Culturally Responsive Teaching

Multiple-award-winner Geneva Gay has updated her foundational text for culturally responsive teaching to keep it relevant for today’s diverse students. This perennial favorite is the go-to resource for teacher professional learning and education courses.

Geneva Gay is renowned for her contributions to multicultural education, particularly as it relates to curriculum design, professional learning, and classroom instruction. Gay has made many important revisions to keep this foundational text relevant for today’s diverse student population, including: new research on culturally responsive teaching, a focus on a broader range of racial and ethnic groups, and consideration of additional issues related to early childhood education.

Combining insights from multicultural education theory with real-life classroom stories, this book demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through students’ own cultural experiences. This perennial bestseller continues to be the go-to resource for teacher professional learning and preservice courses.

While retaining its basic organization and structure, the Third Edition features:

• New research that validates the positive effects of culturally responsive teaching.
• Examples that broaden the racial and ethnic groups that can benefit from culturally responsive teaching.
• More information on the needs and benefits of culturally responsive teaching with young children.
• More attention to the quality of life for students of color in colleges and universities.
• The addition of Practice Possibilities at the end of chapters that describe how culturally responsive teaching can be implemented.

Geneva Gay is professor of education at the University of Washington–Seattle. She is the recipient of several awards, including the first Multicultural Educator Award presented by the National Association of Multicultural Education. She received the 2023 AERA Division B (Curriculum Studies) Lifetime Achievement Award.

“While the structure and premise of the book remain unchanged, the third edition responds to the question educators continue to ask: How do we do it?...This book is an invaluable resource to preservice and inservice teachers as well as teacher educators. Gay continues to challenge the reader to be proactive and stay the course. She offers a framework that remains relevant and continues to challenge us to do better, reminding us that the need for culturally responsive teaching persists.”

—Teachers College Record

“Beginning with the assertion that the PreK–12 educational system as it exists now is inequitable, particularly for children of color, Gay demolishes the deficit-based models of achievement remediation, instead arguing for a more holistic appreciation for the gifts and strengths children from diverse cultural backgrounds bring to the classroom environment and how teachers can better prepare to act in culturally-responsive ways.”

—The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching

"A comprehensive account of the important role that culture plays in the teaching and learning process."

— Urban Education (for previous edition)

"Inspiring! A book every teacher should read. As one of the founders of the field of multicultural education, Gay has updated her exceptional resource for teachers."
— Valerie Ooka Pang, San Diego State University

"Gay clearly explains how culturally responsive teaching can be used to dramatically influence the academic achievement of students of color and other marginalized students."
—Carl A. Grant, University of Wisconsin at Madison (of previous edition)

Table of Contents

Series Foreword

Acknowledgments

Preface to the Third Edition

Chapter 1. Challenges and Perspectives
   Introduction
   The Need for and Nature of Story
   A Personal Story and Symbol of a Trend
   Achievement Challenges
   Assertions about Improving Student Achievement
   Conclusion
   Practice Possibilities

Chapter 2. Pedagogical Potential of Cultural Responsiveness
   Introduction
   From Can’t to Can
   Ideological Beginnings
   Culturally Responsive Teaching Personified
   Roles and Responsibilities of Teachers
   Conclusion
   Practice Possibilities

Chapter 3. The Power of Culturally Responsive Caring
   Introduction
   Overview of Caring Characteristics
   Attributes of Caring in Detail
   Expectation Trends and Effects
   Actualizing Culturally Responsive Caring
   Conclusion
   Practice Possibilities

Chapter 4. Culture and Communication in the Classroom
   Introduction
   Relationship among Culture, Communication, and Education
   Myths about Language Diversity
   Cultural Communication Controversies
   Effects of "English Plus" Instruction on Student Achievement
   Variations in Ethnic Discourse Styles
   Gender Variations in Discourse Styles 
   Conclusion
   Practice Possibilities 

Chapter 5. Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Curriculum Content
   Introduction
   Importance of Textbooks as Curriculum Content
   Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Different Texts
   Standards, Testing, and Diversity
   Ethnic Diversity in Literary and Trade Books
   Mass Media as Cultural Curriculum Content
   Culturally Diverse Curriculum Content Effects
   Improving Culturally Diverse Curriculum Content
   Conclusion
   Practice Possibilities

Chapter 6. Cultural Congruity in Teaching and Learning
   Introduction
   Learning Styles Baseline
   Funds of Knowledge and Cultural Self-Study
   Cooperative Learning
   Active and Affective Engagement
   Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
   Conclusion
   Practice Possibilities

Chapter 7. A Personal Case of Culturally Responsive Teaching Praxis
   Introduction
   Being Supportive and Facilitative
   Rituals and Routines
   Learning Cooperatively and Successfully
   Choice and Authenticity Are Essential to Learning
   Teaching to Enable and Empower
   Knowledge Plus Practice Is Imperative
   Cultivating Critical Orientations Is Important
   The Personal Is Powerful
   Conclusion

Chapter 8. Epilogue: Looking Back and Projecting Forward
   Introduction
   Culturally Centered Incremental Efforts Make a Difference
   Confronting Convention and Resisting Resistance
   Culturally Responsive Teaching Benefits Comprehensively
   Where to Begin and When to End
   Alternative Paradigms for Practice
   Challenges and Invitations
   Now Is the Time
   Pillars for Progress
   Conclusion

References

Index

About the Author 

2023 AERA Division B (Curriculum Studies) Lifetime Achievement Award, to Geneva Gay