Unlocking the cultural diversity black box: Application of culturally responsive pedagogies in university classrooms in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The study investigated the mediating role of lecturers’ biographic factors and multicultural competences in the use of Culturally Responsive Pedagogies (CRPs) to effectively teach culturally diverse classrooms in universities. Studies show that culture has an influence on student learning and that if it is not effectively managed, it can affect how students learn. The study employed a quantitative approach that used structured questionnaires for data collection from a sample of 370 lecturers selected from six universities using a stratified random sampling strategy. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used for data purification. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, One-way ANOVA, multiple regression analysis, and correlation analysis. Results showed that verbal and non-verbal communication, cultural knowledge, classroom management, and student-teacher interaction significantly influenced the application of CRPs by university lecturers. It also emerged from the study that the application of CRPs has a significant effect on diversity management in universities. Results further showed that the use of CRPs by university lecturers is still work in progress due to a myriad of challenges they face chief among which is a lack of cultural competence skills. These results have implications to diversity management in university classrooms in particular as well as in universities in general.