Education, Faculty of
Education, School of (Okanagan)
DSpace
UBCO
Lacey, Sajni
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
The literature on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy [CRP] in higher education has focused on the United States, discipline-specific, pre-service teachers, and professional development demonstrating the need for more tangible approaches to doing CRP within undergraduate classrooms. To address these needs this qualitative study explored the practices and reflections of CRP among 12 instructors at a medium-sized post-secondary institution in Canada. Through semi-structured interviews and document analysis questions about how CRP is being applied in the classroom, what makes a culturally sustaining classroom, how were these practices developed, and what is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines were explored. Results indicated that practices around developing and facilitating student autonomy, flexibility in assignments, articulation and engagement with both student and faculty identities within the context of the course, seeing teaching as an opportunity for mutual learning between students and instructors, along with practices to develop the relationship between students in the class and the instructor, all worked to incorporate CRP into teaching at the undergraduate level. Discussions and reflections on the interviews and documents demonstrated the role of compassion and transparency in the work of CRP in the classroom.
i FACULTY PERCEPTIONS AND ACTION IN IMPLEMENTING CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PEDAGOGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION CLASSROOMS by Sajni Lacey B.A. Huron University College – Western University, Ontario, Canada, 2011 M.L.I.S. Western University, Ontario, Canada, 2014 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Education) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) May 2024 © Sajni Lacey, 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: Faculty perceptions and action in implementing culturally responsive pedagogy in higher education classrooms submitted by Sajni Lacey in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts . Dr. Catherine Broom, Okanagan School of Education Supervisor Dr. Karen Ragoonaden, Okanagan School of Education Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Peter Arthur, Okanagan School of Education Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Jannik Eikenaar, School of Engineering University Examiner iii ABSTRACT The literature on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy [CRP] in higher education has focused on the United States, discipline-specific, pre-service teachers, and professional development demonstrating the need for more tangible approaches to doing CRP within undergraduate classrooms. To address these needs this qualitative study explored the practices and reflections of CRP among 12 instructors at a medium-sized post-secondary institution in Canada. Through semi-structured interviews and document analysis questions about how CRP is being applied in the classroom, what makes a culturally sustaining classroom, how were these practices developed, and what is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines were explored. Results indicated that practices around developing and facilitating student autonomy, flexibility in assignments, articulation and engagement with both student and faculty identities within the context of the course, seeing teaching as an opportunity for mutual learning between students and instructors, along with practices to develop the relationship between students in the class and the instructor, all worked to incorporate CRP into teaching at the undergraduate level. Discussions and reflections on the interviews and documents demonstrated the role of compassion and transparency in the work of CRP in the classroom. iv LAY SUMMARY Culturally responsive pedagogy [CRP] is an approach to teaching that strives to connect and support students’ cultures in what is being taught in the classroom. The purpose of this research is to identify the common aspects and themes between 12 teaching award instructors and faculty at a medium-sized university in Canada in how they think about and integrate CRP into their teaching. This study used semi-structured interviews and reviewed course documents optionally provided by the participants to explore how they use and integrate CRP using Critical Race Theory, social justice, Indigenization and decolonization, and critical consciousness as theoretical frameworks. From the analysis, participants spoke to relationship building, student autonomy and collaborations, classroom community, assignments, and flexibility as aspects of their practice that related to CRP that could be applied across disciplines and class sizes. v PREFACE This research was approved by The University of British Columbia’s (Okanagan campus) Research Ethics Board. Human ethics certification was granted on June 9, 2023 (#H23-01279). vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iii LAY SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... iv PREFACE ....................................................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................... xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................... xiii DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................. xiv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Context .................................................................................................................................. 1 1.3 Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Research Methods ................................................................................................................. 3 1.5 Significance of the Research ................................................................................................. 4 1.6 Gaps in Existing Literature ................................................................................................... 6 1.7 Positionality .......................................................................................................................... 8 1.8 Thesis Outline ....................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................... 10 2.1 Overview of Chapter ........................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Theoretical Framings .......................................................................................................... 11 2.2.1 Critical Race Theory (CRT)......................................................................................... 11 2.2.2 Intersectionality............................................................................................................ 13 2.2.3 Decolonizing and Indigenizing Approaches ................................................................ 14 2.2.4 Social Justice as CRP ................................................................................................... 17 2.2.5 Critical Consciousness ................................................................................................. 18 2.2.6 Theoretical Framing Conclusion.................................................................................. 19 2.3 CRP and Higher Education in Canada ................................................................................ 20 2.4 What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? ....................... 22 2.4.1 Defining Culture .......................................................................................................... 22 2.4.2 Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ..................................................................................... 23 2.4.3 Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) ...................................................................... 24 2.4.4 Culturally Sustaining, Textured, and Revitalizing Pedagogies ................................... 24 2.4.5 Critiques of CRP .......................................................................................................... 26 vii 2.5 How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? ............................................................................................................................... 28 2.5.1 Student as Partner and Collaborator ............................................................................ 28 2.5.2 Instructor Identity, Positionality, and Reflection ......................................................... 30 2.5.3 Community Connections ............................................................................................. 31 2.5.4 Flexibility ..................................................................................................................... 32 2.6 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................. 35 3.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 35 3.2 Study Purpose and Rationale .............................................................................................. 35 3.3 Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 36 3.4 Research and Philosophical Perspectives ........................................................................... 37 3.5 Positionality ........................................................................................................................ 38 3.5.1 Educational and Professional Context ......................................................................... 38 3.5.2 Information Literacy and Library Instruction .............................................................. 39 3.5.3 Critical Race Theory and Social Justice ...................................................................... 39 3.5.4 Intersectionality and Identity ....................................................................................... 41 3.6 Site of Research .................................................................................................................. 41 3.6.1 Background on the Site ................................................................................................ 42 3.7 Methods............................................................................................................................... 42 3.7.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 42 3.7.2 Grounded Theory ......................................................................................................... 43 3.7.3 Critical Discourse Analysis.......................................................................................... 43 3.8 Participants .......................................................................................................................... 44 3.8.1 Randomization ............................................................................................................. 44 3.8.2 List of participants ....................................................................................................... 45 3.8.3 Recruitment .................................................................................................................. 45 3.9 Data Collection and Analysis.............................................................................................. 45 3.9.1 Semi-Structured Interviews ......................................................................................... 45 3.9.2 Course Materials .......................................................................................................... 46 3.10 Interview and Document Collection Procedure ................................................................ 47 3.11 Transcript Analysis ........................................................................................................... 48 3.11.1 NVIVO ....................................................................................................................... 48 3.11.2 Coding Process........................................................................................................... 49 3.12 Course Materials ............................................................................................................... 50 3.13 Limitations and Bias ......................................................................................................... 50 3.14 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 54 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 56 4.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 56 viii 4.2 Participants .......................................................................................................................... 56 4.2.1 General Description ..................................................................................................... 56 4.2.2 Participant Overview and Insights ............................................................................... 56 4.3 Overview of Participant and Course Document Responses ............................................... 57 4.4 Cross-Participant Analysis .................................................................................................. 57 4.4.1 Major Themes .............................................................................................................. 57 4.4.1.1 Theme 1: Relationship Building ........................................................................... 57 Trust .............................................................................................................................. 58 Students as Partners ...................................................................................................... 59 Student Autonomy ........................................................................................................ 60 4.4.1.2 Theme 2: Assignments and Grading ..................................................................... 61 Flexible Deadlines and Assignment Choice ................................................................. 61 Grading ......................................................................................................................... 63 Participation and Engagement ...................................................................................... 64 4.4.1.3 Theme 3: Identity and Positionality ...................................................................... 65 Instructor Identity.......................................................................................................... 66 Student Identity ............................................................................................................. 68 Positionality .................................................................................................................. 70 Storytelling .................................................................................................................... 72 Power Structures ........................................................................................................... 73 4.4.1.4 Theme 4: Classroom Community and Environment ............................................ 75 Mutual Learning............................................................................................................ 79 4.4.1.5 Theme 5: Indigenization and Decolonization ....................................................... 79 4.4.1.6 Theme 6: CRP as Practice..................................................................................... 81 4.4.1.7 Theme 7: Instructor Experience and Practice ....................................................... 83 Instructor Professional Development, Learning and Experience ................................. 83 Transparency and Authenticity ..................................................................................... 84 4.4.1.8 Thematic Development Visualization................................................................... 86 4.5 Summary & Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 87 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................ 89 5.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 89 5.2 Discussion of Findings ........................................................................................................ 89 5.2.1 How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? ........................................................................................................................... 90 5.2.1.1 Assignments, Grading, and Participation.............................................................. 90 Deadline Flexibility ...................................................................................................... 91 Assignment Types ......................................................................................................... 92 Participation and Engagement ...................................................................................... 93 Grading ......................................................................................................................... 94 5.2.1.2 Relationship Building ........................................................................................... 95 5.2.1.3 Intentionality of Course Design ............................................................................ 96 5.2.2 What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? ................ 97 5.2.2.1 Development and Cultivation of Classroom Community and Environment ........ 97 5.2.2.2 Student as Partner ................................................................................................. 98 ix 5.2.2.3 Student Autonomy ................................................................................................ 99 5.2.2.4 Mutual Learning.................................................................................................. 101 5.2.2.5 Instructor Identity and Positionality.................................................................... 102 5.2.2.6 Student Identity ................................................................................................... 103 5.2.3.1 Identity and Positionality through Storytelling ................................................... 104 5.2.3.2 Development of Classroom Community and Environment ................................ 106 5.2.3.3 Flexibility ............................................................................................................ 107 5.2.3 How did they get there, why have they chosen these approaches and practices? How does it work in practice? ..................................................................................................... 107 5.2.3.1 CRP as Practice ................................................................................................... 108 5.2.3.2 Decolonization and Indigenization ..................................................................... 109 5.2.3.3 Instructor Reflection ........................................................................................... 111 5.2.3.4 Instructor Professional Development and Learning ........................................... 113 5.2.4 What is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines and institutions that would enable further integration of culturally responsive, textured, and sustaining classroom practices and approaches? ................................................................................................... 114 5.2.4.1 Relationship Building ......................................................................................... 114 5.2.4.2 Student Autonomy and Identity .......................................................................... 115 5.2.4.3 Assignment Flexibility ........................................................................................ 116 5.2.4.4 Collaboration with Students as Partners ............................................................. 117 5.3 Recommendations and Implications ................................................................................. 117 5.3.1 Instructors .................................................................................................................. 118 5.3.1.1 Assignments ........................................................................................................ 118 5.3.1.2 Student Engagement ........................................................................................... 119 5.3.1.3 Instructor Engagement ........................................................................................ 120 5.3.1.4 Relationship Building ......................................................................................... 120 5.3.2 Implications for Administrators and Policy Makers .................................................. 121 5.3.2.1 Administrators......................................................................................................... 121 5.3.2.2 Policy Makers ......................................................................................................... 122 5.4 Insights from Author Positionality.................................................................................... 122 5.5 Limitations and Strengths ................................................................................................. 123 5.5.1 Limitations ................................................................................................................. 123 5.5.2 Addressing Limitations .............................................................................................. 125 5.5.3 Strengths .................................................................................................................... 126 5.6 Significance and Implications of the Research ................................................................. 127 5.7 Future Areas of Research .................................................................................................. 130 5.8 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 132 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 134 APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................ 143 Appendix A - Emails to Participants ...................................................................................... 143 Appendix B – Interview Questions as sent to Participants ..................................................... 145 Appendix C – Round 1 Codes ................................................................................................ 148 x Appendix D – Round 2 Codes ................................................................................................ 151 Appendix E – Consent Form................................................................................................... 154 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Visualization of brainstorming of initial themes……………………………………87 xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CRP Culturally Responsive Pedagogy CRT Critical Race Theory IBPOC Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour xiii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Catherine Broom for your continuous support and encouragement throughout this process. I would also like to thank Dr. Karen Ragoonaden and Dr. Peter Arthur for their support and feedback as part of my committee. I would like to thank all of the participants for agreeing to participate in this project and for their enthusiasm for this work. I would like to thank my family and friends who provided continuous support and encouragement for this project, especially the writing during my pregnancy. Particularly I would like to thank my husband, Bradley, my parents, Dharshi and Ian, and writing partners and friends, Donna, Christian, and Sumer, and my other supporters, Arielle, Amanda, and Carleigh. Also, a huge thank you to the Centre for Scholarly Communication and the Writing Community for helping me write. xiv DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this to my husband Bradley, our future daughter, and to our dog Bowie, my writing companion for many of the hours that this was being written. 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Overview This chapter provides context to the development of the current project and the research questions used to collect data in exploring undergraduate instructors’ practices and reflections on culturally responsive pedagogy [CRP] in the classroom. This will be followed by a brief overview of the research methodology used, and the significance of the research in relationship to existing literature in the field. Additionally, research gaps will be addressed, followed by a brief positionality statement. The chapter will conclude with an overview of the thesis as a whole. 1.2 Context This research project will address the primary issue of exploring and defining what makes a culturally responsive classroom and a culturally responsive instructor in higher education within the Canadian context. CRP and its application in the classroom are grounded in inclusive and socially just teaching approaches that are defined as classrooms that connect course content and structures in a way that affirms individual student cultures, that is engaging and relevant to their lives, strives for change within student learning, and helps students to relate to other people, cultures, and contexts locally as well as in the larger global context (Germán, 2021; Ladson-Billings, 1995). Through semi-structured interviews and document analysis, this definition will be used to analyse how faculty and instructors have developed a culturally responsive teaching approach, their application of it within higher education classrooms, their articulation of their teaching practice from a culturally responsive perspective, and the rhetorical and discourse choices they make in course documentation, such as syllabi, assignments, and rubrics. 2 As a librarian, I have spent much of my professional career as a visitor to hundreds of classes and spent time with thousands of students in many disciplines, courses, and assignment contexts. Throughout these nine years, I have experienced many classrooms where I have interacted with students who are engaged, inspired to think creatively, and encouraged to think critically about what they are learning from a social justice, anti-racist and/or anti-oppressive lens. The literature supports the value of developing these practices in intentional and relational ways. There are ample examples of how engaging students in meaningful learning opportunities that include elements of inclusive, culturally responsive, and socially just pedagogies and practices has an impact, especially when they are built into course content, design, and approaches. This will be explored in detail in Chapter 2: Literature Review. From my own professional experience and context, I am interested in identifying how instructors engage with CRP based on their lived practices and experiences within their classrooms utilizing CRP, and how this is represented in their course documents. In addition, I want to explore and identify the themes that facilitate the creation of these types of classroom environments in higher education across different types of courses and subject areas, how the faculty and instructors themselves think about the term CRP and how they came to engage with them (or not) as part of their teaching practice. The reflective aspect of how these practices are developed is key to the approach of this study, as participants think about how they as individuals impact the classroom environment and community. In addition, as a racialized instructor myself, I feel the tension of not being represented in many of the spaces I am in within Canadian higher education and have the experience of speaking with many students who struggle to navigate the dominant whiteness of these places. Incorporating the practices and actions of cultural responsiveness can make the classroom a more 3 welcoming and safe space for students to engage with their lived experiences and identities in a way that is supported and enabled by creating learning spaces that reduce threats and encourage intellectual risk-taking and learning. Therefore, the research problem I have identified is how to bring together the depth of literature on CRP with the intentional actions and rhetorical choices that faculty use to create culturally responsive classrooms to identify themes and/or trends that can be applied by instructors across multiple disciplines and institutions. 1.3 Research Questions The following are the three research questions, and two sub-questions that were developed after consultation with the literature and my professional interests and context: • How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? o What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? • What are the similarities, differences, themes, and contexts that develop faculty and instructors’ inclusive teaching practices both within and across salient themes from participants? o How did they get there, and why have they chosen these approaches and practices? How does it work in practice? • What is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines and institutions that would enable further integration of culturally responsive, textured, and sustaining classroom practices and approaches? 1.4 Research Methods The methodological approach that was identified to match the needs of the research questions was semi-structured interviews and document collection. Grounded Theory was 4 selected for its foundation in sociology and its practice of developing theory from data through continuous data comparison through collection and analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1999). Critical Discourse Analysis [CDA] was selected to analyze the additional, optionally provided course documentation that were provided by participants. As a methodology, it provides a process for assessing the use and meaning of language used by participants, and provides further detail and context for the social and situational structure of the course (Mayr, 2008). A total of 12 participants were interviewed. Course materials as an optional component were also included in the current study to provide further depth and nuance to the findings from the interviews, and to see how participants represented their approaches through textual and rhetorical opportunities within the course. A fulsome description and context for these approaches is provided in Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design. The site of the research was a post-secondary institution in Canada. The 12 participants were selected from a list of campus teaching award winners, whose criteria included an element of culturally responsive, and/or inclusive teaching. Once the data was collected, transcripts of the interviews were coded through two rounds of coding and grouped into themes. An analysis of the course documentation, using the codes, themes, and discourse analysis was also conducted and correlated to the larger analysis across the research questions. 1.5 Significance of the Research There are several ways that this research has significance to the field of higher education teaching and pedagogy, as well as my professional work as a librarian. Within higher education in Canada, there is an increasing push to diversify, decolonize, and/or Indigenize the classroom. In addition, the desire and drive from students to have courses that reflect a nuanced perspective of social justice, privilege, power, and equity has also become more mainstream as students 5 bring their own experiences and knowledges with these concepts into their learning. While this is inherently built into some programs, courses, and topics, it can be a shift for instructors to think about who is on their reading list, who is in their classroom, and how their teaching approaches and practices can impact the cultural well-being of diverse students from intersectional identities. With a grounding in the literature on CRP, the theoretical framings of Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, decolonization, and social justice, in conjunction with the data from the interviews and document analysis, this thesis project will be able to provide details on specific practices and approaches that are effective when incorporating CRP. Secondly, from my professional perspective as a librarian, we are often integrated into a course through single-session workshops, or embedded directly in courses or programs as co-instructors and research support. My experience has been that librarians have a role to play in supporting faculty in developing their reading lists to be representative and inclusive of the larger local, national, and international context, but also in terms of how we support students in their exploration of the materials and information sources available to them. By using this opportunity to explore what is happening in classrooms, the information will better inform my role as the instructional lead in the library through how I offer professional development and training opportunities to my colleagues, as well as how the library communicates support to the larger institutional community. There are also opportunities to engage with these findings within the larger academic library profession through how the role of a librarian as an information expert can be adapted to support these intersectional needs of students and faculties at our institutions. Additionally, this research is significant through its focus on looking at the perspectives of instructors across disciplines and levels of experience. With the inclusion of participants being focused on those who have demonstrated teaching excellence in areas related to and including 6 CRP, the findings of what instructors reflected on that connect their practice to CRP are relatively unique within the existing literature, particularly in a Canadian context. As was demonstrated by many of the participants, while the terminology around CRP was new to them, the practices and concepts involved within it were well-established in either their approaches or how they thought about their teaching regarding course content and design. The tangible approaches represented by this study demonstrate the opportunities and challenges of incorporating CRP in meaningful and intentional ways that center the student as partners in the learning process within a larger hierarchical and often rigid structure and power dynamic of higher education. The practices and themes identified also provide an opportunity to think and engage with CRP in small and large ways as practitioners. Lastly, these findings also represent the significance of self-reflection and self-positioning of the instructor within these approaches, which, as was noted by participants, requires self-directed development within their teaching practice, that goes beyond what is expected in most instructional contexts. 