If you can't stand any love and attention, don't come here: How students and teachers talk about life in classrooms centered upon cultural teaching missions and practices.

Abstract

This qualitative study is conducted to better understand how teachers and students talk about the characteristics of cultural teaching practices and missions, and how they play out in the context of the classroom. Specifically, this study presents an analysis of teacher interviews, classroom participant observations, and student interviews from two classrooms headed by two mission-centered teachers. Analysis of the data reveals that cultural teaching missions involve a focus on both the academic and social development of students within a specific context and for specific teacher expectations relating to the students' future in life. Characteristics of these two African-American teachers' self-proclaimed cultural pedagogies are centered on their classrooms of predominantly African-American learners, and are constructed in this research from teacher interviews and classroom participant observations. In addition to analysis of teacher interviews and classroom participant observations, this analysis also incorporates analysis of how students in these classrooms described notions of teaching, academic tasks, teacher-student relationships and their teacher's expectations based on their classroom experiences. Specific academic tasks and pedagogical techniques are described and analyzed. A literature review situating research on teaching practice that is culturally responsive (Gay, 2002), culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1994, 2001), African-centered pedagogy (Murrell, 2002), and critical perspectives on education (Delpit, 1988, 1995; Fine, 1991) is included. This study has implications for teachers, teacher educators, and the educational research community because it provides insight into the impact of cultural teaching missions and practices by incorporating students' perceptions together with teacher perceptions and classroom participant observations of life in these settings.