The increasing population of students of color in public school settings in the United States is a persistent challenge for White teachers teaching diverse student populations with students from racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse families and communities of lower socioeconomic status to make learning more effective in their classrooms. However, U.S. public schools face significant challenges in providing high-quality schooling for all students, particularly students of color, low-income students, English language learners, and students in urban and rural settings. This qualitative study aims to identify the challenges and obstacles in teaching students of diverse backgrounds in public school settings in a school district in Houston, the most ethnically diverse large metropolitan area in the United States. The study focused on the lived experiences with in-depth and semi-structured interviews conducted with 7 participants (6 females; 1 male) to gain insights into their perspectives and understand the essence of their experiences. The findings showed that a lack of language proficiency and trained teachers in culturally responsive teaching often create barriers to effective schooling. Among the recommendations derived from the findings is that policymakers and school districts must recruit and support high-quality teachers from a broad range of backgrounds and diverse populations to develop sufficient depth, breadth, diversity, coherence, and duration so that teachers can positively impact the learning and development of students from cultural, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds, and ensure all students receive a high-quality education.

Authors:
Hasan Aydin, Florida Gulf Coast University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Hasan Aydin, a full professor of multicultural education at Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL, USA

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