Culturally Responsive Teaching to Empower Indigenous Student Communities

Introduction

This chapter presents the program A Bet for the Future, a project developed at the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP), a private university in Puebla Mexico, conceived to offer university education to indigenous students. After several years in operation, the Business School introduced Culturally Responsible Teaching (CRT) to empower indigenous students, and to create positive environments for their development, to increase retention. The participants were students from communities in the northern Sierra of Puebla, as well as other marginalized communities from the state of Veracruz. The program has proven to engage other students as well, and has resulted in better academic experiences.

Practices of with CRT were documented, and showed both the challenges the university and the indigenous students had to face, and the best practices that were carried out. The results from focus groups with students are presented in this paper, along with the results of a survey with professors who participated in developing the program.

Students’ stories were be recorded in an attempt to establish the way in which CRT helped them obtain the required tools and allowed them to successfully obtain a university degree. In order to provide a more complete perspective, students who participated in the first generation (before CRT programs were in place) were also interviewed so as to determine their reasons for leaving the program and the difficulties they faced while trying to adapt to the new culture and to traditional pedagogies. The most relevant comments are included.

In the different sections of the chapter, CRT is defined and a brief bibliometric analysis on the subject is presented, to help understand the importance that the topic has had over the years. The population in Mexico is described, first, in a general manner, and later on, the most relevant ethnic groups in the state of Puebla and their characteristics are assessed.

The history of UPAEP is described along with its mission, leading values, and educational model, as a way to introduce the intention behind the creation of the program A Bet for the Future. Basic statistics of the program are included, along with its benefits and the introduction of CRT to provide better conditions for indigenous students. Results from the brief exploratory study reflect the current situation of the program, from students’ perceptions and evaluations regarding the way professors use the methodology in their classes.

This study is relevant because it provides opportunities for indigenous students who have traditionally been underrepresented in higher education in Mexico, as well as in other countries. Opportunities to participate in formal education have historically been low. Adults in regions composed mostly by indigenous population have completed on average three years of schooling, while adults in municipalities composed mainly by non-indigenous people have completed eight years (Jacob et al., 2015, in López, 2016). This population faces low levels of access to institutions and little acknowledgement of their distinctive cultural and epistemological traditions within the curriculum (Oyarzun, Perales & Mc Cowan, 2017). Most indigenous students who have had the opportunity to pursue graduate studies in Mexico have encountered educational programs that do not reflect their cultural identity or background.

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is a student-centered approach to teaching that includes cultural references and recognizes the importance of students’ cultural background and experiences in all aspects of learning. Unfortunately, attention to culturally responsive approaches to teachings has been left aside, being replaced by standardized pedagogy in most universities, and being, at best, limited to cultural celebration while ignoring academic expectations for students, and disregarding cultural understanding.

This has happened in part because standardized pedagogies have trivialized CRT, as they portray it as a fixed and homogeneous conception of ethnic groups, assuming that students who are part of a group naturally belong to it. To be effective in multicultural classrooms, course contents must relate closely to the cultural backgrounds of students. Teaching approaches that ignore student norms of behavior and communication result in student resistance (Hu, 2002), while teaching practices that are responsive to culture, prompt student involvement.