1.6 Gaps in Existing Literature Although the research on CRP is robust, there are also gaps in terms of analyzing who is writing within this field, and how CDA can be used to explore virtue signalling rather than tangible action within the exploration of creating culturally responsive, inclusive and socially just higher education classrooms. More concretely, the gap that I am seeking to explore, is how CRP is utilized and developed within the classroom based on instructor education, practice, and development, and how this is represented in their course documents within a specific institutional context. This gap is demonstrated in the literature through the focus on preservice teachers, and teachers within the K-12 context of education in how they perceive CRP, professional development, classroom practices, and student diversity about CRP. While ample research in 7 higher education and CRP is available, there is a predominant focus on professional development, discipline-specific contexts, equity-seeking instructors and/or students’ perspectives, and reducing the achievement gap in underrepresented post-secondary students. CRP in the literature is also dominated by contexts in the United States, with Canadian content being a relatively small subset of North American research. Within the current study, these gaps are addressed by focusing on instructors within a Canadian university context, and on their holistic approaches to CRP practices based on their reflections and course documents. Using the themes from the literature around student and instructor identity, engagement of student identity through assignment and course content, students’ opportunity to exercise choice within their learning, and representative and diverse course content, the questions asked in the current project aim to explore how instructors across disciplines think about the use of CRP approaches within their spaces, and how they connect these practices with the growth of student learning. Additionally, details about the participant’s demographics were not included in this study, focusing on instructors who had a demonstrated history that had been recognized at the institutional level for excellence in teaching, to prioritize instructor practices over specific identity or demographic indicators or discipline. Lastly, in the following section, I will briefly provide an overview of my positionality, but the intersectionality of my own identity also factors into the gaps and exploration of the current project. As I speak to below, I have a biracial identity and background as South Asian and white, this has afforded me a tremendous amount of privilege in the professional and personal contexts that I am in. Navigating the nuances of the academic context with intersectional identities and the multiplicities of identity within that space provides benefits to 8 working with and in CRP. This is missing within the literature around CRP, and the benefits of holding space for the breadth of identity and positionality. 1.7 Positionality A detailed positionality narrative is provided in Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design in relationship to the methodology and practices of the current project within the data collection and analysis process. A brief positionality statement is needed here, however, to provide a context to the researcher and the work being conducted in this study. My professional context as an instructional librarian has had me spend most of my career working with first-year undergraduate students in their required writing courses supporting their work across various disciplines. Through this work over the last several years, I have developed and worked within my practice to develop strategies and approaches to be culturally responsive and reflective, as well as to meet the expected needs of students and instructors in these brief interactions. I have been deeply influenced by Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, and decolonizing theories and frameworks in my practice, and have worked to incorporate them, when possible, into my teaching. This is in part based on my own intersectional identity which is as a white presenting, biracial person. My name and my identity have been something that I have navigated and reflected on extensively in terms of how they impact my practice, and how students see me in class (please see my article on this, Lacey, 2022 for further detail). I carry a tremendous amount of white privilege as a half-white person, but I have also often been the minority, and often only librarian of colour in the places that I have worked. This has had an impact on how I see myself as a settler in the higher education landscape, but also on the power and privilege I have to enact change, even in small ways. All told, this has impacted how I have come to these research questions, and how I see this work impacting my work in librarians, and in information literacy. 9 1.8 Thesis Outline The following chapters of this thesis consist of Chapter 2: Literature Review, Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design, Chapter 4: Results, and Chapter 5: Discussion. Chapter 2 provides a detailed overview of the theoretical framings that informed this study including Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, decolonizing and Indigenizing frameworks, social justice and critical consciousness as aspects and grounding of CRP. It also will define CRP and its related and adjacent terms, as well as the term culture as a center point to much of the participant’s discussions and reflections. It will conclude with a summary of the themes of the literature around CRP including students as partners, instructor identity, community, and flexibility. Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design will provide a detailed overview of the study process including further details about the site of research, participant selection, data collection, and analysis, as well as limitations and biases. It will also provide a detailed positionality narrative from the researcher in relationship to educational and professional background, theoretical influences, intersectionality, and identity. Chapter 4 will provide significant detail on the results from the data collection including the seven major themes identified and how they are presented within the participant’s data. Chapter 5 will provide detailed responses to each of the three research questions and two sub-questions, as well as summative recommendations and implications from the findings for application. It will conclude with the final strengths and limitations identified through the study process, implications of the research, as well as future areas of research based on the conclusions. 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of Chapter This chapter will provide an overview of the theories that inform the current project, the landscape of higher education in Canada, and the literature related to CRP across four key themes to provide a foundation for Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, which will explore the results and discussion from the participants data. The key theoretical frameworks that will be outlined include Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, decolonization, and social justice, which are heavily referenced throughout the CRP literature. These theories will provide context to the landscape of CRP in higher education, and will provide a grounding for the first research question and sub-question: What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? To respond to the first question, the related CRP terms of culture, culturally relevant, culturally sustaining, and culturally textured pedagogies that appear within the literature will be defined and explored within the context of CRP in higher education. The second sub-question will be outlined across four key themes within the CRP literature and the current project related to CRP, including students as partners and collaborators, instructor identity, community connections, and flexibility within the classroom. The following chapters will utilize this literature to ground the results from the participant’s data to identify themes, findings, and recommendations from the research, and to demonstrate how CRP has been incorporated and engaged with across the participants supported by the literature. Concluding implications for research will be supported by this literature review, and demonstrate further research opportunities. 11 2.2 Theoretical Framings Several theoretical frameworks inform the work of CRP in higher education and the work of the current project in terms of positioning CRP within larger educational systems and structures. Below is a brief overview of the theories that informed the author’s thinking in developing this research topic and questions, as well as the theoretical connections to CRP. The theories that will be discussed include Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, decolonization and Indigenization, social justice, and critical consciousness. These theories also inform the analysis and findings in the final chapter by contextualizing what and how CRP continues the actions of decolonial practices that are grounded in Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, social justice, and critical consciousness. The significance of these theories resonates throughout the current project in how participants describe their practices, and in how the author interprets and draws connections between the themes of the participants responses and course documents to the work of CRP within the literature. 2.2.1 Critical Race Theory (CRT) CRT has been central to the research and scholarship around CRP since it was first conceptualized. The development of CRT originated in the field of law and radical feminism and has moved into other disciplines with education being a key area where this work has increased in recent years. A broad definition of CRT is that it aims to “understand how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained” and how it intersects “with race, racism and power” within society, along with how to change those powers dynamics and structures (Crenshaw et al., 1995, p. xiii; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017, p. 3). The significance of the systemic and structural elements of education to the work of CRP cannot 12 be understated. Taylor et al. (2023) argues that the importance of recognizing that these larger power systems are ingrained within educational structures and therefore impact the teaching and learning that happens within classrooms is essential to understanding the processes of instruction within higher education. These power dynamics that are supported and enabled by white supremacy and racism impact how instructors practice and engage with CRP in meaningful ways within undergraduate classrooms, which in turn influences what and how students learn within those spaces. CRT has also been studied in higher education as a frame through which disciplines, curriculum, hierarchies, segregation, and biological racism have been examined (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). Within the classroom this framing is especially crucial when we consider that the structure of teaching, through its delivery, documentation, and facilitation are processes that are culturally specific and contextual, that can both perpetuate norms, such as whiteness and Eurocentrism as well as disrupt them (Taylor et al., 2023). It is therefore essential to consider CRT as a foundational theory for CRP as it informs how we view the power dynamics within the classroom, and the privilege and power held by those who inform, maintain, and disrupt the systems within higher education whether that be learners or instructors. Through this framework, at the classroom level, it is important to consider that the choices that are made by instructors are not neutrally decided or enacted, and are informed by the identity and experiences of the instructor, along with the larger system and conventions of the discipline, field, and institutional structure, which is directly tied to the work of CRP. While the idea of disrupting these power systems can seem daunting, CRT is uniquely positioned to support the work of CRP in higher education through the process of storytelling, listening, critiquing existing structures, and interdisciplinary structures and approaches of 13 teaching and learning, but also change (Taylor et al., 2023; Bell, 2016). As Ledesma and Calderón (2015) outline in their review of literature on CRT in education, ensuring that Western normative practices of decentering race and racism within the contexts of teaching and learning are not continued, along with centring the voices of those often marginalized within the educational context, are equally essential in continuing to engage CRT and CRP as an educational practice. The concepts of listening, storytelling, and critiquing provide a structure for CRP to be embedded into higher education classrooms by creating space for voices to be heard through readings, course content, as well as student and instructor voices. By seeing and using CRT as a foundational framework for CRP it is possible to see higher education as a site of resistance and personal development that can go beyond a specific course, classroom, or program, by providing opportunities for holistic and intersectional approaches to take priority. 2.2.2 Intersectionality Intersectionality, broadly defined “investigates how intersecting power relations influence social relations across diverse societies as well as individual experiences in everyday life” (Hill Collins & Bilge, 2020, p. 2). This term was first described by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, to represent the specific context of oppression experienced by African-American women, where marginalization cannot be understood simply from the context of just race, or just sex. The context of intersectionality has expanded tremendously to consider any multiple of intersecting social identities and systems of discrimination, marginalization, or oppression. Intersectionality has a significant impact on society, from how people identify and describe themselves, to how systems and institutions are organised. It can also be used as an analytical tool, as Hill Collins and Bilge (2020) outline, to examine and critique the “social divisions created by power relations of class, race, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, sexuality, and ability,” which they describe as being 14 particularly prominent within higher education (p. 2). Building on the ideas of CRT, intersectionality allows for a more nuanced understanding of how people are impacted as both learners and instructors in the pedagogical approaches, rhetorical choices, learning spaces, and lived experiences that are brought into the classroom. This connects directly with CRP in how teaching can be focused on creating space for students’ lived experiences, knowledge, and culture to be centred within the classroom, which requires a nuanced understanding of intersectionality as part of cultural identity. There are several examples of how intersectionality applies to both K-12 and higher education. Simola (2021) provides examples of how intersectionality applies to learning, through their summative findings on the characteristics of an intersectional teaching approach. They found that an intersectional structure to education does not subscribe to an essentialist approach of considering or engaging with any one identity group, but instead focuses on the power differences within systems that exist between and within those identity groups (Simola, 2021). Through this approach it puts race at the centre of praxis and education, and similar to CRT and CRP, works to dismantle inequity by engaging with these power differences within the classroom (Simola, 2021). This example demonstrates the need for a nuanced understanding of identity and how intersectionality plays into student success and engagement within the classroom, which is also directly tied to CRP. This requires intentional relationship building and time to build trust with students by the instructor to bring their intersectional perspectives into the classroom. 2.2.3 Decolonizing and Indigenizing Approaches While much of the literature on CRP is centred around the United States, the application of CRP within Canadian higher education systems can be seen through the work of 15 decolonization and Indigenizing within classrooms. Canada, like many colonial states, has a complicated history and ongoing practice of colonization and assimilation. In their work “Decolonization is not a metaphor” Tuck and Yang (2012) outline the appropriation of the terminology around decolonization as a way to maintain and enact a settler state through co-opting the purpose and intent of decolonization. They speak to the language of decolonization as being simply added onto the frameworks of colonial practices, which do not engage or participate in the work of land repatriation. Through this process of signaling decolonizing work through rhetoric without direct action to dismantle colonial systems, is related to what CRP speaks against doing, incorporating language and terminology to signal engagement without tangible action to create systemic change. Gahman and Legault (2019) also speak to this process of indicating work without action, as the “metaphorizing” of decolonial work instead of tangible steps to “promote Indigenous sovereignty, land rights, and self-determination” (p. 51). The actions of decolonization, which is to remove the structures and systems which enable settler colonialism to occur and continue, are often in contradiction with the way higher education is structured and maintained through policies, funding, and curriculum (for a brief overview of decolonization and Indigenization in Canadian universities see Pitawanakwat & Pedri-Spade, 2022). Where this comes into practice with CRP and the teaching and learning within classrooms, is the connection to the local context, through collaboration with Indigenous communities or leaders, and grounding the work of learning within, and alongside the work of decolonization. In the work of Battiste et al. (2002), they describe how this process of action towards decolonization and Indigenization could be done using the language of animation to outline the process of change that must occur within higher education from a decolonial perspective. They 16 use examples from Canada and New Zealand to speak to how this work could occur through research, policy development, and the experiences of Indigenous students and teachers being incorporated into education. This process of animation is reflected in the work of Howe et al. (2021) and Gahman and Legault (2019) who looked to bring students to the land and connect them with Elders and Knowledge Keepers as part of their education to engage students in the local context of the land and peoples. In regards to CRP, this is especially important as it speaks to the need to ground the classroom in a larger context, and how the work of higher education is to raise students’ awareness of their impact and autonomy outside of the classroom. In a robust literature review, Shajahan et al. (2022) identified several processes through which this work is actualized in higher education “probing the positionality of knowledge, constructing an inclusive curriculum, fostering relational teaching and learning, and partnership between higher education institutions and entities outside of the institution” (p. 94-95). All of this brings together what Gaudry and Lorenz (2018) described as the spectrum of Indigenization which includes “Indigenous inclusion, reconciliation indigenization, and decolonial indigenization” which “[o]n one end of this continuum, the academy maintains most of its existing structures while assisting Indigenous students, faculty, and staff in succeeding under this normalized order, and on the other end, the university is fundamentally transformed by deep engagement with Indigenous peoples, Indigenous intellectuals, and Indigenous knowledge systems for all who attend” (p. 218). Through this spectrum, it is possible to imagine how higher education could go beyond its existing structures to be completely transformed based on Indigenous knowledges, practices, and land-based pedagogies within the individual and localised context. The examples provided above by Howe et al. (2021) and Gahman and Legault (2019) 17 demonstrate deep engagement, which represents direct practices of CRP by bringing students to the community, rather than within the abstract confines of the classroom. 2.2.4 Social Justice as CRP The connection between CRP and its associated terms (culturally responsive, textured, sustaining etc.), and theoretical foundations such as CRT, intersectionality, Indigenous and decolonizing approaches, is the work of social justice. Social justice within teaching requires an engagement with these previously discussed frameworks and is embedded within the context of collective liberation for students, instructors, and others within higher education. The commonality in much of the literature explored in this chapter, and in relationship to the current project, is that it engages instructors and students together in a project of social justice that connects and applies beyond the classroom. It engages with students as whole people and sees the work of teaching and learning as a process of collective and collaborative learning and liberation. While many definitions exist around social justice, in its most direct form, it is “the redistribution of power and access so that all people, regardless of their identities, have equitable access to resources and powers,” with a focus on equity rather than equality (Germán, 2021, p. 5). As Pipe and Stephens (2021) outline, social justice education has developed over the last hundred years in response to the desire to destabilize and deprioritize more traditional pedagogies which focus, whether intentionally or not, on the “colonizing hegemony of educational structures” (p. 123). For CRP to be a meaningful process in higher education classrooms it must incorporate content and discussion on power systems and structures, as well as attempt to raise the learning of students by engaging in how these systems and structures have 18 an impact beyond their immediate context, which ties in with CRT, intersectionality, and decolonization. There is ample literature that speaks to the practice and meaning of social justice in higher education. Adams and Love (2010) describe four quadrants that are similar to the approaches described in CRP, which include what students bring into the classroom, the curriculum and content of the course, what instructors bring into the classroom, and how the content and course are designed and facilitated. The dynamic nature of this creates space and engagement for collaborative learning and progress through destabilizing power structures and how content is facilitated within the learning space. This is directly tied to the work of CRP in the process of collaborative learning between instructors and students, dynamic course content that is responsive and reflective of who is in the space, and instructor reflection and context of the course in and outside of the classroom. 2.2.5 Critical Consciousness As the previous theories demonstrate, it is essential to the understanding of CRP that learning is grounded in a larger context beyond individual students’ success within the classroom. Ladson-Billings (1995) describes this as developing “a broader sociopolitical consciousness that allows [students] to critique the cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that produce and maintain social inequities” which are the responsibility of the instructor to develop this in students (p. 162). This concept was outlined by Paulo Freire and his concept of conscientization where learners participate in a “dialectical process of reflection and action in which people engage with others about their experiences of oppression and marginalization and attend to their historical, social, and economic sources (Freire, 2018; Rapa & Godfrey, 2023, p. 2). This results in a cycle where awareness of oppression occurs, action is taken to dismantle this 19 oppression, and a deeper understanding of oppression occurs as a result of learning that is focused on growth rather than rote memorization or dictated outcomes (Freire, 2018). More specifically the purpose of critical reflection is for learners to engage and question the social reality to develop processes to create change. This puts the emphasis squarely on the learner to identify, reflect, and take action against systems, or systemic inequalities through a supported structure developed by the instructor (Diemer et al., 2016). Within CRP, this process of course and classroom design is essential in creating space for students to reflect on their own identity and positionality within the context of the learning, to disrupt and engage with change in their own ways. However, as Robinson (2022) outlines this consciousness-raising must decenter “Eurocentrism, passive learning, cultural imperialism, and whiteness” to challenge “conventional knowledge about colonization so that students can understand themselves as colonial subjects, engage in processes of self-interrogation and possibly unearth internalized racism/colonialism (p. 459). This concept of critical consciousness is important to the larger work of CRP in that it connects with a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be an active and engaged participant, both for students and instructors and to extend learning beyond the classroom. 2.2.6 Theoretical Framing Conclusion Taken together these theoretical framings demonstrate the importance and process of teaching and learning in higher education as collaborative and collective practices. Framing CRP in higher education as being grounded in an understanding of race, racism and power, intersectional identities and perspectives, prioritizing decolonizing approaches that refocus higher education within Indigenous contexts, all with the purpose of consciousness-raising as a process of social justice speaks to how deeply nuanced and imperative this work is. CRP is a process of empowering students for success in a broad sense and engaging them in how their 20 own identities and lived experiences can be transformative to their education and learning, higher education as a whole, and beyond the institution. This informs the analysis and thinking around the findings of the current project by centering the student voice and perspective in the work of teaching and learning in higher education as partners and collaborators, and how the role of the instructor can support this through their reflection and intentionality. 2.3 CRP and Higher Education in Canada The questions posed by this study demand attention because we do not live in a socially just or equitable society. There is ample evidence that some students in higher education are marginalised through several intersections, and do not experience higher education in the same way as those who identify as white, cis-gendered, and heteronormative (See Henry et al., 2017; Deckard et al., 2021; Tomlinson et al., 2021; Burczycka, 2020). There are many elements to helping students feel included within the post-secondary environment, but a significant contributor to that feeling involves their experiences within the classroom. The whiteness that is still embedded in much of post-secondary education in Canada means that the institutional structure of whiteness is the default format of learning for many (Kustatscher, 2022). Therefore, those with power in these spaces must continue to work towards creating classrooms that see students holistically and dynamically, where the identities and lived experiences that they bring into the classroom are seen as valuable to who they are as learners, as well as knowledge consumers and creators. To contextualize the current CRP landscape of higher education in Canada, Lynch et al. (2017) found that the structure for anti-racist moral practices is about making visible systematic oppression, confronting and dismantling whiteness, as well as discussing and developing strategies to transform structural inequalities within the classroom. These findings also support 21 the theoretical frameworks that were discussed above, as they demonstrate that what happens within the classroom is impacted by both the structures and systems of education at the higher education level, but also the practices and approaches of the instructors themselves within those spaces to make meaning and connections to the larger societal context. These approaches also create space to bring students’ identities, lived experiences, and existing knowledges to the forefront of their education by grounding it in the real world. Looking at this from an Indigenous perspective, Battiste et al. (2002) speak to the overarching aspects of higher education as providing students with cognitive frameworks for both imperialism and colonialism. They argue that education is a process of cultural transmission, which can work both for the oppressor and in a reframed context for the oppressed (Battiste et al., 2022). Providing support for this is Gaudry and Lorena (2018) who outline that despite academic institutions being hierarchical structures that have privileged colonial knowledge systems, they can also provide a space to teach Indigenous culture, language, etc., which can enable transformation and liberation for learners, instructors, and the institution. This speaks to the possibility of how the system of higher education can be disrupted to create space for cultural learning that incorporates students’ cultural identity, and exposes students to cultural experiences beyond their own, in line with the practices of CRP. This requires being a “different type of teacher who is in relationship with students and the content in a different way” (Hammond, 2015, p. 52). This necessitates educators to be reflective and understanding of their position, identity, experiences, beliefs, practices etc. and the impact that has on the students within their classrooms through course design, content, and assessment. 22 2.4 What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? To explore the CRP practices of participants within this study it first requires a grounding of what CRP and its related terminology means, and how it is represented in the literature. The following section explores the history and development of the term CRP, defining culture as a core component of this term, and exploring other relevant and adjacent terms that have been created since CRP was first defined including culturally relevant, sustaining, textured, and revitalizing pedagogies. This section will conclude with a brief overview of the critiques of CRP in the literature and how that relates to practice in the current study. 2.4.1 Defining Culture Gay (2018) argues that culture is “at the heart of all we do in the name of education” (p. 8). While many definitions of culture can apply to the current project, Gay’s (2018) articulation “refers to a dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, worldviews, and beliefs used to give order and meaning to our own lives as well as the lives of others,” which speaks to the meaning-making that can occur within educational settings both by the instructor and the learners (p. 8). This dynamic system is also impacted by the interconnections between individual, family, community experiences, and backgrounds (Harris et al., 2006). As Cheesman and De Pry (2010) outline in further detail, culture is also the interaction between race, language, socioeconomic aspects, family, community, home environment, school environment, and more. Taken together, this breadth of cultural elements that can impact each person, indicates that the role of culture is unique to each individual, as well as both students and instructors alike within a classroom context. Students and instructors bring their cultural perspectives into the classroom, which impacts how, what, and who is taught. While the importance of culture may be present as a value 23 within educational contexts, culture itself can be essentialized in classrooms to a single component such as through a unit or topic. Sleeter (2012) speaks to this in that CRP is often misunderstood as a “cultural celebration” which ignores other factors that impact CRP’s success such as power dynamics, lived experiences in and outside of the classroom, the expectations of students, and is therefore disconnected from learning (p. 568). Instead, it is important to incorporate culture within learning spaces as a dynamic and evolving process that is dependent on who is in the room, and which allows for cultural pluralism to thrive (Gay, 2018; Paris & Alim, 2014). Cultural pedagogies therefore should be sustaining of cultures, through being responsive and relevant to not only the students and instructor within the space but also to the social and political context that is happening beyond the classroom (Paris & Alim, 2014). 2.4.2 Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Culturally relevant pedagogy was originally developed and described by Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) and was used to describe an approach to teaching that focused on collective, not just individual, empowerment within teaching spaces. Culturally relevant teaching rests “on three criteria or propositions: (a) Students must experience academic success; (b) students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; and (c) students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 160). Through these three propositions, students’ culture is centred and used to facilitate their learning. Additionally, as Cataldo (2022) outlines, it is important to recognize that culture itself is not stationary, and can change depending on a variety of factors, which in turn impacts how students learn and engage in the classroom, with each other, and beyond. Ladson-Billings (2021) has also explored the term culturally relevant pedagogy in further detail over the years and described the importance of culturally relevant pedagogy “as foundational to creating a 24 pedagogy that explicitly embodied resistance to the status quo and encouraged marginalized communities to fight for their linguistic and cultural sovereignty” (p. 351). Through all of these components, this foundation of culturally relevant pedagogy demonstrates the through line of student-centred approaches that enable voice, justice, and cultural identity to flourish within educational settings. 2.4.3 Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) While often used interchangeably, culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally responsive pedagogy have developed and influenced each other significantly over the last 30 years. Gay (2018) brings CRP to the forefront by describing it as the importance of bringing students’ cultural experiences, knowledges, values, and beliefs into the content, design, and assessment of the teaching space. Connected to this is how the cultural and linguistic norms of the learners, rather than that of the teacher and or the dominant system, must also be included and reflected in the content and curriculum within the classroom for CRP to be enacted (Gay, 2018). While both Gay (2018) and Ladson-Billings (1995) are speaking to the educational context of K-12, this has applications to higher education. For example, Gay (2018) outlines that the qualitative characteristics of CRP include teaching that is validating, comprehensive, inclusive, multidimensional, empowering, transformative, emancipatory, humanistic, normoactive, and ethical. All of these criteria have purpose and utility within higher education classrooms, and represent the increasing trend towards interdisciplinary studies, and connections to the larger socio-political context outside of the classroom as students’ progress through their education. 