Could Culturally Relevant Pedagogy be a lens for research with international students?

Written by Jennifer Park (BPP University, England)

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) is “the pedagogy which empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically using cultural references to impart knowledge, skills, and attitude”. CRP was originally intended for marginalised students in US K-12 education and emphasises the importance of the relationship between teaching content (education culture) and students’ culture (home culture). It argues that by incorporating CRP in the classroom, students, especially marginalised students, will succeed academically (academic success), present cultural competence (cultural competence) and become critically conscious about current social issues (critical consciousness). When international students study abroad, their home cultures may differ from their educational culture. As many academics emphasise the importance of incorporating and considering cultural differences when teaching international students, it might be worth considering CRP as a lens for researching international students’ experiences in HE.

Three tenets of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Tenet 1: Academic success

Academic success in CRP does not mean success in test results but in students’ learning. If students show individual progress while teaching and learning something, CRP considers them to have achieved academic success even though they might not pass a standardised final test. Additionally, CRP argues that teachers are responsible for students’ academic success and that they should see this as their role.

Tenet 2: Cultural competence

Cultural competence supports students in becoming bicultural or multicultural by appreciating their home cultures and gaining knowledge of at least one other culture. The goal of CRP is to help students not give up their cultural identities for academic achievement but to develop synergetic relationships between two or multiple cultures. CRP highlights that cultural competence is not about incorporating different cultures into teaching; it should educate students to understand other cultural perspectives.  

Tenet 3: Critical consciousness

Critical consciousness is the same as sociopolitical consciousness. CRP argues that teachers should help students be aware of societal inequalities and challenge the status quo. This is not about teachers pushing their political and social perspectives into students’ minds but about expanding their teaching to real-world contexts, therefore helping students to understand issues in society. Tenet 3 is essential when teachers incorporate CRP in their teaching; therefore, CRP argues if teachers can’t see social inequalities or racial bias, only using diversified cultural examples doesn’t mean they can call themselves culturally relevant pedagogies.

Can we incorporate CRP for international students in higher education?

Although using CRP as a framework might seem reasonable, there are more questions to answer before employing it in research with international students.

Q1.  Can we see students’ learning as academic success without considering final test results for international students in HE? They often pay more than domestic students and travel a thousand miles to study and get qualifications. If we consider academic success without test results, would they believe learning without good results to be worth their tuition fee?

Q2. International students in HE are adult learners, and it was likely their decision to study abroad. Therefore, aren’t they responsible for their studies? Or, like CRP argues, can we see their academic success as lecturers’ responsibility?

Q3. If we incorporate examples from students’ cultures, what is the purpose in studying abroad? For example, international students in UK HE may come to the UK for British education. Would it be fair to them to study with examples from their own culture rather than British examples? Additionally, is this what/how they want to study abroad?

Q4. How authentic can those culturally diversified examples be without lecturers experiencing those cultures? We can argue that we could involve students from those cultures in the discussion and increase the partnership between teachers and students. But how much can we contribute to their learning if we need to rely on students for discussion? Then what is the role of educators/lecturers? Are we becoming facilitators?

Q5. How comfortable are lecturers to discuss social issues in class and to what extent can we discuss social issues in different disciplines? Social issues in one country are different to social issues in another. In certain cultures, people might want to avoid discussion as they do not want conflict. In other cultures, discussing social issues might be common. So, what would be the way to discuss social issues with international students who have different cultural backgrounds? And how much is this related to their subject discipline? When the subjects are, for example, biology or physics, how much do international students want to discuss social issues in their seminars?

Conclusion

Although CRP offers an effective learning environment for culturally and linguistically diversified students, its applicability requires further investigation when the focus is on international students. There are further questions to consider in its effectiveness for international students in HE. As such, employing it as a lens in research through which to view international students may contribute to reconceptualising CRP for international students in HE. 

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