The implication is that educating students is only one part of the larger picture.