Why can’t everyone pass? Context responsive teaching and learning in urban primary schools

Abstract

This qualitative scoping study explored how a small sample of teachers in urban primary schools in Jamaica responded to meeting the needs of students with low levels of reading. Data from interviews and observation, analysed through the lens of human learning theory and culturally responsive pedagogy, provided thick descriptions of participants’ shared views of context responsive teaching and learning. Findings suggested that context responsive teaching and learning was enacted by catering to students’ unmet physical, academic and emotional needs (a whole child approach) as means of improving their performance. The findings further indicated that individual teacher agency was the main means of responding to the situated context. Arguments are made that curriculum reform seeking to improve urban students’ performance needs to include strategies for meeting their unmet physical, and emotional needs in addition to the academic needs. The paper concludes that this can help to reduce the challenges that prevent students from performing well in urban contexts.