2.4.4 Culturally Sustaining, Textured, and Revitalizing Pedagogies There are a variety of adjacent terms that are raised within the literature related to CRP. Paris and Alim (2017) developed the concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy, which “positions 25 dynamic cultural dexterity as a necessary good, and sees the outcome of learning as additive rather than subtractive, as remaining whole rather than framed as broken, as critically enriching strengths rather than replacing deficits” (Paris & Alim, 2017, p.3). This requires centering “equity and access” as well as the diversity and breadth of students within a learning space in a way where they “are not only valued but sustained” (Paris & Alim, 2017, p. 3). McCarty & Lee (2014) articulated the term culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy, which is meant to address the “sociohistorical and contemporary context” of education for Indigenous peoples through directly attending to colonization through power dynamics, revitalizing what has been lost through colonization such as languages, and “community based accountability,”” which is especially key in settler-colonial educational contexts such as Canada, and connects directly to the decolonizing and Indigenizing approaches described previously that relate to CRP within the Canadian context (p. 103). Taking this a step further Germán (2021) speaks to textured teaching that is a culturally and socially grounded pedagogical approach, which is vital to students learning as the approaches used in the classroom should be student-driven, community-centred, interdisciplinary, experiential, and flexible. This textured process enables for a more meaningful curriculum focused on intentional choices around what students read and engage within the structure of the course and brings the community and larger social context into the classroom that allows students to see the connection of their learning to the wider world (Germán, 2021). While all of these terms are distinct, they build upon each other. Amongst these terms, centring CRP requires a primary focus on approaches that can be seen to center students holistically, connecting to them personally, and with education and the pedagogies supporting that as raising a critical consciousness for students that extends beyond the classroom. 26 2.4.5 Critiques of CRP Valid critiques have been written in relationship to CRP as it has been incorporated into teaching practices. Sleeter (2012), as well as Evans et al. (2020), argue that through practices of CRP, culture is often distilled within classrooms, as was mentioned previously, to celebrate culture or a brief cultural acknowledgement which does not include a deeper incorporation of students lived experiences, power relations and dynamics, and systemic injustices and inequities. This ties in directly with what Paris and Alim (2014) outlined previously about not essentializing a culture to something that can be marked as complete through one activity, field trip, unit, or assignment without a larger understanding of the nuance or depth within the larger classroom or socio-political context. Connecting this to teaching and learning more directly, Sleeter (2012) and Hammond (2015) argue, that teaching requires learning and creating space for educators to get to know and relate to their students, bringing trust and listening into the process for students to see the classroom as a space to explore themselves as part of the learning environment. When this is absent, as Ragoonaden and Mueller (2017) describe, students feel discontinuity between themselves, their cultural identity, their learning, and the institution. Another area where there have been critiques of CRP is in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, where instructors have been found to feel that incorporating CRP is more challenging. Xie and Ferguson (2022) found in their study interviewing STEM faculty about their practices related to CRP, that there are challenges in building the space to learn about student perspectives and identities in large, multi-section courses, along with workload challenges, insufficient training in these approaches, and a lack of institutional structure and support. While humanities and social sciences courses might have more flexibility within their courses, or course content to more easily connect CRP practices, it 27 has been found that CRP can be incorporated into STEM courses. In support of this, both Mack et al. (2021) and O’Leary et al. (2020) found that when intentional professional development was provided to STEM faculty on what to do to make more inclusive teaching spaces for underrepresented students, positive impacts were noted by the students in those classes. It was also found that through these opportunities’ faculty were able to think more intentionally about how and what to incorporate into their classes by being provided support that was intentionally aimed at them (O’Leary et al., 2020). At a larger more systemic level, another critique of CRP is focused on who is engaging with it as a pedagogical practice. As was discussed previously, the predominance of white instructors teaching diverse students in education is detrimental to Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour (IBPOC) students (Evans et al., 2020). Park and Bahia (2022) found in their study with IBPOC graduate students, that students’ experiences of microaggressions, stereotyping, being made to represent the entire group in class discussions, and being required to educate peers and instructors on race, racism, and colonialism, caused fatigue and emotional burn out in their education and learning. Connected with this, Evans et al. (2020) describe from their personal experiences, and supported by the literature, that CRP can be used as a way to assimilate students to white norms through conventional education practices, such as framing perceived deficiencies, or inadequate language and writing skills as an individual issue rather than as an issue with the larger educational system failing students based on access to resources. Taken together, these critiques demonstrate that CRP cannot be integrated at a surface level or perfunctory way, but instead must be intentional, mindful, and reflective of both the students, the instructor, and the institutional and societal contexts. 28 2.5 How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? The second sub-question of this research project asks how CRP has been integrated into classrooms at the undergraduate level. Several themes appear within the literature for how CRP has been used and integrated into the classroom. These include, how CRP is used, researched, and analysed within the scholarship around engaging students within the classroom as partners and collaborators; used to incorporate instructor identity and instructor reflection within the classroom; identified as connecting learning with maintaining and sustaining students’ relationships with local communities; and the overarching idea of maintaining flexibility as a practice of care and empathy within teaching spaces. There are many examples in the literature of how CRP has been used in higher education, which are explored in more detail below. 2.5.1 Student as Partner and Collaborator One of the core principles of CRP that appears within the literature is the engagement with students holistically through reflecting and incorporating their identities, experiences, and communities, in and outside of the classroom. This is supported by Ladson-Billings’ (1995) study on successful teachers of African American students, which found that regardless of teaching approach, the success of students and the content of the class, was based in part on what “seemed to emerge from student initiation and suggestion” (p. 162). This idea of the student as a partner and collaborator within teaching spaces, grounds the premise of who is in that space, both students and teacher, as being central to CRP. By engaging with students as partners and collaborators it creates an opportunity for more representative and genuine experiences for those involved and enables a more holistic understanding of what is being learned (Germán, 2021). This can be connected to Freire’s (2018) concept of co-investigators, where the more engaged learners are with exploring content, themes, and experiences that are relevant and 29 attuned to them, the more “they deepen their critical awareness of reality” and by doing so take “possession of that reality” (p 106). The empowerment for students to take control over their learning through connecting it to their own experiences also provides a space for the instructor to learn alongside students in this co-developed space, which is directly tied to CRP, with instructors taking on a facilitator and supportive role in mutual and reciprocal learning. The instructor’s role in providing some structure in the classroom, while also taking the time to develop trust, learn about who students are, and integrate experiential and culturally reflective learning experiences creates space for everyone’s worldviews to be expanded and incorporated into the course content (Pipe & Stephens, 2021). Through this CRP is enacted by engaging the individuals within the classroom as whole people, rather than one with authority, and those who receive that authority. Cook-Sather and Des-Ogugua (2019) provide another example of how the CRP principle of students as partners in the classroom can be employed in practice. They developed a student-faculty partnership programme within their post-secondary institutions and found that by making the pedagogical approaches and contexts clear to students, building relationships, trust, and knowledge about each other through the sharing of experiences by both the instructor and student, in addition to multiple participation opportunities in a space that was dynamic and flexible to change, strengthened the co-developed spaces and improved the overall learning experience for all involved. This embodies many of the aspects of CRP through relationship building, flexible and dynamic learning experiences, and mutual learning. Another example of how this can be applied was found by Xie and Ferguson (2022) in their study on science faculty incorporating CRP in large classes. They explored developing mechanisms for informal student feedback throughout the course that could be used to inform course development and content and 30 create space for students to connect what they are learning in class with their lives outside of the classroom through reflective journals, and polling tools to assess students existing knowledges or gaps. Both of these examples demonstrate the integration of CRP through incorporating mechanisms for feedback and input, both formal and informal, for students to bring their perspectives, interests, identities, and experiences into the learning of the course. It also indicates the need for care and relationship building that is essential to create spaces where students feel connected and supported in bringing those perspectives into their learning. 2.5.2 Instructor Identity, Positionality, and Reflection As the previous section highlights, the work of CRP requires that instructors think and reflect about themselves within the unique contexts of the classrooms they are in and the students they are working with. As Germán (2021) argues, the work of self-reflection and positioning is essential because it is part of the process of understanding the “social and political context or reality that shapes our identity” which is in and of itself, our positionality within the classroom (p. 11). It is through this that teachers can engage with their own intersectional identities and experiences that are brought into the teaching space, and inform what and how teaching occurs. This is supported by Hammond (2015) who looks at CRP in relationship with the brain and argues that part of being culturally responsive is being reflective and responsive to the “beliefs, behaviors, and practices” that impact teaching by the instructor (p. 53). They go on to outline how self-examination, intention, cultural frames and references, and widening of experiences are all part of this reflection to understand individual positionality and how that might develop when teaching (Hammond, 2015). This is particularly important because the students within a classroom will have unique needs based on these individual and intersectional factors which, when possible, need to be reflected and engaged upon by the educator, who needs to be trained 31 in how to even think through these facets as part of the teaching experience (Jones, 2017). Manns (2021) speaks to this as a circular process wherein self-reflection is used to gain greater awareness and understanding of the self’s own “cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, and judgements” as this will support how they will then interact with other cultural backgrounds, especially those of their students (p. 8). This knowledge of the self and students is additionally important within the context of the communities involved, and how the teaching space can support and sustain community connections. 2.5.3 Community Connections Teaching and instruction do not happen in a vacuum, rather the integration of the community within the context of the course supports the consciousness-raising of where students are in terms of place and relationship with themselves, their classmates, their education, and their communities. CRP can then be seen as a process of supporting students in raising their awareness beyond the classroom environment, but also in sustaining the very communities that students come from (Paris & Alim, 2017). This connects with what other scholars such as Germán (2021) and Gay (2018) have articulated around the importance of supporting students in maintaining connections to their communities as part of a culturally responsive practice, while also engaging them within their local and global communities through experiential learning, to build new relationships, and see that learning as a more holistic approach to who they are as people. Gahman and Legault (2019), speak to the importance of locality in this type of work. They describe developing a course where students attended approved cultural practices within the local Indigenous community, as well as collaborating and partnering with local Indigenous community organizations to support situating their course work within this community context. This was also done in conjunction with developing community agreements for engagement, 32 activities outside the classroom in the community, and a robust reading list highlighting a diverse range of topics to support and contextualize the work within the community (Gahman and Legault, 2019). This community-centred approach indicates the value placed on engaging within a local context that is supported throughout a course as part of a decolonized CRP practice. Cole (2017) provides further insight into this by outlining how community engagement within courses creates space for students to see themselves in the course content, forms deeper connections to the course content and their peers, and gives students the autonomy to bring their resources and perspectives into the classroom. As a result, this process develops collaborations between students and instructors on how course time is spent and creates space for students to engage with each other as collaborators and partners in learning, which is also directly tied to CRP (Cole, 2017). These examples demonstrate the significance of grounding course content and structure, not only in students’ identities within the classroom but connecting that outside of the classroom space flexibly and dynamically. 2.5.4 Flexibility CRP is in part a balance of utilizing existing structures to support student learning while also maintaining flexibility in approach to reflect the dynamic nature of teaching. This flexibility also allows for student experiences, perspectives, and identities to be incorporated into the classroom in meaningful and intentional ways, such as through alternative formats for assignments, grading deadlines, and community-based learning (Germán, 2021). Flexibility is also important regarding the cultural aspects of CRP in that sustaining culture within the classroom space requires a “dynamic cultural dexterity” (Paris & Alim, 2017, p. 1). As was outlined in the previous sections, creating a classroom environment that allows for relationships, 33 trust, and dynamic course content to be supported and developed, requires a great deal of skill and labour on the part of the instructor. Flexibility is also something discussed by Gay (2018), in that flexibility with assignments and grading is connected with how students themselves are “multidimensional and contextually diverse” so how they are assessed should reflect that nuance (p. 16). What is challenging about this is how to provide the support and structure so that students are given the foundations they need to succeed in any given assignment or assessment within a class, while also providing the flexibility to be curious, creative, and connected to who they are. Additionally, the challenges of administrative loads related to grading and marking are another component to be considered in providing flexibility, especially in large and required courses that have more restrictive guidelines and expectations at the department or institutional level. 2.6 Conclusion This chapter has provided a foundation for the findings and recommendations of this study that seeks to position CRP as a critical element in higher education teaching and learning based on existing literature and the practices of participants. This literature review of CRP and its related areas is fundamentally linked to the theoretical frameworks of CRT, intersectionality and decolonizing approaches, and social justice in higher education in Canada, which illustrates the importance of grounding teaching practices in instructor and student identity, community connection, course documents, and flexibility. Additionally, this literature shows that the incorporation of both theoretical and practical approaches related to CRP within higher education classrooms does impact students’ feelings of belonging and participation in their education, as well as supports their success and engagement both in and outside of the classroom. The potential and significance of individual instructors to impact this for students is thoroughly 34 documented within the literature, and positions the role of the instructor as central within the larger structure of higher education to enact change, even on a small scale. The breadth of literature in this area, of which a snapshot is shown in the current chapter, highlights the need for further exploration as the landscape of higher education continues to change. Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design will build on this by outlining the purpose and rationale of the study, the methods, participants, data collection and analysis procedures informed by this literature. 35 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN 3.1 Overview This chapter provides an overview of the research methods and design structure used in this study. Included is a detailed description of the research design, the process used to conduct and collect the data, and the steps used in the analysis. A discussion on the limitations, bias, and challenges of this methodological approach is also included, along with the positionality of the researcher. 3.2 Study Purpose and Rationale The purpose of this research study is to explore what makes a culturally responsive classroom and a culturally responsive instructor in higher education within the Canadian context using a mid-sized university campus in British Columbia across disciplines, class size, and instructional focus. Semi-structured interviews were used to ask instructors how they have developed or engaged with a culturally responsive teaching approach (if applicable), their application of it within higher education undergraduate classrooms, the articulation and reflection of their teaching practice(s) from a culturally responsive perspective, and the rhetorical and discourse choices they make in course documentation, such as syllabi, assignments, and course reading lists. The questions within the interviews centered on student and instructor identity, the use of assignments and course content to explore identity and positionality, development of learning opportunities that expose and engage students in a critical consciousness, and that include diverse and inclusive examples and readings based on the literature around CRP as described in Chapter 2: Literature Review. The interview responses and course documents were used to determine themes, practices, and descriptions of culturally responsive pedagogy to provide recommendations, implications, and examples for practice. 36 Additionally, these findings were used to demonstrate opportunities for shifting the power dynamics within higher education and for processes that could develop a more equitable society through their implications for administrators and policy makers. These interviews were conducted between June and August of 2023 and consisted of 12 participants. The rationale for this study is grounded in multiple theoretical frameworks and approaches including Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, Indigenous and decolonial pedagogical approaches, and culturally responsive, textured, and sustaining pedagogies, that are informed by the landscape of higher education in Canada. These were covered in extensive detail in Chapter 2: Literature Review of this study. However, in the context of the research methodology being outlined in this chapter, these frameworks, theories, and approaches speak to the nuanced and often complex overlapping approaches that inform the methodological design being used here. It is the purpose of this study to further identify what can be extrapolated about culturally responsive teaching practices and pedagogies regardless of disciplinary background by considering how and what has informed individual instructors' approaches to being intentional about the cultural approaches to teaching that they use in higher education. 3.3 Research Questions The research questions explored within this study are to determine themes, practices, and structures that are utilised by individual instructors and faculty to create and develop CRP classrooms within higher education. It is hypothesized that through this research, commonalities will be determined and identified that can be applied by others in the classroom. The primary questions being explored through this study are: • How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? 37 o What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? • What are the similarities, differences, themes, and contexts that develop faculty and instructors inclusive teaching practices both within and across salient themes from participants? o How did they get there, why have they chosen these approaches and practices? How does it work in practice? • What is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines and institutions that would enable further integration of culturally responsive, textured, and sustaining classroom practices and approaches? 3.4 Research and Philosophical Perspectives As was outlined previously, several perspectives informed this study and its methodology. Taken together, these concepts, frameworks, and theories of Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, Indigenous and decolonial pedagogical approaches, culturally responsive, textured, and sustaining pedagogies, that are informed by the landscape of higher education in Canada bring forth several themes that can be used to explore the research questions within this study with more detail. This includes the following: 1. Identity of students and instructor; 2. Engagement with identity through curriculum and assessments; 3. Intentional learning activities that include opportunities for student choice and learning needs, experiential opportunities and are interdisciplinary in nature; 4. Curriculum that is grounded and informed by diverse and inclusive, supported by culturally relevant literature and examples. 38 3.5 Positionality 3.5.1 Educational and Professional Context It is important to take a moment to acknowledge, discuss, and explore my positionality as a researcher within this study before diving deeper into the methodology. I come from a multi-disciplinary background, having conducted my undergraduate education in History and Psychology, followed by a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science [LIS]. This mix of the Humanities and Social Sciences has grounded my approaches and foundational training in the traditions of qualitative, primary, and secondary source-based research. When I moved into LIS, I was further immersed in social science research methods and practices that were firmly grounded in service-oriented evaluation and improvement. I have spent the last ten years as an academic librarian working with Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Health Sciences and other fields to support undergraduate, graduate, faculty, staff, and postdocs in their research and teaching at four different post-secondary institutions. In addition, I have collaborated with faculty as a co-researcher on several research projects, and have primarily used qualitative approaches through interviews, surveys, transcription, and document analysis as data collection methodologies. The focus on service within my professional training as a librarian, and in my work over the last decade has led to a wide variety of subject and discipline perspectives that has not only informed this research project but in many ways led to the development of these specific research questions as I strive to be a more culturally responsive educator within the library. It would be foolish to think that my experiences as a library instructor, and working with thousands of undergraduate students over the last ten years would not influence how I engage with this topic, and how I analyse the data that is being collected. Additionally, with the use of Grounded 39 Theory and CDA as my methodological choice, meaning-making is inherent to the approach. Therefore, it is inevitable that some of my perspectives, experiences, and personal context will make their way into this work. I will discuss how I aim to mitigate these biases later in this chapter. 3.5.2 Information Literacy and Library Instruction The majority of my professional career as an academic librarian has been spent designing and teaching information literacy primarily to undergraduate students in their first year of post-secondary education through library orientation and research sessions. Through this experience, I have developed my assumptions, practices, and conceptions of what it means to do culturally responsive and engaged teaching in an intentional way within the library context. Library instruction is significantly different from course-based instruction, in that it is usually a single session, for a short time, at one point within the semester. There is ample evidence that these sessions, typically referred to as one-shots, are pedagogically flawed and do not deliver lasting impact on students’ skills or research abilities due to time constraints, expectations of the faculty member, past experience with the library, disciplinary context, and more (see Pagowsky 2021 for a more fulsome overview). This is the instructional and teaching context that I am steeped in. While this experience is different from that of the participants of this study, it does inform how I view this work within higher education and may impact the analysis. 3.5.3 Critical Race Theory and Social Justice Additionally, many theories have informed my thinking, both in the context of the current research and in my professional practice. A more detailed overview of these approaches can be seen in the literature review, but I will provide a brief personal discussion of them here. To begin with, I was first introduced to Critical Race Theory in the summer of 2020. Like many, I was 40 grappling with the social, political, and cultural upheavals that were centred around the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as part of an ongoing history and practice of police brutality on racialized bodies. A course was offered through an Indigenous, Black, People of Colour library collective out of the United States called We Here, which centers equity-seeking voices within the library field. This course provided an introduction to the history, study, and practices of CRT, and created a space to explore the social elements of systemic racism and how it has shaped public policy and the governance of people through the media. This has largely impacted my thinking around the role of higher education, and education as an assimilationist structure and system through the reproduction of Western values. That being said, these sites of education also hold the possibility for disruption through personal, professional, cultural, and systemic change by providing opportunities for students and instructors to engage in critical questioning and critical consciousness-raising. As a result, this carries its own sway in my reading, analysis, and synthesis of the data in the current study. While the questions that are asked in the interviews for data collection were built from a foundation in CRT and other related theories, the perspective is firmly grounded in social justice. Social justice is the premise that power needs to be redistributed “so that all people, regardless of their identities have equitable access to resources and power” (Germán, 2021, p.5). As a result, this requires then an examination of white supremacy within my context, but also within the larger institutional structure of higher education that I work and operate in. This could bring into my analysis a reading of the data that is particularly sensitive to how teaching practices, even those that have been celebrated as being excellent, transformational, and culturally focused, could be indicative of systems, disciplines, and educational practices that replicate the assimilationist nature of education to colonial and Western norms. 41 3.5.4 Intersectionality and Identity Lastly, CRT is intertwined with the research of intersectionality, lived experiences, and storytelling as additional ways of understanding and dismantling the approaches of an institution and structure of higher education. Intersectionality was described by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) centring Black women to highlight how discrimination does not occur “along a single categorical axis” and that the sum of subordination is greater when contextualized through the intersections of multiple marginalisation’s (p.140). Intersectionality has informed my thinking in a very personal way, as I consider my own lived experience and self-identification as a mixed-race person. These theories and approaches especially through the lens of decolonial and Indigenous perspectives, have greatly impacted how I perceive and engage with educational practices that attempt to center the personal voice as valuable within the context of empirical knowledge and data. All of this brings itself into my analysis and reading of the data that has been collected for the current study as the majority of faculty and instructors at this institution (and others) are predominately white, but come with their own intersectional identities and understanding of how that connects with what occurs and is presented in the classroom. How I read and interpret the responses to the questions is not without a perception of how the identity of the participants, and the privileges or barriers they experience and have experienced would relate to how and what they teach. 3.6 Site of Research This study occurred at a mid-sized university campus in British Columbia. The selection of this site was based on being convenient for the collection of data for the researcher and has established teaching awards with public-facing lists and criteria for award winners and 42 adjudication that includes cultural and/or equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility criteria for nomination. 3.6.1 Background on the Site This institution is primarily an undergraduate post-secondary institution with approximately just under 12,000 students between undergraduate and graduate students. The majority of students are domestic students, with the majority of the almost 700 faculty in the tenured stream of the professoriate. 3.7 Methods 3.7.1 Overview Qualitative education research is used to explore, critique, and analyse the complexities of experiences and behaviours within educational settings. As Corbin and Strauss (2008) summarize in their discussion on the theoretical underpinnings of Grounded Theory from the epistemology of John Dewey and George Mead, both “assume…that knowledge is created through action and interaction,” which prioritizes the development of meaning, perspectives and social contexts within these educational settings (p. 2). Of particular importance within qualitative educational research and the current study are the considerations related to social justice such as addressing inequalities, ensuring equitable access to education, and supporting diverse learners. Through this lens, qualitative educational research can work to dismantle systemic inequalities and uncover and work on issues related to access, power, representation, and inclusion within educational settings. Within the field of educational research there are many methods utilized to conduct research. For the current project the methodologies of Grounded Theory and CDA were used and will be discussed further below. 43 3.7.2 Grounded Theory Analysis of the data, including the interview transcripts, reflective post-interview notes, and course documents, was conducted using a Grounded Theory approach. This theory, originally developed by Glaser and Strauss (1999), comes from a sociological foundation and speaks to the discovery of theory from data. This approach ensures that what is discovered through an analysis of data cannot be completely refuted due to the close link to the original data (Glaser & Strauss, 1999). The focus of this theory is to be constantly comparative, where the collection and analysis of the data occur together, with every piece of data being compared to every other piece of data (Cutcliffe, 2000). This approach allows for themes to emerge from the semi-structured interviews and allows for the researcher to direct that conversation to identify the interests of the participants, as well as enabling the researcher to ask additional questions to bring themes to the forefront, rather than preconceived ideas, themes, or topics (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). 3.7.3 Critical Discourse Analysis Critical discourse analysis was used as the methodology to review optionally provided course documents. CDA is a methodology that analyses texts and spoken language to assess the meaning of language used to describe and explain concepts. It sees language as a social practice “that is the most useful for our analysis of institutional discourse, as it implies a two-way relationship between a “discursive event” and the situation, institution, and social structure in which it occurs” (Mayr, 2008, p. 8). In the context of higher education, the social practice of institutional discourse “[serves] the interests of certain groups with social power, ensuring that events, practices and behaviours come to be regarded as legitimate and common sense” (Mayr, 2008, p. 11,13). CDA also facilitates the identification of how power is represented in the 44 language used and the processes by which language (re)produces and maintains social practices and privileges certain ways of doing, thinking, and being over others (Fairclough, 1989; Fairclough, 1992; Machin & Mayr, 2012; Mulderrig et al., 2019). This approach was selected for reviewing the optionally provided course documents to compare, contrast, and further develop meaning-making around how CRP is enacted in textual documents within a course, and how that relates to what was discussed in interviews. 