Closing the Achievement Gap through Culture

Educational Attainment
Culture plays a significant part in education as it serves as the background of a student’s experience, the foundation of the student’s ideas and beliefs, and the lens that shapes the student’s outlook. By taking culture into consideration, a teacher can better connect with students and provide an atmosphere in the classroom that is conducive to sharing, responding and learning (Saifer, 2011). Educational attainment requires that students engage with the information that is presented to them in their lessons, and one of the best ways to get students to want to engage is to connect the lesson to their own backgrounds and cultural experience (Kea, Campbell-Whatley, Richards, 2006).
The role of cultural responsive teaching in educational attainment is to be the pathway towards cultural diversity. The teacher helps students to define the learning goals, question traditional concepts, understand student diversity, engage with the material and effectively work towards knowledge acquisition through participation (Kea et al., 2006). Yet numerous factors can impact the educational attainment of students. These factors must be addressed by the culturally responsive teacher so that all the issues that might affect a student’s capacity to learn are addressed.
Three factors that can impact educational attainment are: 1) socio-economic background, 2) parental involvement, and 3) school structure. These factors can impact students in various ways. As each student is different, teachers will need to get to know their students and develop an understanding of their own unique, personal needs. One way to do this is to make “home visits,” which can really facilitate and foster strong relationships between students, their families and the teacher (Stetson, Stetson, Sinclair, Nix, 2012). By making such visits, the teacher can also develop a better sense of the student’s socio-economic background, and the level of parental involvement. The third factor (school structure) is one that may be outside the control of the teacher, but will have an impact nonetheless.
Socio-economic background can impact educational attainment by causing stress for students if the socio-economic life of the student is subpar (Thompson, Corsello, McReynolds, Conklin-Powers, 2013). This factor could be determined by the neighborhood in which the student lives, the family status of the student, the family’s income, the family’s place in the community, and so on. If these elements contribute in a positive manner to the student’s life by providing stability and support, they can be very helpful to educational attainment. If they are lacking, however, they may serve as obstacles to the same.
Parental involvement is another factor that can impact educational attainment. The level to which parents involve themselves in their child’s life will have an effect on that child’s success in school. Involvement can range from listening to the child, offering advice or guidance, helping with development issues, teaching the child to have an ethical base or moral sense, and being emotionally supportive.
The school structure will also have an impact because it is the school that must be designed to serve the needs of the students. Some schools may lack the necessary infrastructure to meet the needs of a diverse student body and students that do not fit the particular mold that the school is designed to serve will be underserved and education will be much harder for them to attain. An example might be an ESL student who has moved to the area but needs a teacher who is supportive of the student’s L1 so that acquisition of the L2 can be possible.
Educational attainment affects students in the long term because education sets the stage for the future life of the student. A student who fails to achieve academic success will find it harder to obtain a good-paying career in the future because not having an education limits one’s opportunities and choices when it comes to finding a job (Perna, Finney, 2014). A student’s human and social capital might suffer as a result and the student could end up being caught in a poor socio-economic state where there is no way out because education was never achieved. This can have social, economic, and psychological effects on the student in the long-term.
As a future educational leader, my role in promoting educational attainment for all students would be to understand their needs and be culturally responsive to the various backgrounds that inform their individual lives. My role would be to serve as a support that they can depend upon. The teacher should be viewed as a pillar not just in the classroom but also in the community, and for that reason the teacher should be willing to make home visits so as to better connect with the community and establish the ties that are needed to foster good and healthy relationships. These relationships are what are needed to ensure that educational attainment is possible. It is about investing in one another, giving time to one another so that students can realize their potential and see that they have a strong support system in place that will help them to overcome whatever obstacles they may be facing. The teacher can make this happen by being a visible support for students and by connecting to their families so that a bond is established. The bond of trust is very important in education because it sets the tone for students and gives them a way to open up and engage with the material that they might otherwise never fully engage with.
References
Kea, C., Campbell-Whately, G., Richards, H. (2006). Becoming culturally responsive
educators: Rethinking teacher education pedagogy. Retrieved from https://glec.education.iupui.edu/equity/Becoming_Culturally_Responsive_Educators.pdf
Perna, L. W., & Finney, J. E. (2014). The Attainment Agenda : State Policy Leadership
in Higher Education. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press
Saifer, S. (2011). Culturally Responsive Standards-Based Teaching : Classroom to
Community and Back. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Corwin.
Stetson, R., Stetson, E., Sinclair, B., & Nix, K. (2012). Home visits: Teacher reflections
about relationships, student behavior, and achievement. Issues in Teacher Education, 21(1), 21.
Thompson, R.B., Corsello, M., McReynolds, S. & Conklin-Powers, B. (2013). A
longitudinal study of family socioeconomic status (SES) variables as predictors of socio-emotional resilience among mentored youth.  Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 21(4), 378-391.