Negotiating the Cultural Terrain in Transforming Classrooms—The LEAP MODEL

Abstract

This study recentres the sociocultural in culturally transforming pedagogic settings whilst foregrounding culturally responsive teaching (CRT). Through a protracted anthropological excavation, teachers’ experiences in a culturally diverse integrated high school were explored and interpreted vis-à-vis tenets and precepts of CRT. Findings from observation and interviews indicate that the pedagogic settings as structured by the teachers were not attendant to the aspirations of CRT and teacher practices were not reflective of dispositions of CRT. Teachers professed negative experiences of the pedagogic setting, demonstrated and professed limited knowledge of the cultural being of their learners. The findings highlighted the need for micro-context cultural excavations to remedy socioculturally detached teaching. Cognisant of the emergent need for a learning tool, the LEAP model is proposed premised on centering the humanistic world of the learners and the inherent currency in their culture for progressive teaching and learning engagements.