Greek Primary School Teachers’ Reported Practices Concerning the Implementation of Culturally Responsive Teaching: The Culturally Responsive Practices Questionnaire (CRPQ)

Evdokia Kokouvinou,Effie Penderi

doi:10.22158/wjer.v6n2p270

Abstract

<p><em>The purpose of this study was to examine Greek primary school teachers’ reported practices regarding culturally responsive teaching. A questionnaire with 29 items was constructed, based on a number of relevant international research tools. Participants were 187 primary school teachers, in Northern Greece. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three psychometrically robust factors, Utilization of students’ cultural capital, Development of culturally responsive learning environments and Collaboration with parents and differentiated teaching. Items with the highest mean score seemed to focus on the promotion of trust and respect among students, while those with the lowest score regarded mainly the use of students’ diverse cultural heritage in the classroom. Relevant training, experience with students from diverse cultural backgrounds and urbanity were the background variables that seemed to have some relation to certain aspects of culturally responsive teaching reported practices. </em></p>

Highlights

The purpose of this study was to examine Greek primary school teachers’ reported practices regarding culturally responsive teaching
While teachers’ training was regarded as pivotal for the success of these attempts, it was mainly organized at a pilot level and basically regarded either teaching Greek as second language or how to adjust Greek educational curricula to the needs of the targeted groups (Sakka, 2010)
Another restriction refers to the fact that these and other projects that had been organized within the scope of intercultural education, had to face the monocultural ideology and ethnocentric perspective, to some extent, of the Greek educational system

Summary

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to examine Greek primary school teachers’ reported practices regarding culturally responsive teaching. Teachers’ knowledge of their students’ cultural backgrounds and family customs and routines is prerequisite for the infusion of culturally sensitive pedagogy which has been found to have a positive impact to all children’s academic performance (Pope & Wilder, 2005) Within this line of thought, culturally sensitive or relevant teaching has been suggested as a set of principles and practices that delineate teachers’ culturally competent pedagogical and educational work with children from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. With reference to the Greek educational reality there is limited evidence about how teachers perceive and manage the challenges of the multicultural classroom and respond to the need to prepare students for a multicultural society They seem to identify the restrictions concerning their competencies to address these issues and acknowledge the need for continuous training regarding culturally responsive teaching, relevant programs are limited and are not designed on the basis of their particular needs and strengths (Penderi, Petrogiannis, & Slot, 2018)

Objectives

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Discussion

Conclusion