Thesis Defence: Faculty Perceptions and Action in Implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Higher Education Classrooms
May 10 at 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Sajni Lacey, supervised by Dr. Catherine Broom, will defend their thesis titled “Faculty Perceptions and Action in Implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Higher Education Classrooms” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education.
An abstract for Sajni Lacey’s thesis is included below.
Defences are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Please email catherine.broom@ubc.ca to receive the Zoom link for this defence.
ABSTRACT
The literature on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy [CRP] in higher education has focused on the United States, discipline-specific, pre-service teachers, and professional development demonstrating the need for more tangible approaches to doing CRP within undergraduate classrooms. To address these needs this qualitative study explored the practices and reflections of CRP among 12 instructors at a medium-sized post-secondary institution in Canada. Through semi-structured interviews and document analysis questions about how CRP is being applied in the classroom, what makes a culturally sustaining classroom, how were these practices developed and what is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines were explored. Results indicated that practices around developing and facilitating student autonomy, flexibility in assignments, articulation and engagement with both student and faculty identities within the context of the course, seeing teaching as an opportunity for mutual learning between students and instructors, along with practices to develop the relationship between students in the class and the instructor all worked to incorporate CRP into teaching at the undergraduate level. Discussions and reflections on the interviews and documents demonstrated the role of compassion and transparency in the work of CRP in the classroom.
