What Professional Development Activities Will Help PK–12 Teachers Create Culturally Responsive Learning Environments?
Evidence Database | Advanced Evidence Search | Evidence Summaries
Evidence Summary
March 2023
While evidence is limited, suggestive studies describe multiple potential strategies that may help teachers build culturally responsive learning environments.
- Teacher professional development programs that offer concrete tasks of teaching, assessment, observation, and reflection may produce higher student test scores.
- Professional learning communities may help achieve the goals of creating more equitable and culturally responsive classrooms.
- Providing an environment that allows teachers to co-develop lesson plans may be effective in assisting teachers with building equity into their lesson plans.
- For pre-service teachers, service-learning, community engagement projects, and other immersive learning opportunities are promising approaches to training teachers to build culturally responsive classrooms.
- Training teachers to support English language learners may help build a culturally responsive classroom.
- Teachers who learn to scaffold language learning indicate they are more successful in building culturally responsive classrooms
Several studies suggest teachers want specific cultural training that will assist them in relating to their students.
- Teachers indicate they want concrete information on the cultural norms of the students they are teaching.
Studies included in the database focused on high-income or upper middle-income countries, including but not limited to the United States. Studies included must have been published since 2012. To identify evidence, we searched the following websites and databases using the following population, methodology, and target outcome terms:
Websites and Databases |
Population Terms |
Methodology Terms |
Target Outcome Terms |
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)
Education Source
APA PsycNet
Social Service Abstracts
SocIndex
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refugee OR immigrant OR “unaccompanied minor” OR asylee OR “temporary protected status” OR “victims of traffick*” OR “traffick* victims” OR T-Visa OR U-Visa OR Cuban OR Haitian OR Amerasian
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evaluation OR impact OR program OR intervention OR policy OR project OR train* OR therapy OR treatment OR counseling OR workshop OR review OR meta-analysis OR synthesis |
“teacher professional development” OR “education” OR “K-12” OR “professional development” OR “teacher” OR “professional learning” OR “professional training” OR “professional education” AND “trauma-informed learning” OR “social-emotional learning” OR “social emotional learning”
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