3.8 Participants Participants were drawn from a cumulative list of campus teaching award winners from 2007 to 2022. The list of winners for the awards was publicly available through the campus website. The compiled list of potential participants was drawn from six awards. Each of these awards highlights instructors and faculty who excel in teaching, and/or are working towards transformative curricular changes. These award winners were chosen as they have criteria for adjudication that are based on inclusive, and/or culturally responsive approaches to their teaching. 3.8.1 Randomization A compiled list of the award winners from each of these awards across the years outlined were entered into Excel. The following formula was used to randomly rearrange the list of names =SORTBY (A1:A74,RANDARRAY(74)). The first twelve after the randomization were contacted for participation. As participants agreed, declined, or did not respond, additional participants were pulled from the randomized list in the order they appeared from one through 74. 45 3.8.2 List of participants A total of 91 participants were identified using the list of teaching award winners. Potential participants were removed if they were on the thesis committee for the current project or if they were no longer with the institution. This was confirmed using the institutional directory. The final list of potential participants, after the removal of unavailable participants, was 74. 3.8.3 Recruitment The first 12 potential participants from the randomly generated list were emailed on June 19, 2023, to participate in the study. They were given one week to respond before a second email was sent. From the initial list of 12, four responded in the first week agreeing to participate. For the remaining eight, they were emailed a week later on June 26, 2023. From that five responded agreeing to participate. To complete the list of 12 participants another three names were pulled from the randomly generated list. Those three were emailed on July 4, 2023, and all three consented to participate within one week. A copy of the email template used to recruit participants is included in Appendix A. Once participants had agreed to participate and completed the consent form, see Appendix E, a time was scheduled to conduct the interviews. Interviews were conducted in person or on Zoom depending on the participant’s availability and preference. Five were conducted in person, and seven were conducted over Zoom. Zoom was used to record all interviews, even those conducted in person to ensure consistency of approach. 3.9 Data Collection and Analysis 3.9.1 Semi-Structured Interviews Semi-structured interviews have been defined as when a 46 researcher has a list of questions or series of topics they want to cover in the interview, an interview guide but there is flexibility in how and when the questions are put and how the interviewee can respond. The interviewer can probe answers, pursuing a line of discussion opened up by the interviewee, and a dialogue can ensue. In general, the interviewer is interested in the context and content of the interview, how the interviewee understands the topic(s) under discussion and what they want to convey to the interviewer (Edwards & Holland, 2013, p. 29). This approach offers an advantage over structured interviews or questionnaires in that they provide an opportunity for reciprocity between the interviewer and the participant, as well as being “sufficiently structured to address specific topics related to the phenomenon of study, while leaving space for participants to offer new meanings to the study focus (Galletta & Cross, 2013, p. 24; Kallio et al., 2016). The number of interviews for this research project is based on the article by Guest et al. (2006), “How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability.” They found that the majority of codes developed in content analysis of interviews were identified within the first several interviews, without much change, as additional data was added. In conjunction with this, reaching the point of saturation, as defined by Glaser and Strauss (1999) as theoretical saturation, is where no further information is found within the data. In their review, Guest et al. (2006) found that this point is at 12 interviews, justifying this study. 3.9.2 Course Materials In conjunction with the semi-structured interviews, optional course documentation was collected from participants. Course materials could include, but were not limited to, syllabi, 47 reading lists, and/or assignment details. The purpose of using course materials in addition to the interviews was to provide a more nuanced understanding of what participants are doing in regards to CRP, and how they were presenting that (or not) within their course documentation. Through the collection of course materials, the researcher was able to review the findings from the interviews through the coded analysis and get a deeper nuance on how instructors enacted their approaches and practices through the rhetorical choices that they make, and in the structure of their course documents in how they communicate to students about different components of the course. The idea of including this as part of the study was to ensure that there were some examples beyond what was said in the interviews to see what CRP can and does look like in reality and how that aligns (or does not) with the findings of the interviews and the larger context of literature around CRP. The use of course documentation or course instructional materials has been used in multiple studies as part of discourse analysis work, or with other methodologies, and provides a nuanced understanding of education as a communicative process (Rogers, 2011). Combining interview data with course materials provided a depth with which to analyse approaches, perspectives, and actions within the current study. Of the participants interviewed for this study four provided course documentation, which included syllabi and/or assignment details used in their classes. 3.10 Interview and Document Collection Procedure Interview questions, along with a definition of CRP were provided to participants in advance of the interview. Participants in the initial contact email were asked to provide copies of two course documents in advance of the interview. This was optional and provided by four participants. All interviews, both in person and online were recorded using Zoom. Interviews were scheduled for an hour to provide enough time for the questions and further engagement 48 with anything that arose during the interview. Consent was also confirmed, along with any study questions before the formal interview and recording. Interview questions were focused on asking participants about their knowledge of the term CRP and how it relates to their teaching, how they see the identity of the student and themselves as the instructor in CRP, along with details about assignments, course readings, and classroom environment as it relates to CRP. The full list of interview questions can be seen in Appendix B as they were sent to participants. 3.11 Transcript Analysis Transcript analysis occurred in three stages. The first was a review of the transcripts before they were sent to participants for review and confirmation. This initial review was to tidy up the autogenerated transcripts, and confirm that the transcripts generated by Zoom were correct when compared with the audio allowed for some initial themes to be developed. Following confirmation of the transcripts by the participants, they were uploaded into NVivo for a formal coding process using the overarching themes developed. A first round of codes was developed and can be seen in Appendix C. A second round of coding was then completed reviewing for additional codes and themes, which can be found in Appendix D. 3.11.1 NVIVO NVivo was selected as the software to code the finalized and anonymized transcripts as the researcher had used it before, and it is offered as part of the licensed tools at the institution. NVivo allows for the collection, organization, analysis, visualization, and reporting of data (otherwise known as a CAQDAS program) (Dhakal, 2022). While NVivo is an incredibly strong tool for data management and organization, it does not in and of itself structure the analysis process (Maher et al., 2018). The process of using NVivo for coding included the following: 49 reading each interview through the ingested transcript, highlighting key sections of each transcript and assigning a first-round code based on the initial transcript review, a second round of coding, and development of memos throughout the process to note and document the process of coding. Further details on this process are provided below. 3.11.2 Coding Process Based on the work of Corbin and Strauss (2008), Glaser and Strauss (1999), and Strauss and Corbin (1997) the following procedure was conducted for analysis, once interviews had been conducted, recorded, and transcripts completed: Initial Data Analysis: Transcripts were developed from Zoom transcription and were then confirmed with the audio from each interview. Transcripts were then reviewed for final corrections and to identify any areas to be anonymized based on identifying information, which was highlighted for participants to review by the researcher. Transcripts were sent to participants for review. A final copy of the transcript was made with the identifying information removed. Open Coding Round 1: Once all transcripts had been approved by participants, they were added to NVivo for open coding. Through this process, each line of the transcript was reviewed and coded with initial concepts. These can be seen in Appendix C. Additionally, throughout the coding process annotations were added to each transcript as ideas were generated, connections between transcripts, and themes for further exploration were identified. Constant Comparison and Axial Coding: Once this first round of open coding was conducted, all of the codes were reviewed for continuous comparison to identify new codes, clarify code contexts, and refining of the 50 understanding of the data. Then a process of axial coding was conducted to organize codes into broad themes and categories based on what emerged in the open coding. This was reviewed and compared in conjunction with a review of the initial theme development from the first data review during transcript development and completion. Open Coding Round 2: Transcripts were then reviewed with the initial round one codes to identify further subcategories, themes, and concepts that reflected a more details and nuanced perspective of the data. The additional codes and sub-codes can be seen in Appendix D. Constant Comparison and Memo Writing: Throughout the initial data analysis, coding, and comparison detailed memos and annotations were documented throughout the process as a process for the generative conceptualisation of the themes and potential evolving theory from the finding. These memos continued to be refined and revised through the analysis process to identify relationships between categories. 3.12 Course Materials In total five syllabi and two assignments were provided for further analysis across the six participants who agreed to provide documentation. Analysis of this material was conducted first, using the same codes as the transcripts. Additional discourse analysis was conducted for terminology, phrases, and other rhetorical conventions to identify and further provide depth to the transcript analysis. 3.13 Limitations and Bias Limitations of this approach for data collection and analysis include that the researcher brings in their values, beliefs, knowledges, and assumptions into the research and data collection. 51 While this is true in many researcher contexts, the small sample selection and the nature of semi-structured interviews enable value judgements to be included within the sample. Additionally, due to the nature of a single coder for this transcript and course document analysis, there was the potential for individual subjectivity in the data analysis. As the researcher is involved with related work to the subject area, there could have been a projection of researcher expectations for what the participants meant with responses, or extrapolated meaning when it was not present. This could have created issues when the findings are being used for application outside of the specific context described in the interview. While the findings in the current project are intended to be synthesized into strategies and approaches that could be utilized by other instructors, the purpose of Grounded Theory is to develop context-specific theories (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Therefore, while there could be generalised approaches taken from this study, that is not the sole purpose of this work, and a series of recommendations and implementations strategies are provided in Chapter 5: Discussion. Confirmation bias is also possible with a solo researcher. Through conducting the interviews, the tendency to explore or probe for data that can confirm existing beliefs, or ideas, rather than exploring those that oppose or challenge those beliefs is a real concern (Klein, 2019). As meaning-making is a core element of this methodological approach, the researcher must be reflective throughout the data collection process of potential personal biases and interpretations, not only by acknowledging them during the collection but by bringing them into the analysis and study (Cutcliffe, 2000). Olesen (2007) provides an overview of reflexivity forms that should be considered when applying a Grounded Theory approach which can support and enable this reflexive practice in data collection and analysis which includes: “(1) Full explanation of how analytic and practical issues were handled; (2) Examination of the researcher's own background 52 and its influences on the research; and (3) Reflections on the researcher's own emotions, worries, feelings” (Olesen, 2007, “Reflexivity,”). Point 2 is addressed in the positionality section of this chapter but steps for the first point include describing how any issue that arose with participant communication, interview completion, transcript review, coding and data analysis were dealt with and are discussed concerning the findings in Chapter 5: Discussion. Point 3 refers to the emotionality that can be tied to conducting research. Throughout the process of completing this project, the researcher kept a journal reflecting on challenges, issues, frustrations, highlights, and transformations that occurred from the onset of the project. Additionally, this research project is in a robust and nuanced area of pedagogical exploration. To begin, there is the reality that time constraints could affect the depth and scope of responses by participants. Issues of generalisability can also occur with the small sample size selected, and with participants only being from one institution through a targeted sample. Potential additional biases of this approach could also include but are not limited to the agency of the researchers themselves within this approach as briefly mentioned above. The researcher, by being embedded within the conversations with participants, has significant autonomy in the data construction and interpretation, especially as a sole investigator (Olesen, 2007). This is why the inclusion of reflective notes, integration of any emotional or strong responses through reflection and discussion with the thesis supervisor, and taking space between coding and analysis to process and revise were components of this study to reduce the potential for the researcher to sway the data in a particular way. Additionally, chapters of this thesis were reviewed consistently by the thesis supervisor and then by the larger thesis committee, which ensured that detailed and robust feedback was provided throughout the drafting process. Several strategies were used to mitigate the limitations and bias of this theoretical 53 approach. The first was described above through reflexivity. Through the field note, coding, and analysis process the researcher took memos and additional notes in relationship to the construction of codes and the meaning and relationships between those codes. This reflection ensured that no one piece of data was impacting the meaning and relationships being analysed and synthesized by the researcher and that reviewing their positionality in relationship to the participants, the institutional context and findings were intentional in the final product. Member checking was also conducted where participants could review the transcripts, and they were also provided with the final thesis of the current project to see how their responses were incorporated into the final synthesis of data. Field notes during and directly after interviews and code memos were also used throughout the analysis and data collection project to capture thought processes and interpretations as the data was being analysed. This ensured transparency and allowed the researcher to review them collectively to identify any consistent or persistent themes of bias or assumptions that were being made. Coded memos are used for each concept identified within the transcript to provide a narrative of the thought process related to interpretation. Codes could be developed between rounds of coding and review but would be documented as a process through these coded memos in conjunction with notes on analysis and interpretation as described by Corbin and Strauss (2008). Additional steps for mitigating the bias and limitations of this approach were in collecting course documentation. This in part provided further depth to the analysis, but also ensured that the data collected could be further verified through those course documents. This allowed for cross-verification and validation of themes identified by the transcripts which were incorporated into the analysis to strengthen the findings through an additional data source. Along with this is 54 the inclusion of the researcher’s positionality statement, and transparent documentation on the research process. These two components provide an opportunity for the researcher to contextualize the process of the research and the context in which the researcher conducted the research based on their own identity, privilege, education, and professional background. While no one step can ensure that limitations and biases are addressed, taken cumulatively these approaches are used to provide transparency, and documentation on the processes used in completing the current project. Through this Grounded Theory approach, the aim is to add insights from these interviews to provide depth and nuance to the concept of CRP, this work is not meant to have a broad generalizable application due to the small sample size, and single institution for data collection. Instead it provides recommendations and implementation approaches that could be used by others. Throughout the collection, analysis, and synthesis of this project, interweaving my positionality was a representation of how Grounded Theory as a methodological approach, is a process of interaction between the self and the data to create meaning. 3.14 Conclusion The research questions of how and what instructors do to reflect, enact, and communicate CRP in their instruction were explored using semi-structured interviews and document analysis, and analysed using Grounded Theory and CDA. This data and its analyses provided the foundation for a CRP application framework that can be applied by other instructors in higher education, irrespective of discipline. Participants were recruited from a summative list of teaching award winners at the selected campus. Participants on this list were randomly ordered using an Excel formula and contacted based on that list. If potential participants were not responsive to a recruiting email, the following person on the randomized summative list was 55 contacted until 12 participants had consented. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and recorded for transcript development, along with the optional provision of course documents which were analysed using Grounded Theory and CDA strategies. 56 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 4.1 Overview This chapter will describe each of the major themes and subthemes found across participant data. Additionally, a general participant overview is provided. The chapter will conclude with a description and visual of the theme identification process and a chapter summary. 4.2 Participants 4.2.1 General Description As was outlined in the previous chapter, participants were drawn from a cumulative list of teaching award winners from 2007 to 2022 from a mid-sized university in Canada and interviewed between June and August 2023. The list of award winners was publicly available through the institutional website. The compiled list of potential participants was drawn from six awards. Each of these awards highlighted instructors and faculty who excelled in teaching, and/or working on transformative curricular changes. In addition, these award winners were chosen for the current project as each of the awards had at least one criterion for adjudication based on inclusive, and/or culturally responsive approaches to teaching. A total of 12 participants were included in the data, and four provided additional course documentation to support the thematic analysis. 4.2.2 Participant Overview and Insights Participants came from seven departments, representing a relatively broad range of disciplinary and faculty perspectives, including a mix of sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Participants ranged in their instructional experience from being in their first two years to over twenty years of teaching experience. There was variation in roles from lecturer, 57 assistant professor, and associate professor amongst the participants. Additionally, participants ranged in the sizes of classes taught, from large first year classes, to small seminar courses at the senior undergraduate level. 4.3 Overview of Participant and Course Document Responses The following provides a broad overview of major themes and findings from the participants and course documents. Participants will be referred to as P1 for Participant 1, P2 for Participant 2 and so on. Where appropriate, specific interview questions will be referred to. Interview questions can be viewed in Appendix B. 4.4 Cross-Participant Analysis 4.4.1 Major Themes Major themes were identified through a three analysis. The first was through examining the code frequency after two rounds of coding, as the number of files the codes appeared within. The second was through a review of interview field notes that were taken during and directly after the interviews with participants. The third step was through the discourse analysis of the course documents provided. A visual of the theme development can be seen in section 4.4.19. Each theme below provides a brief description and how it is presented within the participant transcripts and course documents. Further analysis of these themes regarding the research questions and examined literature will be explored in Chapter 5: Discussion. 4.4.1.1 Theme 1: Relationship Building Relationship building with students was a predominant theme within many of the interviews. Relationship building refers to the intentional process by the instructor to develop connections with students in and outside of the classroom. Through the interviews, field notes, and review of course documents, several sub-themes related to relationship building were 58 identified. These include the development of trust with students, the views and actions towards students as partners within the classroom, and enabling student autonomy. Trust Of particular note from the interviews as a whole, were the efforts made by instructors to build trust with students, and demonstrate authenticity in how they engaged with students to build this trust. Out of the 12 participants, 80% referred to some element of relationship building, with three participants referring to trust within their intentional teaching practices, or in direct relationship to their work with students. P10 spoke directly to this, noting that if teaching is not genuine, or if it is “fake”, it will result in losing students’ trust and “openness” to engaging with them as the facilitator. P1, P6, P10, and P11 spoke to the importance of building trust with students through being open and authentic about themselves, providing details on where they as the instructor were coming from in terms of the course, and how those details impacted their teaching. P9 also described trust as being part of their accountability and responsibility to students around what is happening within the classroom. For some of the participants, this trust was developed by having one-on-one time with students, with P2 and P8 speaking to being able to connect with students in smaller classes this way to engage with them about their needs and answer questions about the course. P2 for instance noted that students did not ask many questions on the first days of class about the syllabus and course expectations, but found that they were able to engage students more during one-on-ones at the start of the term to answer their questions about course details and expectations. P10 in contrast, created dedicated time outside of class for students to engage with them about topics not related to the course and academic content to support students in getting to know them personally and to show students a more dynamic side of them as an instructor and 59 person. This connected with what they described as storytelling and personal experiences as being part of teaching, and that the authenticity of that comes through to students by taking that approach. This also appeared in two of the syllabi provided by participants where intentional assignments around personal narratives, positionality, and individual reflections were included, which connects to developing trust with students through getting to know them and their backgrounds. Students as Partners Eight of the participants spoke directly to the idea of students as partners within the course, and cultivating that as part of the classroom space. In most instances, students as partners referred to some opportunity created by the participant for students to collaborate on the course content or topics, assignment details or choice of the format of assignments, as well as being co-contributors to the learning. P1 for example, described that what happens in the classroom must come from everyone who is in that space, both student and teacher alike. P3 highlighted their approach to this by considering their syllabus as part of this partnership with students, where the document could be used as part of a conversation with students on the structure and topics of the course. P11 also spoke to this process of students as partners directly, outlining that while the content taught in some courses may be more static, communication and teaching is a cultural practice that is relational to who is in that space, with students being equal partners in that. Similarly, P6 and P7 both outlined that the learning or training of students is something collaborative, and co-creating those spaces with students is as much about mutual and reciprocal learning, as teaching content. This will be explored in more detail in a later theme. 60 Student Autonomy Related to both trust and students as partners is the connection of these practices to student autonomy. Student autonomy was described by 75% of participants. Student autonomy refers to students’ freedom to explore their interests, bringing their own experiences and identities into their work, and having choice over elements of the course. Many of these participants spoke to providing assignments and space for students to find their voice, engage in topics that interest them, self-direct their pace within the course based on their workload needs in and outside of their education, and provide opportunities to participate in class in genuine ways. For example, P3 demonstrated their approach to student autonomy by outlining how “students’ identity and particularly the intersectionality of their identity is an important element” of learning. They supported this by highlighting that the elements of active learning that are represented in the academic literature are an important component of classroom practice, but for neurodivergent students, these active learning components can be stressful and cause anxiety. P3 identified that what this results in is students not coming to class or even leaving the class. P3 responded to this in the classroom by providing opportunities for students to sit out activities or vary their level of engagement. P3 also encouraged students to provide input on the syllabus around topics and pacing. Related to this was P6 who described conversations with the class at the start of the term to discuss the collective approach to course content and scheduling, as well as providing space for students to decide “how they want to be in that collective or not” in regards to their agency as learners. This came through as well with P7 when they described students’ choice and agency to make decisions about their work within a course, stating that I really believe that sometimes students make choices to not succeed in the academically defined way. But that doesn't mean they haven't learned things and aren't taking things 61 away. And I don't think, like I certainly don't want to see those as failures, you know…students are adults, they make choices for all sorts of reasons. And sometimes just writing that paper or handing something in is not the priority and that's if that's happening in an informed way and I've supported them in all the ways to get it in anyways and they've decided no I don't that's not what I want to do, I respect that choice. 4.4.1.2 Theme 2: Assignments and Grading Many of the components of relationship building with students were represented in how participants described how their assignments and course resources were structured. Several of the participants spoke about flexible deadlines, creativity within assignment topics and format selection, feedback opportunities, and how students were provided with information about the structure of the course. Taken together, the work described by participants to use assignments as a tool for CRP practices was robust. Flexible Deadlines and Assignment Choice Over 40% of participants spoke to deadlines when asked about their approaches with assignments in regards to CRP, with 25% referring to having some flexibility on deadlines as a way to support student autonomy, recognizing students’ responsibilities and workloads in and outside of the classroom, and to provide some flexibility for student’s schedules. P1 described this flexibility as lifelines, and an opportunity for students to complete an assignment well, to demonstrate their learning in line with the purpose of the assignment, rather than meeting the need of the deadline. P3 also referred to a flexible deadline process where there is a grace period for submitting assignments without permission or penalty, describing that they recognize that students have a myriad of complex reasons why they may need it. Assignment choice came up with 75% of participants. Assignment choice appeared in 62 relationship to allowing students to decide on the type or format of an assignment, when assignments were to be completed within the term, or how much an assignment was worth within the breakdown of the graded components. One participant, provided a unique example within the participant pool in that they allow students to determine the weight of certain assignments depending on the students’ own perceived strengths and abilities. P7 and P10 described having a variety of format types within their list of assignments so that students had multiple opportunities to demonstrate knowledge in different ways. For some participants, assignments were also a way to provide students with an opportunity to work towards a collective or collaborative project within the class. P6 reflected on seeing the classroom as a sandbox for students to try and experiment with things, where it was supported in a developmental way with iterative feedback through assignments and course structure. At least two participants described giving students choices in how they interpret the assignment requirements and structure to allow students opportunities to demonstrate learning in ways that align with their own needs and creativity. In contrast, two participants described not giving students a choice for assignment formats within their courses, especially at the foundational level. They described that flexibility as creating challenges in supporting students in completing the work, and understanding the scope of their expertise, while also creating further challenges for them as instructors in terms of marking and timelines of the course. This was supported by other participants who have either utilized flexible deadlines or have considered incorporating them, in that they both spoke to the challenges of managing the support for students and marking on the different timelines of assignments coming in. 63 Grading In addition to flexible deadlines, participants spoke to thinking deeply about the grading of assignments. For example, one participant described current evaluation processes as not feeling fair, as to ensure that learning outcomes are being met it requires focusing on specific strengths such as presentations or writing, without any nuance to the individual students’ skills and strengths. Therefore, they created an opportunity in their class for students to determine the weight of different assignments so that while students still have to complete all of them, they can reflect on their strengths and have more autonomy about how they demonstrate their learning within the course. Related to this was how P7 described wanting to assign grades based on learning and contributions rather than on whether or not a student can show up and engage in ways that have been the norm in academic contexts. Both P3 and P5 spoke to wanting to use grading in a way that supported students in being more intrinsically motivated, with P5 and P6 speaking to their desire for students to have the space to be creative without being consumed with the graded component or in competition with other students in the class. Rubrics came up with three participants as tools to support students in their completion of assignments. One participant spoke in detail about being intentional and mindful of what is being assessed through rubrics (learning versus grammar ability for example). They spoke to intentionally unpacking their rubrics to determine if there were expectations that “presume background knowledge” that students may not have, especially if they are coming from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Similarly, another participant spoke about trying to create space for students existing knowledges and experiences to be part of the classroom space, and how they wanted to provide opportunities for student work to take different shapes through their assessments. In conjunction with this, they also reflected on the use of rubrics to support this 64 work, finding ways to use rubrics to provide flexibility and enable creativity, describing their rubrics as looking fairly traditional, but my interest is always in seeing us interpret those traditional things in really, maybe, unlikely ways. So again, like you must have an argument, but how that argument’s articulated could look really different depending on the kind of project you want to pursue… I guess sometimes a nonlinear form of documentation best suits the project. But like I just want people to know why they're doing what they're doing…for me, part of the critical consciousness thing, is we have to be able to, we have to have the skills to understand why we need the choices we made and to be able to explain that to somebody else. So doesn't have to be a linear essay if you know why it's not. Finally, an additional participant also includes rubrics as a way to demonstrate the different ways that students could participate and demonstrate engagement within the course that goes beyond raising their hand and speaking in class. Participation and Engagement Lastly, participation and/or engagement was another area where grading was considered intentionally by participants to reflect the varying needs and types of students within the classroom. Three participants spoke about how they incorporate nuance into their participation grades that go beyond simply rewarding attending class and speaking. For P7 and P4 they referred to this as engagement, and building processes for students to account for different ways they were engaging with the course. One participant described their engagement components as contributions to the classroom as a community that is being built collaboratively. They highlighted that this can vary between asking good questions, offering a response to a question, 65 taking notes for someone, having conversations etc. This was similar to another participant who also did not look at participation as just speaking in class, but instead as being present and willing to learn. Both of these examples demonstrate the desire to look at engagement and participation within class as something more nuanced, and reflective of what students can provide to the class environment. P9 also described their practices around participation as focusing on encouraging in-person engagement that is collaborative and discussion-based. In the upper year classes, they emphasised focusing on being a facilitator for students learning, and the knowledge that is already in the room outlining this as, I try to create an environment where we assume that everybody in the room holds relevant knowledge…. And to encourage students to take each other seriously…We have to get used to listening to each other and hearing the wisdom in each other’s voices. So, I really want students to have that experience, or have the experience of having others listen to them, and hear knowledge, hear wisdom. 4.4.1.3 Theme 3: Identity and Positionality The identity and perspective of the instructor were asked about explicitly within the interview questions and were explored in more detail through the discussion with seven of the participants. Identity refers to how participants saw and described their qualities, personal traits or characteristics, beliefs, appearance, background etc. Positionality within this project refers to engaging with how individuals position themselves within different social identities. Positionality, while it can inform identity, is separate in that it is not characteristics that an individual has, but speaks more so to the power that an individual holds, which can be context-dependent. This can include, but is not limited to race, gender, class, ethnicity, ability, language, etc. For many of these seven participants, they spoke to how both the identity of the instructor 66 and the identity of the student were significant within the classroom space, through content, community, and engagement. Many participants connected their identity to their positionality, and in turn their power within the classroom. Instructor Identity Several participants spoke to recognizing that their identity impacts how they teach. P1 and P5 spoke to their cultural backgrounds and positionality informing how they see the classroom space and who is in it. P2 highlighted that asking students to engage with their identity in class is also about reciprocating and providing some context as to where the instructor is coming from in terms of their own identity, especially when they are asking students to do that as well. Several of the participants spoke to providing some introductory content about themselves at the start of the term to provide context for the course and them as instructors within that course. Most of the participants described the details that they provide to students as being about their educational background, their families, where they have lived, and a land acknowledgement that is personalized to their own experiences. P11 spoke to how part of the work within the classroom, and through experiential education as a philosophy that they engage with, is about recognizing the whole self of the student and the whole self of the instructor and the negotiation of that within the classroom. Two participants described including details either in course documentation or delivered orally to students about how they teach, such as what pedagogies and learning theories they incorporate into the course, and why they are part of their practice as part of their self-identification within their classes. Of these two participants, one described this in detail within their syllabus, outlining, with citations, their learning practices, and theories that inform their approach to the 67 class. Both of these participants, referred to their educational experiences as part of what brought them to include these components within the course. The evolution of how participants incorporated their identity also came up with P7. They spoke about how when they first started teaching, they tried to be a “blank slate” for their students, which has changed over time, I talk absolutely now, particularly about like my family, where I'm from, how I got here, what kinds of privilege I may have, what I feel my obligations are. So, I try to kind of model that sense of understanding, what one’s situation is so that I can think also about what I don't know, I can be humble about what I don't know and what I don't have access to in terms of knowledge. Similar to this reflection, another participant described how being open with students in this way, supports students in understanding that they are teaching from my context, from my learning, and from my upbringing…I'm trying to be culturally aware and be culturally responsive, but I only am to an extent, and so I hope that in my teachings, in our contents that you will see, or feel free to share your experiences from your culture. Both of these examples demonstrated the interconnection between student and instructor identity. Further to this, when it came to the question around student identity within the classroom, P4 was clear that this resonated with what they are trying to do in the classroom, specifically around teaching to and about positionality and reflexivity as part of the learning. This included speaking to their positionality in the classroom, especially around topics that are not directly connected to their position to create space for students with those identities and lived experiences to bring that into the course. 68 Student Identity The relational aspect of the instructor and student identity was a key component for many of the participants. Amongst the participants, over 80% spoke in detail when asked about student identity within the context of CRP practices within their classrooms and/or course design. Examples of how instructors incorporated student identity were discussed in several ways, including through assignments, course readings and topics, and in how classroom design and structure were developed before students arrived in the course to create space for student identities to be supported. One participant spoke to this through their practices around accessibility and disability justice, and how they incorporated that into their course design. Others spoke about how they encouraged and supported students in engaging with multiple modes of expression through course assignments. Many of the participants spoke to the importance of creating space within the course community for discussions where students could bring their identities and experiences into the work of the classroom. P6 and P9 for example, described engaging students in thinking about their own identity, and positioning that within the course through how students could contribute what they want to about their identities, knowledges, and experiences in the classroom. As was included in the previous section, P1 outlined how they recognized that they could not teach only from their perspective and background, but must incorporate and create space for the experiences and knowledges of the students. P2 also reflected on this when outlining their understanding of CRP as being a pedagogy that “affirms student identities…works towards social justice…and the idea of critiquing power structures.” This concept of affirming students’ identities was also brought up by other participants as a key element to how they learn within a course. For example, one participant focused on how “students’ identity and particularly the 69 intersectionality of their identity is an important element of how learner learn.” They described an anonymous survey at the start of the term that they use to get to know who’s in the class, where students can self-report identity, experiences, disabilities, learning constraints, access to technology, and work responsibilities. They then use this in class in an “aggregate way” to inform course development and design. Similar to this, another participant also spoke to having opportunities for students to provide anonymous feedback to support the development and revision of course content over the term to meet specific needs. Another aspect of this was the participant’s intentional approaches to learning about students to include aspects of their identities, cultures, and interests within the content of the course. P2 spoke to meeting with students one-on-one to learn about them and find common interests across the students to incorporate into the course. P3, P4, P6, P7, and P12 spoke to incorporating topics and/or readings into the course based on local or global issues that related to the course or that were of interest to the students in that particular course running. When it came to the question of student identity, P5 pushed back that they wouldn't call it identity per se, because there are lots of identity politics. Almost sometimes I feel like it's sometimes it gets out of the proportion…because every time you put [a] label; the problem is that culturally we have such a narrow vision of what the success is. And as soon as you get a step out of that sliver, you get a label. And this I'm trying to break those things completely apart. Right, and just say, what is your voice? What do I need to say? And why is that important for all of us? But so then, you see, if we haven't had, if we don't have such a narrow idea of what the successes then all of it is good. P5 returned to this idea at the end of the interview outlining that the identity component is not necessarily useful when trying to break out of the norms of a colonial place and context, such as 70 a university. P7 also unpacked the use of the term identity and some of the assumptions that come with that term, particularly around power within the teaching and learning context, I'm really keen on sometimes pushing back a bit against identity and instead talking about the structures of power that sort of shape our opportunities…I think it's a bit of an I'm almost going to even say an outdated word and I know we still use it a lot but I think it's very Western in that it sort of sets up this idea that all of this is internal to a person. Like it's something we walk around carrying in our skin, this identity. When I really am trying to encourage students to think more about their relationships and how they relate. You know, how are they positioned by others? How are they in relation to others? What are their histories? What are their responsibilities? How are they, you know positioned within communities in different ways because I mean we all know that those things change. Positionality Ten of the 12 participants spoke to positionality either in the interviews themselves or the course documents in the context of their positionality or the positionality of students. For most of these participants, this included providing an introduction to themselves and their positionality as part of the start of the course. Others, connected their positionality within the course as it related to different topics and readings as it applied and came up in the course schedule. Four of the participants describe either reflecting on, or speaking directly to their privilege within the classroom space as part of their positionality, and how that impacted how they teach. P1 for example, stated that “I think my context, maybe my positionality, helps them, again understand, where I'm coming from, but also my limitations” therefore enabling students to have a deeper insight into what they as the instructors are also able to provide within the classroom space. 71 Four of the participants spoke about how they engage students within the classroom space to have them think about their positionality, either through a specific assignment or within the classroom environment to connect to the material that is being taught. They described the positionality of students, and having students engage with that, as a way to build classroom community, and connection between peers within the learning space. For many of the participants, components of the content taught in their courses were connected to social justice and cultural topics that encourage grounding students in positionality as part of the work of critical consciousness and critical analysis within the course work. P9 engaged with this in their interview, stating that part of the work within the course is for students to “think critically about how each of us is located in relation to the learning we’re doing.” P9 described working to model this within the classroom, by detailing how they situate themselves within the course and teaching. Examples of getting students to directly engage with this were described by two participants, who had assignments that specifically asked students to write or engage with their positionality. This introspection for students to think about how they are positioned and positioned by others as described in more detail by one of the participants as something they try and encourage students to focus on rather than just identity. Similarly, other participants spoke about how the diversity within the institution was an opportunity to learn from students, especially regarding topics that were included in the course that were not part of the lived experience of the instructors. This was addressed directly by one participant who stated that on the first day I kind of flagged the fact that we're going to talk about things that are outside my experience, and that I am a facilitator, and I have you know the benefit of having academic training, 72 which they used as a way to build up cultural competency, as well as compassion and empathy for each other within the classroom space around those in the room having different types of lived experience. Related to this, one participant described in their course documentation the work and objectives of the course as recognizing positionality and intersectionality as components of the course. Other participants also spoke more directly to their positionality. For example, P11 and P9 spoke to the work they had done on their own to ground themselves in Indigenous perspectives, which created space for them to think about how to speak to their positionality within their courses, especially with the settler context. Storytelling Storytelling appeared in 75% of the participant’s responses in a variety of contexts to the questions being asked in the interview. Storytelling refers to the process of incorporating narrative approaches to the details of the individuals within the classroom space, such as through introductions or self-reflection, as well as assignments or course content. Throughout the interviews, participants referred to storytelling as it related to how they introduced themselves within the course and their own identities, along with how they encouraged or engaged students to think and write about their own identities, perspectives, and/or positionalities. Many of the participants described storytelling as part of their practice, particularly in relation to their history, education, and experience. Two of the participants described having students explicitly write to their personal history and experiences in relationship to the course content, and to reflect on who they are within the parameters of the assignment. P11 described their learning around decolonization and described an experience of telling a personal narrative of themselves that was contextualized to the course. This narrative was later validated by students in the class by making them feel more comfortable and connected to the course in a 73 more personal way. This was echoed by another participant who said that they use storytelling about themselves at the start of a class and that this was learning they had to do once they were an instructor. They emphasized the importance of doing this work and including it in their introduction to the course “in order to be able to ask it of my students.” They described their approach in more detail, I always open with a bit of storytelling me about like who I am, how I came to be teaching here. Why, where, why, and when, and I developed an interest and passion [in the subject matter] …And what I feel able to speak to or not based on that, which you know shifts and changes over time, so we do a different introduction every class. And then kind of explain that I want students to be themselves thinking about how they locate themselves in relation to the work we're doing. For P10 storytelling came into their practice around engaging with students outside of the classroom on non-academic topics. They described storytelling and personal experiences as being part of teaching, and that the authenticity of that comes through to students by taking this approach. A different lens on this was from other participants where storytelling was incorporated through the aligning course content to larger local and global contexts. For P4 they connected this with their understanding of CRP as being to “you know, create, content, teaching, lessons, also assignments, that respond to things like happening in the immediate culture, things happening in the world, current events.” Power Structures Half of the participants spoke to power structures within their classroom, in their overall teaching or approach, or through their assignments. The way power structures were discussed ranged in terms of the overarching academic structure or landscape, or more specifically to the 74 disciplinary context that participants were speaking to. Power structures from this perspective refers to the power that the instructor has within the classroom and within the context of higher education which is a structured, hierarchal system that positions students lower in that hierarchy. For example, one participant spoke about their challenges and reflections on engaging in decolonizing approaches in the classroom and their concern with putting students in a position where they would have to hold them accountable for something within the classroom space. P7 spoke in detail about how identity plays into power structures, describing the hierarchy of the educational system, where they could not completely remove the authority that they have in the classroom. This is in part for the sake of their responsibility to be accountable to do their job and to support learning but also in terms of how that is more a representation of the structure of education rather than individual identity. This systemic nature of the education system came up with other participants, such as P5 who outlined how breaking the position of power within the classroom requires a lot of skill and intention for students to feel that they have the space and authority to bring their learning and perspectives into the space. For P2, P6, and P11 they spoke to how critiquing and engaging students in unpacking and rethinking established power structures is part of the course through content and assignments. This process of recognizing the power of the system, as well as engaging with it in the context of the course, all played into recognizing the relationship between instructor and student. P5 for example, when reflecting on positionality within the classroom, connected this with the highly structured environment of post-secondary. They described how “universities are systematically hierarchical, and professors are always in a power position in odd ways, and to break those positionalities…actually takes a lot of skill.” 75 This understanding of how the institutional context and hierarchy impact what happens in the classroom came up with other participants. For example, with P6 in a part of the discussion around how fear of failure can stifle creativity, P6 reflected on CRP, stating that “culturally responsive pedagogy is responding to the cultural needs of that generation, not the culture of the academy.” This prioritization of the needs of the students rather than the needs of the academy came up in another way with P7 when they were unpacking the definition of CRP and the aspect around students experiencing success. They pointed out that succeeding within the formal academic system is not always the goal, articulating that regarding whether or not students should experience success, I would say no. I mean, according to the what counts as academic success, i.e. a pass grade or even a high grade, an A. I think students can learn a lot from the classroom and I can learn a lot from them even if they don't pass. So, I wouldn't say that academic success is necessary to have engaged in culturally what I would consider like maybe culturally responsive pedagogy because that's not always the goal, you know, to succeed in this system. This was further supported by P9 stating how much they enjoy supporting students to be creative within the classroom, highlighting that students already have the skills and knowledge to explore their learning in non-traditional ways, they just have few opportunities to do this within the university context. 4.4.1.4 Theme 4: Classroom Community and Environment Participants were asked about intentional components in their instruction and curriculum design that were meant to develop the classroom environment for students to build relationships with each other and the participants. Throughout the interviews, classroom community was 76 primarily how this came up. The classroom environment refers to the intentional structures and practices that instructors develop as part of their course(s) to facilitate and support the learning environment. Classroom community refers to the ways that the instructor facilitates, through relationship building with students and between students, the experience of working together as a collaborative group towards learning within the context of the course. The participants spoke to a variety of ways that they work to facilitate and develop the classroom environment and community. One participant referred to how community and knowledge can and are built through sharing as a group. They connected this with class engagement through formal assignments, and in relationship to engaging with each other within the class space. Another participant spoke about how due to the breadth of the types of students (disciplinary, level, age etc.) within their course and the course content, there was a lot of sharing about personal experiences. The impact of this community practice came up in the student evaluations for the course, reflecting on the value of that space within the class. Both P2 and P9 spoke to the value they saw within in-person instruction when reflecting on teaching during the pandemic, and how students were able to form community more easily within in-person spaces versus when it was online. This idea of in-person contact time between students and instructors, and students with each other, came up in other ways with participants, such as how participants aimed to incorporate more group work, collaborative projects, or peer feedback into their courses. P2, P8, and P10 also spoke to structuring time, whether formal (P2 and P8) or informal (P10) to spend time one-on-one with students to get to know them better, engage them on a personal level about the course work and expectations, and to develop the trust and relationships to facilitate the classroom dynamic. 77 The other perspective on classroom community and environment that came through with the participants was around the breadth of diversity at the institution. Another participant spoke about their own experiences as a student and a teacher in the Canadian context. They noted that it is not only the students who are diverse and multicultural but also the faculty and instructors as well, which adds to the unique context of teaching. Prevalent throughout the participant data was the desire for students to learn from each other within the classroom. P5 spoke to this as well, by articulating that they work to facilitate a classroom environment which has students engaging and providing feedback on their work with each other, stating that “I think those are really important, because…that's where the students learn from students right, and from each other, from the community of the classroom.” This connects to how P6 described creating and responding to the culture of the classroom, and the development of community space; “I can't say it's a formula I do, but it's in response to the chemistry you get when you walk into a room. So, it's context-by-context-based. So, class, course, by course.” They outlined how not every topic or focus of the course will be something everyone will be interested in, or necessarily agree with but working to create an environment that supports those differences is important. Reflecting on this process one participant stated that navigating this starts right at the beginning, we kind of co-create…what are the norms and our values and how are we going to find shared space when or if we don't if or when we don't agree. Or…when we're all in agreement, how can we play devil's advocate? To see counterpoints, but I do that…so that if we ever get to a moment where we don't all share the same opinion or perspective. That everyone is still valued within it and no one gets ostracized. And…that has been a real gift in my teaching…students have taught me how to do that. 78 This facilitation was key to how P7 described their work within the classroom, as being about the “infrastructure” that is being established, which allows not only instructor knowledge and expertise to be shared and experienced, but also students’ knowledge and experience, “[s]o being able to create an infrastructure where we can share and learn from each other. Is what I see as the most successful model of something I might call culturally responsive pedagogy.” This opportunity for students to engage with each other was also described by a participant where they described a community-based approach through peer-teaching and support within the context of the course. Students in their classes, when possible, were partnered up during the course and provided support for each other to facilitate learning and accountability. Three of the syllabi provided also indicated the importance of peer connections within the classroom and incorporated it into learning outcomes, classroom community building, and collaborative assignments. This also connected with the classroom environment and culture that P9 outlined as trying to cultivate. They described focusing on encouraging in-person engagement that is collaborative and discussion-based. In the upper-year classes, they emphasised focusing on being a facilitator for the learning, and the knowledge that is already in the room. Describing this as, I try to create an environment where we assume that everybody in the room holds relevant knowledge…. And to encourage students to take each other seriously…I don't want to do a lot of pre-packaged like these are the things you need to come away with. But it's like, this person just said a really brilliant thing. And then write it down. We have to get used to listening to each other and hearing the wisdom in each other’s voices. So, I really want students to have that experience, or have the experience of having others listen to them, and hear knowledge, hear wisdom. 79 Related to this was how one participant represented engaging with challenging scholarship within the course. They included a detailed overview of engaging respectfully and as a community of practice within the syllabus as part of the way to create space to listen and learn from lived experiences that extend beyond those that an individual student may have. Mutual Learning Seeing teaching as a process of reciprocal learning came up with 25% of participants. Mutual learning within this research refers to the opportunity within the classroom and a course for both students and instructors to learn from each other. P6, P7, P10, and P11 all spoke to this as part of their classroom context and environment. P11 spoke to the reciprocal and relational nature of the student-instructor relationship. P7 also described this relationship as reciprocal, especially in terms of instructors and students learning from each other. P7 took this further by speaking about how it is not only those within the space who are learning from each other but are learning “from the situation that I have facilitated in the classroom.” The unique nature of who is in each classroom space spoke to how learning could occur both within that environment and in conjunction with the larger societal conversations and/or issues. This connects with the community elements within the classroom, as P10 described that students have experiences that can be helpful for the group as a whole and that students should bring in those experiences to support their and other’s learning. P10 also tells students explicitly that they will learn from them as an instructor, as well as their peers within the classroom space as part of the work of the course, which brings it to the forefront of their pedagogical practice. 4.4.1.5 Theme 5: Indigenization and Decolonization Indigenization “is a process of naturalizing Indigenous knowledge systems and making them evident to transform spaces, places, and hearts. In the context of post-secondary education, 80 this involves bringing Indigenous knowledge and approaches together with Western knowledge systems” (Antoine et al., 2018, “Indigenization”). In conjunction with this, decolonization “refers to the process of deconstructing colonial ideologies of the superiority and privilege of Western thought and approaches” (Antoine et al., 2018, “Decolonization”). Within the Canadian context, engagement with Indigenization and decolonization is a prevalent theme and aspect of higher education rhetoric, policy, and documentation. The implementation of that at the course level can vary tremendously and is heavily dependent on the individual instructor. Disciplinary differences were also clear in relationship to decolonization and Indigenization, with some participants describing their subject areas as being able to incorporate these processes and knowledges in ways that align closely with existing disciplinary priorities, with others describing some of the challenges within their disciplines, including around instructor preparedness for courses that are taught across multiple sections or highly structured programs. Alternatively, other instructors saw the work of decolonization as imperative to speaking to their discipline, particularly around the history and legacy of colonization within it. Lastly, some participants spoke to their intentional work to incorporate their learning and respect for the local Indigenous community within their courses, and to reflect that in their overall teaching practices. Within the current project, five participants spoke directly about decolonization or Indigenization within the context of their teaching. One participant spoke to including content within their course that asked students to think about actions that they themselves take towards reconciliation. They additionally spoke to taking a decolonizing approach to teaching through their own learning, student learning, and course content that is grounded in community-based research. P5 also spoke to the changes in higher education around decolonization, and the Truth 81 and Reconciliation Commission, which has enabled them to be more grounded in the local Indigenous context for themselves and in their teaching practices. They stated that there are “so many powerful allies and leaders here…from the Indigenous perspective. And you know that's been my main sort of journey and understanding, how to be a guest, traditional territories, and how do I give back from what we took.” P5 reflected on how this has impacted their practices within the classroom, such as incorporating the idea of the circle “as a way to run any process I engaged with, so that it's sort of collective intelligence approach, collective circle work, coming to knowledge from multiple perspectives.” This learning on how the structure of the classroom could look based on Indigenous knowledges and learning also came up with another participant. They reflected that a really big learning that I've taken away…has to do with locating the self as a way of fostering greater, kind of critical awareness of yourself and your priorities. Thinking about accountability and trust and responsibility in relationship to the work we're doing, questions we’re asking, the learning we’re seeking, so that's a huge part of how I try to think about my own role as like teacher, I’m always modeling that for my students, but it's also a big part of what I think I've tried to ask of my students. To think critically about how each of us is located in relation to the learning we're doing. This reciprocity between students and instructors in the structure of the learning was also reflected in how participants spoke about CRP as a relational practice. 4.4.1.6 Theme 6: CRP as Practice The term CRP was defined for participants at the start of the study when they were contacted, and included either in the interview verbally, or through a written response during the communication for setting up the interviews. What was consistent across the participants, except 82 one, was that they had not heard the term CRP before, but considered some or many of the elements as part or related to their practices. A full definition of CRP and its related terms can be seen in the first and second chapters of this project, but in brief, it reflects the importance and value of bringing students culture and their cultural identity into the classroom through content, design, and assessment, and reflects the cultural and linguistic norms of the learners rather than the instructor or dominant system (Gay, 2018). While CRP and its related terms have predominately been used in the K-12 context, there is a significant body of literature that has taken these pedagogical approaches and applied them to higher education (as outlined in the literature review). This theme of CRP as a practice has been included in this cross-participant analysis as it demonstrates the breadth of perspective on how participants saw this term as being reflected in their practice, as well as areas where they critiqued, pushed back, or suggested alternatives to how they would define CRP within their work. Participants spoke to a wide breadth of how they saw CRP within their teaching approaches. P12 described it as “decolonial practices” which is similar to P9 who outlined seeing the work of CRP as their understanding of themselves “as a teacher, developed in dialogue with Indigenous pedagogies and methods. For that reason, I tend more towards the language that’s used in those spaces.” P2 reflected that they saw this work more as “affirming student identities” and “student’s self-efficacy” in relationship to the course and the classroom community. P3 described their approach to these types of pedagogies as seeing students holistically, coming from different places, and incorporating space within the class and course to allow students to have flexibility and nuance in how they approach their work based on their context. Similarly, to this, P11 saw this work as being more holistic, but tied it more directly to experiential education and learning, by working with students to apply their thinking more critically. Additional 83 practices surfaced during the interviews including one participant who explicitly talks with students about the pedagogies that they want to privilege within the classroom spaces and how that is reflected in the course and through assignments. P6 outlined different terminology for how they saw the work and practices of CRP, describing how they saw “care-responsive pedagogy” as being more reflective of the work that they are doing in the classroom. P7 critiqued the definition of CRP but highlighted the importance of the reciprocal nature of teaching, in that learning occurs both on the part of the student and the part of the instructor. Lastly, many of the participants described within their approaches connecting their teaching to the larger context outside of the classroom, with P4 defining CRP as being to “create, content, teaching, lessons, also assignments, that respond to things like happening in the immediate culture, things happening in the world, current events. Many of these participants, described how this conceptualization of their approach in regards to the term CRP came from their development and experience as an instructor. 4.4.1.7 Theme 7: Instructor Experience and Practice Instructor Professional Development, Learning and Experience Several participants described their own learning or professional development as part of their CRP and practices. Within the interviews, professional development refers to formal or informal learning opportunities that participants engaged with either in their graduate work or through opportunities offered through the institution as part of their teaching position to develop their teaching practices and approaches. Learning and experience came up extensively in the interviews, in terms of how participants saw CRP developing for them through their learning within the classroom and with experience as instructors. Some participants highlighted that their growth and development with incorporating these approaches has come from time and 84 experience, where they have developed the knowledge and comfort to know how to engage with this work in a way that reflects their learning. For example, P1 talked about how experience has made them more comfortable to fail, and therefore try new things in class. P11 spoke in detail about their formal learning experiences that developed their CRP-related practices including professional development they had done in their graduate education and through opportunities made available by the institution to support their work around CRP and Indigenization. Connected with this was the intentionality outlined by P5 and P9 around their learning from the local Indigenous community, and how they have reflected and incorporated that into their classrooms. For others, their work in CRP within their classrooms has been brought into their practice now through storytelling. P3, P6, and P10 spoke to the learning that they undertook by looking at pedagogical resources to support the unique needs of their classrooms, and in terms of course design. These examples, and others that appeared with the interviews, demonstrated the intentionality in instructors’ learning, experience, and professional development as a part of CRP as a practice, and in speaking to these processes directly to students as part of their teaching approach. Transparency and Authenticity Within the data, 58% of participants indicated or referred to transparency and authenticity as part of their practice in relationship to CRP. Transparency within this data refers to the intentional approach by participants to be transparent about their identity and background, course design and practices, and/or challenges within the course or course content. In addition, authenticity was also referred to within the context of transparency. Authenticity refers to being honest and real in how participants present their identity and background, course design and practices, and/or challenges within the course or course content in a way that is received by 85 students as being genuine. Within the context of CRP, this is particularly relevant as it demonstrates the opportunity for collaboration and partnership within the classroom, as well as seeing all members of the classroom space as whole people with intersectional identities, experiences, and contexts. Some of the examples of how authenticity and transparency were presented within the data include P1 and P10 who both referred to these terms in their approaches within the classroom and as something that students were receptive to an extent that it impacted how students engaged with them and the course in a positive way. P1 stated that for instructors, the more authentic they are, the more positive responses they’re going to get from their students because then it makes students feel that they’re in a safe environment where they can ask hard questions, or try new things and fail in the classroom and know that they’re going to be supported by their peers and their professors. One participant spoke extensively about how they speak to students in class and in what they provide on their syllabus, as a dynamic relationship that requires transparency in their approach as to what is included in the course, why, and how it is enacted. Many of the participants referred to including details about their own identity, background and experience as a way to be transparent about where they are coming from and how that impacts the course. In regards to CRP, these concepts of authenticity and transparency within the context of instructor practice, demonstrated a positioning of the self, being honest and genuine with students as active participants in the classroom all as a way to continue to develop and foster relationships and learning. It also modelled showing instructors as whole beings, with intersectional approaches and contexts that impact the classroom and extend beyond the role of the instructor. This directly relates to CRP and seeing students holistically within the classroom as well. 86 Another example of this also came through with one participant, who spoke to being explicit to students about wanting them to succeed in the course and that grace and kindness for the students themselves and their peers is part of how the course is designed. They also described that they talk to students about having lives and responsibilities outside of the course that can impact how they succeed, and showing grace to them as the instructor when mistakes happen. Similarly, another participant included several ways that they support students in their course around personal needs, caregiving, and religious observances, which was also included in their syllabus. They also include that students do not need to provide explanations for why they may need accommodation or extensions making it clear that trust is central to the relationship. 4.4.1.8 Thematic Development Visualization Once the second round of coding was completed, see Appendix C, they were reviewed along with field notes and interview reflection notes to identify themes as they related to the core research question of how is CRP being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms. The following is the resulting graphic from that brainstorming and review session, which was used to identify the overarching themes from the data. The themes of Indigenization and decolonization, relationship building, perspectives on CRP, course components, and identity and positionality along with their subthemes are represented throughout the answers to the research questions in the upcoming final chapter. This process also supported the within-case analysis by demonstrating the themes and subthemes, which were then used to draw comparisons between and across research questions, indicating the depth of scope across participants. This visualization is provided to demonstrate this part of the analysis process. 87 Figure 1. Developing initial codes into themes. 4.5 Summary & Conclusion This chapter provided a cross-participant description of the themes developed from the coded responses and discourse analysis as part of the methodology. These themes were defined and explored briefly in relation to the responses and documents from participants. The identity, positionality, and experiences of participants were heavily referenced throughout the interviews, and how this translated to practices around storytelling, assignments and grading, relationships with students, as well as Indigenization and decolonization practices. These found themes indicate significant self-reflection on the part of the participants to think about how their teaching is developed and impacts students, along with what their role is within the classroom to both contextualize themselves, to provide space for students to contextualize their own identities within the course, and in some instances the larger global context. While the majority of participants had not heard the term CRP before, most were able to draw connections between the definition and their approaches within the classroom. Despite the breadth of fields, disciplines, 88 and experiences, the participants described throughout the interviews, commonalities in their pedagogical approaches. In Chapter 5: Discussion, these results will be expanded upon in response to the three research questions and two sub-questions presented at the start of this study. The themes identified in this chapter will be used to identify further connections and interconnections between them to support the recommendations for CRP practices that can be applied in other classrooms across disciplines. A final reflection on the strengths and limitations of the current project after the analysis and data collection will also be included, along with the significance and implications of the research. The chapter will conclude with future areas of research that can be explored based off of these findings. 89 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 5.1 Overview This chapter will discuss the findings of the current study in relationship to the previously reviewed literature on CRP to answer the research questions presented in Chapter 1: Introduction. These questions will be answered using the themes and subthemes described in the previous chapter, along with connections to the existing literature. Additionally, recommendations from these findings in relationship to CRP will be discussed, along with strengths and limitations of the study, significance of the research, and implications for findings, as well as future areas of research. 5.2 Discussion of Findings Returning to the purpose of this work, this study looked to identify and define what makes a culturally responsive classroom and culturally responsive instructor in response to three key research questions and two sub-questions. These questions were: • How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? o What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? • What are the similarities, differences, themes, and contexts that develop faculty and instructors inclusive teaching practices both within and across salient themes from participants? o How did they get there, why have they chosen these approaches and practices? How does it work in practice? 90 • What is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines and institutions that would enable further integration of culturally responsive, textured, and sustaining classroom practices and approaches? Study participants provided a depth of detail and nuance in their perspectives, practices, and critiques of the term and concepts around CRP, and its application and utility in the undergraduate classroom. Recognizing that teaching itself is a cultural practice, participants described a range of processes that spoke to their identity and positioning in what they do to recognize, value, and incorporate students’ cultural identity, and how they engage with students in the process of developing a classroom community that sustains and reflects larger contexts such as Indigenous perspectives, socio-political events, and the power systems and structures of education that impact what occurs in the classroom. Below, the findings from each of these questions will be discussed along with their connections and situation within the existing literature and theories discussed in Chapter 2: Literature Review. 5.2.1 How is culturally responsive pedagogy being integrated and applied in undergraduate classrooms? 5.2.1.1 Assignments, Grading, and Participation Assignments, grading, and participation came up in a significant number of interviews and were reflected in the course documents provided by participants as a way that CRP was being integrated into undergraduate classrooms. Most notable were the number of participants who provided some amount of grace period, flexibility, or collaborative discussion when it came to determining deadlines and due dates of assignments. The connection between these practices within the classroom and CRP is through what Germán (2021) described as an essential component of textured teaching which is that the approaches used in the classroom are student- 91 driven and flexible. Providing these opportunities to students as these participants did, reflects that students have lives and expectations on their time outside of the specific course that they are in, including educational, professional, and personal. Deadline Flexibility Deadline flexibility was a common aspect of participants’ practices in regards to CRP describing them as a way to support students in self-autonomy and self-direction through a course based on students’ specific needs and contexts. As was discussed in the previous chapter, flexible deadlines or grace periods ranged in how they were applied but reflect, as P3 described, an approach that replicates “real-world” deadlines where outside of the academic context there is often more flexibility in terms of deadlines. Other participants, described having conversations or opportunities for students to engage with them at the start of the term around when assignments would be due. This provided an opportunity for students to review their other course requirements and determine what makes sense with their responsibilities in other courses, and stagger their deadlines across the term. Taken together these approaches demonstrate a flexibility of approach, but also a representation of meeting students’ needs in and outside of the course. Two of the participants also included flexibility in having students resubmit assignments, which were detailed in their syllabi, to allow students an opportunity to demonstrate growth, and engage with revision as part of a writing practice. This provides a culturally responsive approach in that it also creates space for students’ lives outside of that classroom to be respected such as caregiving, work expectations, commuting etc. Through this approach, students have some input and control over how their term will progress which goes beyond the traditional formalized structures of the academy, where deadlines and submissions are solely determined by the instructor. This disrupts power systems by putting some of the control in the hands of students. 92 Assignment Types Another example from the participant data of how CRP is being integrated within courses was through the variations provided in format and type of assignments, where students had more choice on how they represented their learning and demonstrated their growth through formal assessments. This varied amongst the participants from giving students set choices around the assignment types, to providing a rubric and allowing students to develop a format that met their needs and the assignment requirements. Participants acknowledged that this takes more work to manage, especially in beginner classes, but spoke to how it has resulted in more interesting assignments and more investment from students in how they are completed. This indicates, that to do culturally responsive work within the classroom and course design, more time is needed to develop and support students in taking control over their assignments, and their work to complete them. This work is and could be daunting in an already packed term schedule, the participants described tailoring their assignments and expectations to the level of students (foundational versus advanced courses), which would support students’ ability to take more control over their work depending on their existing experience within the academy. The significance of this is that it provides an opportunity for students to lead how they demonstrate their learning from course content, often while connecting it to experiential opportunities provided within the course as Germán (2021) described for socially and culturally grounded pedagogical approaches. This flexibility is intriguing as it demonstrates an opportunity for students to exercise their autonomy in how they represent their growth within the course. Connected with this, is how participants gave students structure in completing assignments through rubrics, assessment components, and topic ideas, but encouraged them to utilize their knowledge and experience to develop their work in ways that were genuine to them as 93 individuals. This again centers students within the work of the classroom. Within the social justice literature related to CRP, these processes demonstrate enabling the classroom space to deprioritize more traditional pedagogies and approaches that emphasize conforming to a rigid structure and schedule that removes the student as a person from the work they complete within the classroom (Pipe & Stephens, 2021). Participation and Engagement Another key representation of how CRP is being integrated into classrooms was through the different ways that participants spoke to participation, and/or engagement as a graded component in their courses. As was described in Chapter 4: Results, many of the participants referred to their approach to participants’ grades, as contextualizing it within their courses as something that goes beyond simply speaking up in class. This also appeared within the syllabi, with three participants including it explicitly with examples of what engagement looks like within the context of the course. Participant examples varied from asking questions, answering prompts in class, coming to office hours for discussion, emailing questions or thoughts, posting in online discussions, connecting with people outside of the course to talk about course material, actively listening within class discussions and more. Taken together all of these represent opportunities for students to see their work within the classroom as not static to simply showing up to class, but also in how they show up to class, how they prepare and engage outside of class time, completing assignments, and taking their learning beyond the scope of the course. These processes not only deprioritize the structure of traditional Western classroom practices, but demonstrate a nuance to thinking about students holistically in what they bring into the classroom (Pipe & Stephens, 2021). It also creates opportunities for students with different comfort levels to engage in ways that meet their needs and experiences, while also prioritizing 94 and demonstrating that the learning students are undertaking within the classroom has an impact on their critical consciousness and development by decentering the Eurocentric model of education and passive learning that has been the norm (Robinson, 2022). Grading Juxtaposed with this was the way that grading was discussed amongst the participants. For some of the participants, grading was an opportunity to demonstrate a socially conscious approach where students were not competing for a grade or being penalized for Western-centric approaches to language such as grammar, but instead was focused on a demonstration of their learning and existing knowledge. These approaches show the process of allowing ways for work to be completed in non-linear ways, developing trust, and the integration of experiential and problem-solving amongst the students to include context, knowledge, and worldviews that support everyone’s learning (Pipe & Stephens, 2021). This also reflects the approach that a couple of the participants referred to as supporting students in being intrinsically motivated to complete their assignments in a way that has meaning beyond the course. One participant for instance described not wanting to assign grades for students as the process is more important than the evaluation. This can be challenging, as P5 and P3 described, as students have been oriented to a formal grading system for most if not all of their education and seek a letter or numerical grade to determine their success. However, by offering alternatives to formal letter or numerical grading as a way to support students in understanding their growth within a course, it demonstrates within the context of CRP a process for redistributing power within the classroom. It also alters the concept of what the purpose of the classroom is for; growth and development rather than simply excelling through traditional measures. 95 5.2.1.2 Relationship Building Directly connected with how participants spoke and engaged with grading and assignments, were the intentional elements of relationship building that were described as connected with CRP by participants. Within the context of this project, relationship-building appeared in the data through the following ways: intentional time or practices to cultivate relationships with students either individually, or as a whole with the class, relationship-building opportunities between students, and connections to community outside of the classroom. As an approach to incorporating CRP within the classroom, relationship-building in these ways was deeply tied to how participants saw students as partners within the classroom space, how they viewed disrupting the power and hierarchy within the learning context and storytelling as a relationship-building practice. Within the exploration of CRP with participants, the elements of these approaches were demonstrated through practices intended to develop trust and student autonomy within the classroom. The examples provided by participants related to relationship building demonstrated a core tenent of CRP in that the student perspective and identity are centred within the learning space, and are engaged with by the instructor to create a more responsive, and open classroom environment. These approaches all indicate ways that CRP is being integrated and applied within classrooms. It also demonstrates practices that recognize how students may engage and connect with an instructor will vary depending on the unique context of that makeup of students and is a key aspect of the reflective practice of CRP (Gay, 2018). These moments of connection described by participants provided an opportunity for storytelling for how students could see the instructor also as a whole person, and the authenticity that comes with students being able to see that their instructors have identities and experiences 96 beyond their role as an instructor. This connects to what Sleeter (2012) and Hammond (2015) described as teaching being about bringing trust and listening into the learning process, and for students to see the classroom as an opportunity to explore themselves, and their learning in a larger community context. As Germán (2021) argues, these types of intentional choices that instructors make in the classroom should bring the community and larger social contexts into the learning, and is another application of CRP by making these connections within the course. 5.2.1.3 Intentionality of Course Design The intentionality of course design is related to the aspects of relationship building mentioned above, as well as how evaluations are designed within a course. Within CRP the importance of this intentionality in the classroom is directly tied to Gay’s (2018) description of CRP which focuses on bringing students’ cultural experiences, knowledge, values and beliefs into all aspects of a course and how it is designed. Almost all of the participants spoke to their intentional approaches to building courses that are reflective of who is in the room, and being transparent as to how those choices were made. This came up in several ways explicitly through the interview questions, course documents, and by incorporating student identity, experiences and existing knowledges, course readings, engaging students in providing feedback that informs the structure and/or content of the course, and classroom environment and community. One of the interview questions asked participants directly about what they have students read in their courses. Many of the participants described moving away from textbooks as a way to support student engagement and to increase diverse representation in what students read or consume as part of the course. Two participants spoke to this directly in their interviews saying that videos were one example of where they had the opportunity to include more diverse voices and perspectives in their course, or only using openly available resources, or those that could be 97 sourced through the library to ensure that the costs remained low for students. One of the participants described that they do an audit of their reading lists each term, and look specifically for indicators of gender, whiteness, European background, Indigenous identity, perspectives outside of North America etc. to ensure there is a diverse representation in what students read and engage with in their class. They stated how this has changed how they assign readings and the importance of adding content that helps change the perspective or lens on the course topics to ensure that how the topic is understood is dynamic. This breadth of approaches to how readings and materials are assigned, speaks to the intentionality of participants’ practices, but also in how the impact of what is being read in class can relate to the students in the room. As Ledesma and Calderón (2015) described, for CRT and CRP to be enacted, the centring of voices of those who are and have been marginalized within educational contexts is essential, demonstrating how this work is being built into the practices of these participants. 5.2.2 What makes a culturally responsive and sustaining classroom in practice? 5.2.2.1 Development and Cultivation of Classroom Community and Environment The development of a classroom community and environment is another way that CRP can be seen in practice. While it is informed and supported by how course content is intentionally designed and implemented, it is also deeply tied to the relationship-building, trust, and facilitation that participants bring to the classroom as a dynamic and collaborative space. The significance of the classroom learning environment for CRP is that the space is supported by and for students and is essential in creating a learning environment where students can connect their learning to themselves and their cultural identity, as well as beyond the course and institution. This is directly tied to the work of Ragoonaden and Mueller (2017) as well as Paris 98 and Alim (2017) who described the importance of the classroom as a space to sustain students’ identities and communities, as well as connecting it to the institution and the larger global community, which is also directly tied to CRP. The unique context through which every student and instructor will enter a classroom environment and engage with course content speaks to the importance of developing a classroom environment and community that is grounded in CRP practices. As was outlined by Cheesman and De Pry (2010) these interactions that students have in the classroom, reflect the interplay and connection between home environment, language, community, family, and school environment, which further demonstrates the importance of not engaging every class as if it is the same, or that every student will have the same needs within that space. 5.2.2.2 Student as Partner Similarly to intentionally designing and cultivating a classroom environment for a CRP classroom, is the support within that space to be supportive of students’ identities through engaging students as collaborative partners within the work of CRP. As Ladson-Billings (1995) outlined, the success of students in a classroom is in part based on what they are able or given the latitude to provide, suggest, or initiate in relationship to the content of the course. Developing opportunities, like those described in the previous research question for students to contribute and have control over aspects of their learning and demonstration of that learning is key to CRP through being focused on the student, their needs, experiences, and learning. While it would be a reasonable assumption that what occurs in a classroom and course is directed solely by the instructor and their autonomy, engaging with students as partners and collaborators creates an opportunity for more representative and genuine experiences for all those involved (Germán, 2021). As was discussed by P7 in relationship to critical consciousness 99 and cultural competence within the classroom, students contribute to that as well, and it is not just the responsibility of the instructor, stating that, I believe that students can contribute to these things as much as they gain them, right, so I would understand a culturally responsive pedagogy as really reciprocal…So I think the culturally responsive pedagogy in my mind is also when I learned just as much from my students as they do from me. So maybe it's not that we're learning from each other as much as we are learning from the situation that I have facilitated in the classroom. This sentiment of learning from students highlights the CRP principles and practices of reciprocal and mutual learning (Cook-Sather & Des-Ogugua, 2019). As a couple of the participants highlighted, the breadth of diversity at their institution was seen as an asset to the classroom. Describing that these perspectives added to the discussion and conversations within the class for everyone to learn and grow. Through this approach, as Pipe and Stephens (2012) outlined, CRP is enacted by engaging those who are in the space as a whole people and shifting the power structure to center student autonomy and identity as collaborative processes within the classroom. This also connects to Simola’s (2021) findings where the intersectional approach of CRP does not essentialize any one group and works to dismantle inequality by engaging with power differences within the course and disrupting them. Through this, by giving students more opportunities to inform and direct that course, there is the potential to redistribute the power within the space and recognize the unique needs of all of the students within the classroom. 5.2.2.3 Student Autonomy This redistribution and disruption of power is directly tied to student autonomy within the classroom and is a characteristic of what makes a CRP classroom. Several participants spoke about the differences in providing students with flexibility, choice, and control, depending on 100 their level, within the undergraduate classroom, with most participants describing providing students with some level of autonomy to explore their interests within the course. The importance of student autonomy within the classroom was described by Cole (2017) as part of a larger perspective of how community engagement, and students’ connections with peers, give them more power to bring their perspectives and resources into the course, which therefore provides direction for the course itself. As was discussed in previous examples, student autonomy came up in several ways within assignments specifically, such as in assignment choice, deadline flexibility, and participation/engagement, but also in how students are supported in bringing their identities and perspectives into their learning and classroom discussions. Several participants spoke about recognizing that students also play a role in how much they bring of themselves into the classrooms, emphasizing that how much a student wants to bring of themselves into the course and the classroom is up to them. P6 for example, described exploratory learning as part of their teaching practice, through group or collaborative projects as that is a “shared effort” with students being able to “choose how they want to be in that collective or not” as part of their agency and autonomy within that community. This is particularly insightful as it indicates the space within the classroom as one that students can choose to show up in and contribute to but based on their own needs, and even their needs on an individual day, which was similar to how P1 one described students choosing how they want to show up in class. Allowing students to select how and when they will engage is also needed to support the breadth of student needs within the classroom. This again speaks to the autonomy of students being given options and opportunities to engage with the class in a way that meets a variety of needs and enriches existing strengths (Paris & Alim, 2017). With these examples, participants demonstrated how they see the classroom space as a way for students to make 101 choices around their engagement level so they can participate effectively within the classroom. This builds on Gay’s (2018) discussion around CRP where the cultural norms of the students rather than of the instructor or dominant system must be included within the content and design of the course for CRP to be practiced. The approaches and considerations from the participants to provide these options create the space for alternative forms of power to be represented in the classroom, and for students to exercise their autonomy. Additionally, the understanding of these participants to make it clear and transparent to students that they have the choice and power to decide how they want to engage, is also significant as a process of collaborative learning and power sharing between instructors and students. 5.2.2.4 Mutual Learning Shared or reciprocal learning as a component of CRP practice, was described by many of the participants. The common elements around mutual learning were in working to create and facilitate a space where students could not only learn from them as the instructor, but from each other, and how that reciprocal learning process shaped the learning within the classroom. As Germán (2021) outlined, this process of engaging students as partners and contributors allows for a more genuine and representative experience of what is being learned within the classroom. This ties in with how several of the participants described this process as being about a collective effort, and that students, when provided with the facilitation and support by the instructor, can bring an additive, flexible, and dynamic aspect to the learning. As was described in the literature review, with instructors positioning themselves as learners as well as facilitators, it engages students as whole people and sees the work of teaching and learning as a process of collective and collaborative learning and liberation. It represents the instructor’s commitment and engagement with “cultural dexterity as a necessary good,” and sees the outcome of learning as 102 additive rather than subtractive (Paris & Alim, 2017, p.1). This reciprocity and deprivileging of the role of the instructor as the sole expert was a refreshing component of the findings and demonstrated the belief that while instructors carry the responsibility of the overall schedule and progress of the course, students should and do play a role in deeper more meaningful learning in terms of how the content can be connected in and outside of the classroom within the context of their own lives. 5.2.2.5 Instructor Identity and Positionality Instructor identity was asked about explicitly in the interview questions and participants engaged with this significantly throughout the interviews drawing connections to multiple aspects of the discussion. For many participants, including details about their identity was part of a reflective process where they engaged with how they saw themselves within the context and content of the course, but also as a way to build connections and relationships with students more dynamically and holistically. By providing details about themselves and their positionality instructors were able to show students the breadth and limitations of their own experiences. This perspective represents again the reciprocity and relationality between student and instructor as a CRP practice. This came up most significantly with instructors incorporating or engaging with Indigenous perspectives and decolonized approaches within their classrooms and wanting to be transparent about their positionality in relationship to local and global Indigenous contexts. As was described in the previous chapter, this came up in regards to acknowledging settler identity, positionality in regards to the lived experiences (or not) of the content of the course, and attending to the history of the discipline. This understanding of the importance of speaking to positionality engages directly with CRP as modelling and developing a critical consciousness in 103 students through how they see and exercise their autonomy from their own lived experience and knowledge within the course content, and their relationship to the instructor as being dynamic. When instructors demonstrate this practice for themselves and to their students, as Manns (2021) highlighted, the knowledge of the self will support how instructors interact with students’ cultures and backgrounds in a way that is meaningful, intentional, and respectful. Throughout the interviews, how participants talked about practices related to their identity and their positionality, as well as their reflections on the approaches that they took towards creating a space that they and students would want to be in, reflected CRP in the intentionality of thinking beyond simply delivering course material. This builds on what Taylor et al. (2023) argued about recognizing the power systems that are part of higher education, and how that impacts what happens in the classroom. Along with this are Germán (2021) and Hammond (2015) who outlined this as part of the work of self-reflection and how instructors came to be in that space, the cultural and educational frames they are engaged with, along with the intention of what that space will be all impacts who and what is taught. 5.2.2.6 Student Identity Student identity was also asked about directly within the interview questions and was spoken about in detail by the participants. For many, the importance and significance of student identity was integral to their course design, and their thinking about what they were trying to accomplish within the classroom. As a part of CRP practice, the cultural norms of the learner are essential for inclusion and reflection in the content of the course and curriculum (Gay, 2018). As was described by at least one participant CRP in practice is about affirming student identities, which aligns directly with how Gay (2018) described CRP as being inclusive and validating. This concept of teaching and learning being inclusive and validating appeared in several 104 different ways throughout the interviews and aligned with the literature discussed in Chapter 2: Literature Review. For many of the participants, this work of supporting and validating student identity was also about providing space for students to find their voice within the classroom and course content. Within the framing of CRP and intersectionality, more specifically, recognizing that students are coming into the classroom from a variety of positions and requires a nuanced understanding on the part of the instructor about identity and intersectionality for students is important to student success and engagement (Simola, 2021). 5.2.3 What are the similarities, differences, themes, and contexts that develop faculty and instructors’ inclusive teaching practices both within and across salient themes from participants? There were several consistent aspects to how participants answered the interview questions that spoke to the CRP practices across disciplines and experience. The work of identity and positionality through storytelling came through with most of the participants as a narrative approach to engaging students in a variety of ways in the work and assessments of the course. In conjunction with this, the various processes of developing a classroom community described by participants spoke to the work of fostering an environment that allowed students to advocate for their own success and learning needs. Lastly, the flexibility across the approaches discussed, and the dynamic way in which participants spoke to their dedication to being able to support student learning based on the unique context of each classroom was consistent. 5.2.3.1 Identity and Positionality through Storytelling With the specific interview questions that asked about instructor and student identity, most participants described some level of self-identification, individual history, and context to themselves that they provided students either at the start of class or during the run of the course 105 when appropriate. Storytelling is particularly key within CRP and with CRT (Taylor et al., 2023; Bell, 2016). Within CRT the process of storytelling and narrative is representative of both a collaborative and listening practice, which are key to critiquing power structures and bringing to the forefront historically marginalized voices. As was seen with many of the participants, the use of storytelling was a way to contextualize themselves within the course, demonstrate their interest, passion, and engagement with the subject area, as well as open the discourse within the classroom on where their expertise did and did not lie. Through these storytelling approaches, it also demonstrated reflexivity around the participants understanding of their positionality in relationship to the content of the course, and was used to create space for those students with lived experiences and knowledge to bring that into the course in a way that would be valued and seen as important to the larger community of the class. To be able to center the perspectives, identities, histories, knowledge, experiences, and culture of students as part of the learners’ storytelling, as well as the storytelling of the course, is disruptive of the Western approaches to teaching and learning where the classroom has a top-down power structure, and instead embraces an approach of community learning. How participants saw their own identities impacting the work within the classroom also varied considerably. While all the participants recognized that there was an element to their own identity having an impact on their courses, the degree to which self-reflection and positioning of their power and authority within that context varied. While several participants had thought extensively about what it meant for them to be the one instructing on the content that they were teaching, others recognized that this was not something that they had done a lot of work on beyond being able to state their identity and privileges. While there was knowledge amongst many of the participants in their responses in regards to their role and how privilege and power 106 played into it as instructors within a university setting, there was also an understanding amongst some that there was more work to be done. This was demonstrated by participants who spoke in detail about their reflections, along with how they describe themselves within their courses, and how they incorporate Indigenous and diverse voices spoke to a consistent process of revision and adaption within their approach to acknowledging power and privilege within the classroom. 5.2.3.2 Development of Classroom Community and Environment All of the participants spoke to a variety of approaches that were intended to develop and cultivate a supportive space for students within the classroom. There was a significant breadth for how this was done in regards to classroom community and environment such as assignments, class discussions, course documentation, positionality, readings, and more. What was apparent was that amongst all of the participants, the centring of the student as an individual within these practices was consistent, and the desire to create an environment that was sustainable for students to succeed in ways that made sense for them and their unique contexts. Explicit references to compassion for students were included in the course documentation of some participants and showed a more personal approach to seeing the needs of students in the complex environment of what happens within their lives in and outside of the classroom. From the researcher’s perspective, the latitude demonstrated around flexibility for assignment deadlines, and communicating individual needs to the instructor showed the amount of pressure on students that extends beyond the deadlines and requirements of university life. Similarly, P1’s reflection around life being what happens when you go to school, demonstrates the recognition that the expectations of students’ time, and how quickly things can come up for someone that can impact their success in the institution, was a refreshing approach to the participant’s power and authority within the classroom. 107 5.2.3.3 Flexibility Flexibility within the grading and assignments was covered in the first research question, but also appeared with discussion around overall course design, and saw the largest degree of difference between the participants. Flexibility appeared within how participants spoke to creating space within their course content for student-driven interests and perspectives, including through opportunities to provide continuous feedback during a course to ensure that content and pacing needs were being met. Several participants spoke about making changes to the course during its running based on student input as well as to reflect the larger news or events that resonated with the content of the course. For others, they spoke to supporting students in their passions and community-engaged work by creating flexibility in the course to attend events outside of the structured curriculum to enable connections to students’ local communities. As the CRP literature described, flexibility and student autonomy in the classroom to make choices around what their work looks like is key to supporting their success, but also their sense of self within the university (Germán, 2021; Cook-Sather & Des-Ogugua, 2019). By being able to make these choices for themselves, students could take leadership over their learning and how that learning is demonstrated. 5.2.3 How did they get there, why have they chosen these approaches and practices? How does it work in practice? For most of the instructors, CRP as a concept and term was new. Despite that, all of the instructors, through the interview questions, spoke to practices and approaches that they apply in the classroom that relate directly to CRP. To answer the question of how participants got to the CRP practices and approaches that they described in the interviews the conceptualization of CRP as a practice will be explored in more detail based on participants’ responses, as well as the 108 substantial references that were made by participants in relationship to work related to decolonization and Indigenization. This section will conclude with participants’ reflections on their practice as part of CRP. 5.2.3.1 CRP as Practice Within the context of this project, all of the participants described seeing relevance or connections to the core tenents of CRP including student and instructor identity, student autonomy and choice within the learning environment, and curriculum and course content that is grounded and informed by diverse, inclusive, and culturally reflective material. Related to the work that these participants are doing in their classrooms, is how they reflected on why they are doing these things within their pedagogical practice and what in their own experiences and education led them to these approaches. Throughout the interviews, despite the term CRP being new or not seen as directly connected to their work, the consistent themes of CRP practice were evident in participant responses. How instructors described and discussed these approaches related primarily to how they saw their responsibility in the classroom, the challenges of doing this work within the structure and system of higher education, and reframing the term CRP to represent a more reflective and care-based approach to pedagogy. For several of the participants coming to this work was also about reflecting on the power structures and dynamics of the higher education classroom, with several referring to approaches that they work on creating within the classroom to facilitate student-centered and led learning which were outlined in Chapter 4: Results. As Taylor et al. (2023) emphasized, the recognition of these larger power systems that are part of higher education is critical to understanding how teaching and learning occur in these spaces, and how students as a result interact and are affected by them. Similarly, as Ragoonaden and Mueller (2017) demonstrated, when students are 109 disconnected and see their institutions as disconnected from their cultures and community, the impact on student success can be significant. Therefore, the reflection by participants that each class and group of students is unique with different needs is essential to a CRP practice that recognizes the distinctiveness of the learners. As many of the participants emphasized and reflected on in their approach, working to create a community that is unique and dynamic to the needs of those in the room, including the instructor, requires intentionality and skill. Examples of how this was being done through what is assigned to read, how topics are adapted and changed based on who is in the room, and what forms assessments take all demonstrate how the participants take and adapt CRP for their practice. 5.2.3.2 Decolonization and Indigenization Many participants spoke directly about their learning and/or intentionality around incorporating and engaging with decolonization within their approaches as well as how they positioned themselves to students in the classroom as settlers. The use of the terms Indigenizing and Indigenization within the current project are used to reflect the language used by some of the participants and their work within their classrooms and to reflect the frequent rhetorical choices and practices of post-secondary institutions in what is now called Canada in relationship to this work in curriculum and classrooms. This connects with other aspects of CRP practice previously discussed above around power dynamics, relationship building, and mutual learning, where the teaching and learning that occurs within the classroom is not centred on the instructor as the only expert and knowledge holder, but that is a shared approach as a collective. While many of the examples provided in the literature review refer directly to engagement with local communities, and speak to decolonization as work that is directly tied to land repatriation (Tuck and Yang, 2012; Gahman & Legault, 2019), only two participants referred to these practices in their 110 classroom, through assignments or activities they have incorporated in class to have students think about reconciliation and land focused reflection. This is not to say that other participants are not doing this work, but that within the interview questions asked, this was how participants chose to respond to their work related to CRP. The impact of participants’ engagement with Indigenous colleagues and teachings within this area of expertise was referenced significantly throughout the 12 participants’ interviews, especially around relationality, community, and positioning of the self. P7 described this in their interview, particularly around identity as a framing for CRP, referencing that it is this web of relationships…That's something that I've really learned from, paying careful attention to the knowledge and teachings of my Indigenous colleagues and people who I read who always talk about relations instead of anything else, right? Much more so than identity positions. P7 was clear that the work that has come out of identity scholarship is important and should not be disregarded within the conversation. Still, the Western emphasis on identity, is missing the connection between identity and relationships, stating that “I think we have to you know, also think about like what happens between the people with identities like what are the relationships?” In contrast to this, the work of CRP was seen by P9 as part of their teaching strategy but described it as language that they would not commonly use, and instead found that the part that resonated with them was around fostering critical consciousness. They outlined that a “huge part of that practice for me has to do with kind of unlearning colonial mindsets and worldviews, and then fostering space in which my students can participate in that as well.” These two examples can be further contextualized through the work of Shajahan et al. (2022) who outlined several 111 processes for decolonizing work, three of which relate to these examples, including “probing the positionality of knowledge, constructing an inclusive curriculum, fostering relational teaching and learning” (p. 94-5). Additionally, as Pipe and Stephens (2021) outlined, the social justice element of CRP as a practical teaching process is in part about destabilizing and deprioritizing the pedagogies and knowledges that have dominated Western education. These approaches by participants speak to the process of working toward deprioritizing the Eurocentric framework of who they and the students are in the classroom, and what can be done across different disciplines to orient and engage students in this work. This adds to what Taylor et al. (2023) outlined that through teaching, these Western-centric frameworks can be disrupted rather than simply continuing the norms of higher education as they have been. This builds on the work of CRT in how understanding how whiteness has been the dominant form of not only society but education itself and how to change and disrupt that structure through individual learning is part of the work of CRP (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). 5.2.3.3 Instructor Reflection A perhaps obvious but justified element of how participants viewed their practice regarding CRP was through their reflection on these practices. While this was not surprising given the nature of the methodology, and the questions asked in the interviews, the prevalence of participants speaking to how they used reflection as part of their practice was significant. Many of the participants referred to changes in their practice in response to student feedback and input, reflections on them, and how they incorporated this into their courses and documentation. Within CRP this is crucial as it demonstrates the dynamic and flexible nature of teaching and learning as a cultural practice and how these pedagogies are enacted requires an inward and outward process of reflecting on what it is that makes a classroom space dynamic. As Germán (2021) described in 112 their description of textured teaching, it is the importance of learning that is driven by students, community-centred, interdisciplinary, experiential, and flexible that makes teaching practices culturally grounded. For this to occur instructors must be intentionally and consistently reflecting on the processes, assessments, content, structure etc. of their teaching that is engaged with supporting students in this way, and within the current context of the course and larger society. Another aspect of reflection that demonstrated participants’ processes of being engaged with CRP was in how they reflected on their positionality and limitations within being culturally responsive and reflective within the classroom. Most of the participants described their recognition that their positionality, lived experience, and education brought them into the current context of teaching but that they could not know everything about how to be culturally responsive within the classroom. P8 for example described this in their efforts to engage in more responsive approaches in their teaching regarding being kind, compassionate, and having humility. I don't know everything about everybody. And that I am not perfect when it comes to working with students of different cultures that have a variety of different sexual identities or gender identities or that like, I am trying to be better, but I know that I'm not perfect and recognizing that, you know, as every year I can do a little bit better and I can try and. And that kind of plays out with working with students as well. You know, I do the best that I can at that time. But recognize that there's always room for growth. And that I want to be better. And so, I think that plays out in my teaching practices in you know, sometimes there are things that I might not have even been aware of in the past. But I'm going to try and find out what those things might be so that I can be aware of them and address them in the future. 113 This was mirrored by other participants who acknowledged their privilege within the space, and the sharing of that identity was part of being responsive to students and their identities within that space. While the study had an overall small sample size of instructors to consider, the reflective nature of so many of their approaches, and how participants created opportunities to validate and highlight the student voice as partners and collaborators within the classroom, demonstrated the reflectiveness of the approach to their practice. As Cataldo (2022) outlined, the recognition that culture is not static and can change, and impact how students learn, was described by a number of these participants through the flexibility and reflective practices they referred to within their interview responses. 5.2.3.4 Instructor Professional Development and Learning Connected with how participants reflected on their practice, is how they spoke about their learning and professional development in areas related to CRP. Notably, some participants spoke to how their learning and development in these areas, was not something that they had explored as part of their education, but rather learning that they had to do on their own once they were teaching. This is a particularly relevant insight, as the breadth of experience of participants signals that this training as part of teaching practice may still not be as common as might be assumed, and demonstrates how instructors need to be engaged with this for themselves for CRP to be part of the work that is done with students as well. This ties directly to the work of Germán (2021) and Hammond (2015) who outlined the importance of self-reflection on the part of the instructor for the practices of CRP. As many of the participants spoke to having aspects of CRP and social justice as part of the work that students are asked to do within the classroom, it is crucial that instructors can demonstrate and participate in this work as well to be CRP practitioners. With many of the participants reflecting on the breadth of diversity in their 114 classroom, how to support that work to meet those needs was discussed throughout the interviews in terms of academic scholarship and literature, consultation with colleagues in and outside of the academy, as well as through structures built into the course to get to know student’s needs, preferences, and abilities. 5.2.4 What is generalizable from these approaches across disciplines and institutions that would enable further integration of culturally responsive, textured, and sustaining classroom practices and approaches? From the above discussion, several aspects can be generalized regardless of discipline and institution that support the work of CRP in undergraduate classrooms based on the breadth of disciplines, participant positions, and class sizes. The aspects that can be cultivated and integrated include intentional relationship building with and between students, facilitating and supporting student autonomy and identity, assignment and grading flexibility, and collaboration with students as partners. What is central to all of these is centering how students can take power and control in their work within the classroom, while also recognizing that they have lives and needs that extend beyond that space as well. 5.2.4.1 Relationship Building The work of building relationships with and between students came up throughout the participant interviews and was also discussed above in response to the first research question. What is applicable about this regardless of disciplinary context is creating a classroom environment and community that is facilitated and supported to allow students to develop their relationships within the classroom between peers and the instructor, as well as to make those connections to the content of the course in and outside of the classroom. The scope of what this could look like was demonstrated by participants through several different capacities. Some of 115 these include providing details about the instructor, in whatever capacity they feel comfortable with in terms of their background, positionality, education, history, and information for how they developed the course and its practices. Additionally, providing additional positioning and contextualizing throughout the course depending on the subject matter, provides further insight into how course content can be dynamic and reflective of those within the space. As multiple participants noted, providing opportunities within the course for students to provide feedback on their needs, the content and structure of the course, as well as topic ideas, created opportunities for students to feel more engaged with the course and the person teaching it. Relationship building, as noted in the literature, can also be connected to community, whether those are communities that students come from, local communities, especially Indigenous and decolonizing community process, as well as larger global contexts, supports relationship building both to the course itself and between peers (Germán, 2021; Gay, 2018; Gahman & Legault, 2019). This is also part of the process of developing a community within the classroom that allows students to feel that they are working together in their learning and that the competition for grades does not mean that the success of one student is at the expense of the success of another. Lastly, in three of the syllabi provided, aspects of compassion, instructor accountability, and trust in students to identify needs in the classroom based on external concerns such as illness, family needs, accommodations etc. were represented, further demonstrating a more holistic understanding of the relationship with students. 5.2.4.2 Student Autonomy and Identity The connection between power dynamics within the classroom and the higher education landscape was spoken about consistently by participants. While the level of autonomy that students are provided with within the classroom ranged, the application of finding and supporting 116 students in exploring their autonomy, and utilizing their identity as part of the learning process, while also providing consistency and structure to the learning process was prevalent across most of the participants. Creating a curriculum, assessments, and content that is reflective and engaged with student identities, is something that can be done regardless of discipline or institutional context, even in fields where this may be less common, such as STEM, where the size and structure of programs and courses often make it seem more challenging. However, as the participants from the current project noted, creating opportunities to engage with course content and assessments in multiple ways, being able to self-direct through content, and participating and showing knowledge and engagement in a variety of ways demonstrates the role and power that instructors have to facilitate this in students, that respects and sustains their identity and individual autonomy. 5.2.4.3 Assignment Flexibility Assignment flexibility was another area that demonstrated an opportunity to further integrate CRP and its related areas. The participants showed how the integration of assignment flexibility could occur in a variety of ways that would allow instructors, even in small ways, to support students’ autonomy as well as their lives outside of the classroom. Deadline flexibility or negotiation was one way that instructors could begin to explore ways to allow students more space to work through the course material at their own pace and in a way that makes sense for the rest of their course, work, familial, and other personal expectations. While this is not always possible when assignments are scaffolded and structured throughout a term, discussing timelines of assignments as a class community was one way that was described that could provide support for a more flexible and responsive approach to assignment completion. Another opportunity provided by participants was to provide rubrics that speak to the criteria for demonstrating 117 learning and engagement with course skills, topics, and knowledge while allowing for flexibility in terms of format in consultation with the instructor. This may only be possible if course sizes are manageable enough or with additional support through teaching assistants to complete. 5.2.4.4 Collaboration with Students as Partners All three of the above could be done in addition to engaging with students as partners within the classroom. Of the examples provided, two stood out as generalizable to instructors looking to engage with CRP practices. The first is to create space within the schedule or topic lists for students to provide input. This was referred to by multiple participants, either through spaces within the course schedule, in conversation and discussions throughout the term, and taking into account connecting current events and student discussion into the course. The second was to create opportunities for students to provide feedback on their needs and aspects of the course throughout its duration. As several participants described, they changed aspects of the course during, or as a result of student feedback after the course was completed. This was described in both large and small classes, and across disciplines by participants. While these are small approaches that could be applied and generalized, they could be scaled up to reflect the experience and comfort level of the instructor. 5.3 Recommendations and Implications Similar to what is broadly generalizable from the participants’ data, is what recommendations can be made for practice regarding CRP in undergraduate classrooms. Below are further details on applications specifically for instructors related to assignments, student engagement, instructor engagement, and relationship. Following this, a series of implications for administrators and policymakers based on the findings from the current project to enact, sustain, and support CRP in higher education at a larger system level is included. Though the 118 implications for administrators and policymakers goes beyond the scope of this study, the data from participant of this study demonstrate that sustainable and systemic integration of CRP needs to be enabled at a level higher than individual instructors. This led to the development of these implications to reflect the actions and role that administrators and policy makers could have in supporting the work reflected in the recommendations and responses to the research questions from participants. 5.3.1 Instructors 5.3.1.1 Assignments 1. Incorporate flexible or negotiated deadlines with students where possible and appropriate to reflect the needs and expectations of students’ time in and outside of the classroom. 2. Design opportunities for students to demonstrate learning and growth within the course through multiple assignments and assignment formats, when possible, to allow for students’ skills and strengths to be shown through a variety of means. 3. Provide students with opportunities to try alternative formats for assignment completion to allow for creativity and flexibility in individual students’ strengths to be shown, when possible. 4. Create clear guidelines on what demonstration of learning entails, to provide structure to grading and evaluation when supporting creativity. 5. Develop opportunities for students to work on collaborative projects, when possible, to facilitate peer relationships, and collective development of resources and knowledge within the classroom environment. 119 6. Design and facilitate assignments that allow students to bring their own identities, knowledges, experiences, and positionalities into their assignments in relation to the course content. 7. Facilitate opportunities for students to engage with resources, such as community-based topics or projects that apply what they are learning in class outside of the classroom. 5.3.1.2 Student Engagement 1. Describe and provide details on the variations and breadth of participation and engagement within the class to represent the varying needs of students’ strengths and comfort levels with participating within a classroom environment. 2. Develop opportunities to learn about individual student needs, identities, and experiences to support the content and structure of the course as well as to facilitate relationship building, through one-on-ones, student reflections, or anonymous surveys. 3. Collaborate with students, where appropriate, on the schedule, structure, and content of the course through feedback mechanisms or collaborative documents to give students autonomy in their engagement with the course. 4. Cultivate and incorporate opportunities for students to engage their learning in contexts beyond the classroom such as through their own, local, or global communities to ensure learning is committed to the development of critical consciousness. 5. Engage students with a reflection and integration of their positionality mindfully within the content and assessments of the course to enable the opportunity for students to see and engage with their own intersectional identities within the context of the course and larger social structures. 120 5.3.1.3 Instructor Engagement 1. Describe and provide course-related context to the instructor (background, identity, education, positionality etc.) where appropriate and within the scope of the course. 2. Participate and engage with disciplinary-specific learning and professional development related to student and instructor identity, positionality, social justice in teaching and learning, and other areas related to CRP where available. 3. Engage and reflect on the local and larger Indigenous knowledges, communities, and reconciliation practices directed by Indigenous scholars and Knowledge Keepers and how they can be connected to teaching and learning, land back initiatives, and the decentering of Western educational practices in and outside of the discipline. 4. Practice self-reflection on course content, student needs, assessments, readings and resources, and the flow of the course for modifications and changes to practice flexible and dynamic learning environments. 5.3.1.4 Relationship Building 1. Develop opportunities for students to learn about each other and the instructor mindfully and intentionally during class time that will support culturally responsive and reflective approaches within the classroom, such as through course readings and materials, assignment opportunities, and discussions to reflect and respectfully engage with this knowledge. 2. Cultivate opportunities for students to engage with the instructor in and outside of class to provide insight and support in the course that goes beyond office hours and static course material. 121 3. Create, in collaboration with students, norms and practices for engaging in class discussion and course content, with particular attention to content that may be more challenging regarding social issues. 5.3.2 Implications for Administrators and Policy Makers 5.3.2.1 Administrators 1. Provide disciplinary pedagogical support for developing and maintaining CRP practices within classrooms and faculties that are contextualized to the needs of different class sizes, content areas, and industry expectations. 2. Develop instructor and faculty training opportunities that are recognized as part of tenure and promotion that engage with CRP, Indigenization and decolonization, student-centred, and self-reflective practices. 3. Create opportunities for cross and interdisciplinary instructors and faculty to engage in discussions and peer-support in relationship to CRP, Indigenization and decolonization, student-centred, and self-reflective practices. 4. Incorporate CRP in program planning and development through curriculum design and program scaffolding and pathways. 5. Cultivate program learning outcomes that reflect CRP-based practices and approaches. 6. Advocate and develop accountability measures with instructors and faculty to incorporate CRP into their teaching practices. 7. Support instructors and faculty in developing alternative forms of grading, assessments, and outside-of-classroom community engagement opportunities to connect with local and student culture, as well as Indigenous communities. 122 8. Develop opportunities for acknowledgement, celebration, and accolades for teaching work and practices related to CRP, social justice, and Indigenization and decolonization. 5.3.2.2 Policy Makers 1. Develop accountability measures for higher education institutions to provide and sustain CRP as a component of teaching excellence through reporting structures, program development, and curriculum design. 2. Improve transparency and reporting of CRP-related work and processes in higher education settings across disciplines. 3. Support and facilitate partnerships with industry and community partners that prioritize culturally responsive and Indigenous Knowledges as key factors in program success. 5.4 Insights from Author Positionality In addition to the recommendations included above, there are several applications of these findings that can be applied to my work both as an instructional librarian and also as a racialized librarian in a predominantly white professional context. The first is in how I speak to my own identity within the classroom. While I am not in the position to develop relationships with students in the same way as instructors and faculty who teach full-term courses, there is an opportunity to provide some details about my positionality and connect that to the positionality of the library and the role of Western-centric organization and structure within academic libraries. Secondly, these findings demonstrate an opportunity to intentionally show and work with students to think about using different formats of sources, thinking about author positionality and identity within what they select for their assignments, as well as how to think beyond how they can communicate their findings in alternative ways such as through open access resources, and with different types of copyright licenses such as through creative 123 commons. Thirdly, in conjunction with providing context to the Western-centric approach to library structures, is positioning parallel knowledge systems, specifically Indigenous Knowledges to demonstrate how to find, incorporate, and respectfully engage with Indigenous materials in support of academic scholarship. Lastly, there is also an opportunity to create more space within library instruction to have students work and share strategies and skills that they already have from their lived experiences and knowledges for finding, evaluating, and incorporating information. 5.5 Limitations and Strengths 5.5.1 Limitations As was highlighted in Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design, there were limitations to this study and approach. The values and biases of the researcher, a single coder, data collection from one institution, a relatively small sample size, and existing contact with participants by the researcher based on their professional role all demonstrate the limitations of the current project. Additional elements for limitations to this study have been identified based on the study data after it was collected and analysed. First, while the recommendations and applications suggested here could be applied robustly across disciplinary types and class sizes, there is still the potential that without department support, and sufficient external professional development and training, these findings could have the potential of not being implemented at all, or only being implemented at a surface level. Secondly, this study focused on participants’ perceptions of their CRP-related practices. While this was further supported by four participants in the additional documents provided, this was an individual reflection based on teaching award winners, which prioritizes approaches related to CRP, demonstrating an already engaged pool of participants. Additionally, the 124 recommendations and applications outlined by these findings also require a significant amount of time and effort to be implemented mindfully, intentionally, and with cultural safety in mind. These aspects were not explored in detail through the interview questions or document review. How these elements are recognized and valued is indicated through the participants being award winners, which in theory would suggest an impact on tenure and promotion, as well as student evaluations, but that cannot be assumed based on the current project, which is a limitation of the understanding of the impact of these approaches. Additionally, for new instructors, implementing these recommendations and approaches related to CRP could be particularly challenging on top of developing their teaching practices within the institution, especially for those teaching for the first time. This work requires a significant amount of intention and effort, which on top of a workload that includes teaching, service, and research expectations could be challenging. There could also be challenges with incorporating CRP within disciplines that may not have histories or established practices with the work either at the departmental, campus, institutional, or disciplinary level, which could impact workload as well. Along with this is that this study did not look at the student perspective on this work, and how it impacted, or not, the value added, or significance of CRP approaches to the learning experience. While not the focus of the study, the student perspective would provide a greater understanding of the impact of these approaches that goes beyond the instructor level. It is also important to recognize that the participants in this study are award-winners who have already demonstrated excellence in teaching including in areas related to CRP, accessibility, or equity and inclusion. This would indicate that the participants are already thinking and engaged with work that would support the practices of CRP, and be including them within their pedagogical approaches even without the formal grounding in CRP itself. Along 125 with this is that teaching award winners could have factors such as personality and intrinsic approaches to their teaching that support how they build relationships with students through many of the factors outlined in these results and findings. It was also not possible within the parameters of this study to explore additional external factors that would impact the data such as funding opportunities, teaching fellowships and scholarship of teaching and learning, peer support and mentorships, post-doctoral positions related to teaching and learning and more. All of these additional opportunities could impact the work of CRP by participants and were not explored within the interview questions. Lastly, there are significant limitations to the generalizability of this study. While the third research questions addressed what could be generalized, due to the breadth of disciplines, teaching experience, and practices due to the small sample size and single institution these are heavily contextualised to location. Further research would need to be done to determine larger generalizability. 5.5.2 Addressing Limitations Beyond the limitations and how they were addressed within Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design, the limitations highlighted above could be addressed in future work in several ways including through the recommendations provided in this chapter. Exploring how faculty can advocate and work with campus partners such as Centres for Teaching and Learning and Equity Offices to develop partnerships and relationships for work related to social justice and CRP is another way that these limitations could be addressed. Additionally, consulting and engaging with the professional literature in discipline-specific areas, as well as institutional reports and policies that speak to the work of social justice within classrooms that can be used to provide support and justification for the pedagogical approaches and practices could be a way for 126 instructors to gain confidence in their teaching. This could also support instructors in identifying potential colleagues to reach out to for support to engage in developing these practices in and outside of the institution. Developing and cultivating these practices takes significant effort as was discussed previously, but there is the potential for these approaches to be expanded to research projects related to the scholarship of teaching and learning, which could provide further support and strength for the work. Along with this, more institutions are developing professional development and learning opportunities for teaching within the higher education context which incorporate elements of accessible and social justice-oriented instruction, would could also provide support for this work. All of these approaches would also work towards supporting the incorporation of CRP in ways that go beyond surface-level applications. 5.5.3 Strengths As was also outlined in Chapter 3: Methodology and Research Design, the methods used in this study and the number of interviews conducted are well-documented as sound approaches to conducting research. Additional steps were taken during the interview process such as allowing participants to review and edit their transcripts before data analysis, continued revision to ensure the anonymization of participants was thorough during the transcript review and analysis process, and participants being able to review how their information was used in the analysis and findings chapters before the completion of the current project supported the findings of this work. Additionally, there were several strengths to this study that extended beyond the methodology. The first is that not only did the data generated by the participants align with the existing literature, but it also pushed it forward in many ways related to critiquing the focus on identity with the CRP literature, providing tangible small steps that can be taken within the classroom to support CRP as was outlined in the responses to the study questions, and 127 positioning relationality and reciprocity at the center of this work. Along with this, was the breadth of disciplinary experience and context of the participants included in this study. This demonstrated that even in large classes, or disciplines that may not typically consider CRP practices as part of the work of the classroom, were actively engaging with it in several ways. In conjunction with this, the participants who did provide course documentation showed several applications of CRP within how they communicate assignments and course expectations to students, with a significant reference to student autonomy, compassion, and empathy as it relates to students as unique individuals within the classroom. These approaches indicated a breadth of opportunities to make small but substantial changes or additions to coursework that can have a meaningful impact on how students see themselves within the classroom space. 5.6 Significance and Implications of the Research The significance of these findings is that they demonstrate the spectrum with which CRP practices can be enacted through instructor autonomy, course design, and reflection across disciplines and classroom contexts. As was highlighted in the literature review around the criticisms of CRP by Sleeter (2012) and Evans et al. (2020) where culture is minimized within classrooms to celebrations of a static and siloed conception of culture and identity, what was demonstrated by these participants was the ability and opportunity to integrate intentional processes through relationship building, course design, and individual work to ensure that the power dynamics and lived experiences of students and instructors were being negotiated and navigated in culturally responsive ways. What these participants demonstrated was the effort and care put into thinking about their positionality, power, and responsibility to support students for who they are, and in their growth as learners and citizens. In particular, the recognition that the 128 system of higher education does not always support this growth, and the choices and instructor autonomy within the classroom to disrupt that is significant. Many of the findings from the current study reflect what was found in the literature through students as partners (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Gérman, 2021; Cook-Sather and Des-Ogugua; 2019), instructor identity and positionality within the classroom (Gérman, 2021; Hammond, 2015; Manns, 2021), intentional development of community classrooms (Cole, 2017), and flexibility within teaching practice and course design (Gay, 2018). These have been added to by the recommendations and findings from the current project by demonstrating that CRP requires intentional cultivation of relationships with and between students, seeing the classroom as an opportunity for mutual learning and growth, and allowing and supporting the autonomy of students to engage with their identities, backgrounds, and lived experiences as part of the strengths of the classroom environment. One of the most significant implications of this research was the opportunities demonstrated to collaborate with students in a variety of ways. The focus from participants on seeing the work in the classroom as an opportunity for relational learning as well as mutual learning between students and instructors demonstrated this disruption of the traditional power dynamics, even at the foundational level of undergraduate instruction. While this is not necessarily an advancement as this has been well documented in the literature, (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Germán, 2021; Freire, 2018; Cook-Sather & Des-Ogugua, 2019) the examples and representation of this across disciplines and contexts by these participants continue this work. The impact of this is that it shows ways to engage with CRP, especially at the individual level first, to continue this in the classroom in meaningful and sustainable ways. It validates, the approaches and theories outlined at the start of this project while facilitating an entryway into 129 making tangible choices that impact meaningful change. The recognition across the participants of elements of not only CRP, but CRT, intersectionality, decolonization, and social justice as not only aspects of their teaching practice but central to it, shows that the work of CRP goes beyond culture. Where this research brings additional elements to the understanding and perspectives of CRP through instructors’ efforts to strengthen and incorporate Indigenous and decolonizing approaches to their teaching practices and course design, as well as using storytelling as a way to bridge connections and relationships with students. While much of the literature outlined in Chapter 2: Literature Review spoke to the centring of student’s identities and experiences in the classroom, the data from the participants in this study indicate the importance of instructor reflection and how they speak to their identities, histories, settler context, education, and limitations within the scope of the courses that they are teaching, to create space for students to bring their positionality and identities into their course work and discussions. Several of the participants spoke about the learning that they have done through professional development, or through learning that has come from Indigenous colleagues, indicating the importance and need for professional development and recognition of this kind of cultivation in teaching practice as part of the instructor role in post-secondary. Additionally, the role of storytelling in bringing the connections of instructor identity to student identity and the content of the course also creates the space for a reciprocal action of listening and collaboration, while extending the idea of the students as partners. It also facilitates disrupting power systems within the classroom, and again centring students within the classroom. Additionally, this research is significant regarding the value of this work and CRP approaches to post-secondary institutions. While most of the responses to the research and 130 interview questions spoke to individual approaches within the classroom, the implications for this work in creating, developing, and sustaining a more equitable society are important. As the findings demonstrate, the work and role of the instructor within the classroom present an opportunity to deprioritize the hierarchies of higher education as they have been traditionally set up, and establish opportunities and pathways for students to take control of their learning not only in a particular course but in their actions outside and beyond their education. Additionally, making connections to the larger world was highlighted by several of the participants and in the literature (Gahman & Legault, 2019; Germán, 2021; Gay, 2018; Cole, 2017) as a way for students to see the impact of what they are learning in a more holistic sense, and to have the classroom model the behaviours, actions, and information that is part of a dynamic social structure extends these findings into how students can engage with the world beyond the classroom. Finally, this work demonstrates the importance of trust and humility within the context of CRP and teaching as a whole. The approaches outlined above indicate the impact of community building within the classroom to support trust and humility from both students and instructors. As the participants in this study demonstrated, by modeling the behaviours of being humble and open about themselves as educators and people, their strengths, approaches, and limitations, it showed students the importance of being open to learning and changing throughout the educational process. 5.7 Future Areas of Research The findings from the current study indicated several areas for future research. The first is a review of what supports departments and faculties are providing for CRP and its related areas of social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as decolonization and 131 Indigenization in terms of instructional training, course design, and funding for these approaches. While this was not discussed in detail during the interviews, several of the participants spoke about individual work they had done to develop this in their practice without referencing departmental support. This could provide further insight into the sustainability of this work and the incorporation of it into departmental practices, accountability, and tenure and promotion. Secondly, deeper analysis and exploration of the community components outside of the classroom warrants further study as the existing literature demonstrated that supporting students in their awareness beyond the classroom environment and in sustaining their communities is integral to the CRP process (Pairs & Alim, 2017). As many participants spoke to engaging their classes in content and ideas beyond the classroom, how this develops intentional practices that take students outside of the classroom in other ways to form connections with local and larger communities could provide insight into CRP that goes beyond that traditional classroom. Thirdly, an exploration of the student perspectives of CRP as a practice, and their experiences within undergraduate classrooms would bridge the gap in what instructors are doing in regards to CRP in conjunction with how that is being received and taken up by students as a result. In addition to this, an understanding of how students see their identities and perspectives being incorporated in meaningful, valued, and sustained ways through their education and what this means in the context of their critical consciousness outside of the classroom, would provide a deeper sense of this work across the student-teacher relationship. Lastly, as was outlined in Chapter 1: Introduction, the identity of the researcher as a biracial, white presenting person is a lacking perspective in the literature. Navigating academia as an intersectional person with multiple identity considerations is another area where the research could be expanded upon in the future. How those with multiracial and intersectional 132 identities navigate, or feel a responsibility to engage in social justice and CRP-related practices is another area where the research could be explored further. 5.8 Conclusions This research study aimed to explore and define what makes a culturally responsive classroom and a culturally responsive instructor in undergraduate classrooms. As was found through the participants data, the practices and approaches related to relationship building, student autonomy and collaborations, classroom community, assignments, and flexibility all demonstrated CRP and its related practices. These findings support the theoretical contexts of CRT, decolonization, social justice, and intersectionality through these approaches, identifying that what happens in the classroom is not only about the students and instructor but also the systems and structures of higher education. There is a need for further research into student perspectives on CRP, how departments and faculties support this work, and how this work is happening outside of the university context with communities. The present study found that there are tangible, both small and large approaches, that can be applied across disciplines. Participants demonstrated that while the language of CRP may not resonate directly, the approaches within it have salience to their work in supporting student learning in meaningful and collaborative ways. The recommendations included in this study for instructors, administrators, and policymakers show steps forward in engaging and incorporating CPR into undergraduate classrooms. More personally, there were several things that the researcher took away from this project regarding library instruction and professional practice as a conclusion to this work. Within my instruction, there are several small changes I believe I can implement to reflect the learning that I have taken from the participants’ generous insights. These include incorporating more space for my identity to be included within my introductory content and in how I orient the work of doing 133 library research within the larger power structures of the academy. Additionally, speaking to these power dynamics can be further supported in the work that I do working one-on-one with students in how they find, evaluate, and incorporate sources into their work can include aspects of their identity and their experiences as part of deprioritizing only formal academic research as acceptable for assignments. This is especially important in the context of centring Indigenous knowledges, my own identity as a settler, and teaching students how to navigate the information landscape using their existing skills as a foundation. There is also an opportunity for me as a librarian to find ways to engage with students as partners in developing more activities in the classroom that allow students to direct library sessions based on how they use information systems and how that can be used to support their work using library systems for their assignments and course work. In my role as the instructional lead within the library, I also see these approaches and recommendations as tangible actions that I can advocate for within my library, and amongst my colleagues through our discussion on the future of library instruction that is socially just, focused on the critical consciousness of learners, and in developing resources and supports that are grounded in decentering the Western and North American focus on colonial structures of information organization. Lastly, the consistent theme of self-reflection by the participants demonstrates a strong need to continuously think and reflect on the work of CRP within my practice. 134 REFERENCES Adams, M., & Love, B. J. (2010). A social justice education faculty development framework for a post-grutter era. In K. Skubikowski, C. Wright, & R. Graf (Eds.), Social Justice Education (pp. 3–25). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003447009 Antoine, A., Mason, R., Mason, R., Palahicky, S., & France, R. (2018). 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(1997). Grounded Theory in Practice. SAGE Publications. Taylor, E., Gillborn, D., & Ladson-Billings, G. (2023). Foundations of critical race theory in education (3rd ed.). Routledge. Tomlinson, A., Mayor, L., & Baksh, N. (2021, February 24). Being Black on campus: Why students, staff and faculty say universities are failing them. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/anti-black-racism-campus-university-1.5924548 142 Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization, Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630 Xie, J., & Ferguson, Y. (2022). STEM faculty’s perspectives on adopting culturally responsive pedagogy. Teaching in Higher Education, ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2022.2129960 143 APPENDICES Appendix A - Emails to Participants Email 1: Initial contact inviting participation Subject line: Request for interview for Master’s thesis project Dear XXX, My name is Sajni Lacey, I am currently a MA candidate in the Okanagan School of Education. I am working on a research project titled: Faculty perceptions and action in implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in higher education classrooms. I am working to explore and define what makes a culturally responsive classroom and a culturally responsive instructor in higher education within the Canadian context using instructors from a mid-sized university as participants. You were selected as a potential participant based off of winning a past teaching award at the institution. If you are open to participating, I would be asking for the following: 1. Committing to one 30–60-minute semi-structured interview (questions provided in advance) 2. OPTIONAL: Providing a minimum of two course documents such as syllabi, assignment descriptions, and/or reading lists. This is not required to participate in the study. If you do agree to this component your original ideas and content will be protected. A copy of the research proposal can be provided if requested for further details on methodology, analysis, research questions, and thesis supervisor details. You will be provided with an opportunity to review the transcript of the interview to ensure that your experiences and opinions have been captured fully and accurately. If you are open to participating, please let me know within the next week and I will follow up with the consent form and to schedule a time to conduct the interview. Thank you for your consideration, Sajni 144 Email 2: Follow up on initial inviting participation Dear XXX, I am following up on my email below about being a participant in my Master’s thesis project titled: Faculty perceptions and action in implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in higher education classrooms. Please let me know if you are interested. Thank you again for considering, Sajni 145 Appendix B – Interview Questions as sent to Participants Faculty perceptions and action in implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in higher education classrooms Principal Investigator: Dr. Catherine Broom, PhD, Associate Professor, Okanagan School of Education, UBC Okanagan Co-Investigator [Data collector]: Sajni Lacey, Learning and Curriculum Support Librarian and Masters of Arts Candidate in the Okanagan School of Education, Sajni.lacey@ubc.ca Purpose: The purpose of this research project is to explore and define what makes a culturally responsive classroom and a culturally responsive instructor in higher education within the Canadian context using from a mid-sized university for a convenience sample. Semi-structured interviews will be used to ask instructors how they have developed a culturally responsive teaching approach (if applicable), their application of it within higher education classrooms, their own articulation of their teaching practice from a culturally responsive perspective, and the rhetorical and discourse choices they make in course documentation, such as syllabi, assignments, and rubrics. This will be used to determine themes, practices, and descriptions of culturally responsive pedagogy to provide a framework and/or descriptions for generalizable practice. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Definition: CRP has been defined by Ladson-Billings (1995) as “a pedagogy of oppression not unlike critical pedagogy but specifically committed to collective, not merely individual, empowerment. Culturally relevant pedagogy rests on three criteria or propositions: (a) students must experience academic success; (b) students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; and (c) students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the current status quo of the social order” (p. 160). Overlaying this definition is the contemporary research of textured and culturally sustaining pedagogical practices as defined above by Germán (2021) that creates and facilitates classrooms that connect course content and structure in a way that affirms individual student culture, that is engaging and relevant to their lives, strives for change within student learning, and helps students to relate to other people, cultures, and contexts as well as in the larger global context. Through Ladson-Billings definition, CRP has been developed into a conceptual framework that includes identity and achievement, equity and excellence, developmental appropriateness, teaching holistically, and student-centered relationships (Brown-Jeffy & Cooper, 2011). When overlayed with culturally sustaining practices that include teaching that is student driven, 146 community centered, interdisciplinary and experiential there are overlapping themes that can be explored (Germán, 2021). These themes include: 1) Identity of students and instructor 2) Engagement with identity through curriculum and assessments 3) Intentional learning activities that include opportunities for student choice and learning needs, experiential opportunities and are interdisciplinary in nature 4) Curriculum that is grounded and informed by diverse, inclusive, and culturally supported literature and examples Interview Questions: • Can you please say your title, department, and how long have you been teaching, and how long have you been teaching at the institution? • What is your experience or understanding of the term Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. Do you see CRP as part of your teaching strategies? Why or why not? What are your main teaching aims and how are these reflected in your practices? • CRP and the CRP Framework centers the identity of the student and instructor as components for developing a culturally responsive classroom, does this resonate with you, or connect with what you see as a component of a culturally responsive classroom? • What do you see as the role of student’s individual identities (race, gender, sexuality, cultural, and other) in the context of learning within your classroom, if at all? Do you have any course components that ask about student identities either through personal reflections or in collaboration with you? if so, how have you integrated that, and if not is this something you could imagine doing? • Do you include anything about your own identity beyond name in the context of your teaching such as race, gender, sexuality, cultural, or other intersections)? If yes, how do you do this (at the start of the term, in the syllabus etc. and if not do you see this impacting how and what you do in the classroom? 147 • Do you include any components in your instruction and curriculum design that is meant to develop the classroom environment for students to build relationships with each other and with you? Examples could be community agreements, course partners or groups etc. • What do you use for assessments of student learning, do you let students choose different formats of assessments to match their needs and course learning outcomes? • What do students read in your class? Do you include interdisciplinary voices in your classroom? If yes, how do you decide what to include? If no, how do you decide what content from your discipline to include? • Are there any other elements of your teaching practices that you think align with culturally responsive pedagogy that we have not already talked about today? • Finally, would you like to be contacted about the final output for this project? If so could you please provide your email address. • And to confirm again that you consent to have the recording of this interview used for the student, and for any course documents you provide to be used for the study? References: Brown-Jeffy, S., & Cooper, J.E. (2011). Toward a conceptual framework of culturally responsive pedagogy: An overview of the conceptual and theoretical literature. Teacher Education Quarterly 38(1), 65-84. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ914924 Germán, L. E. (2021). Textured teaching: A framework for culturally sustaining practices. Heinemann. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159-165. https://jstor.org/stable.1476635 148 Appendix C – