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Abstract
There is a tremendous need to enhance the cultural competency of teachers working in PK-12 schools. Research indicates that culturally competent teachers who utilize transformative and justice-oriented curriculum and pedagogy provide classroom spaces that are more welcoming and engaging, and that showcase diversity, inclusion, and democracy in societies at large. This article contributes to the scholarly and professional literature on cultural competency and education by examining two widely-used surveys used to assess teachers' cultural competency. Methodologically, it uses content analysis to delineate what factors these surveys are assessing. From this analysis, three main themes have emerged: recognizing culture; utilizing resources for teaching and learning; and creating a sense of community. The article then discusses the implications of these results and concludes with potential directions for future research.
Keywords: teachers, cultural competency, culturally relevant, culturally responsive, content analysis, culture, teaching and learning, community, multicultural education
Introduction
There is a tremendous need to develop and enhance the cultural competency of teachers working in PK-12 schools in the United States. Research has pointed out the persistent racial/ethnic demographic gap between teachers and their students. Teachers are over 80% White, while students of color already constitute the majority in our schools (Sleeter, Neal, & Kumashiro, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2016). According to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics (2021), in 2018, 50.7 million students were enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in the United States. Of this total student enrollment, 47% are White, 27% are Latinx, 15% are Black, 5% are Asian, and 4% are of two or more races. These figures are quite a shift from a decade prior when, in 2009, White students constituted 54% of all the students in US public schools, while students of color made up 46%. Although various initiatives have been launched to increase the number of teachers of color, the urgency for White teachers to strengthen their cultural competency, knowledge, skills, and dispositions needs to continue as a top priority.
Cultural competency, according to Vernita Mayfield (2020), is "the ability to use critical-thinking skills to interpret how cultural values and beliefs influence conscious and unconscious behavior; the understanding of how inequality can be and has been perpetuated through socialized behaviors; and the knowledge and...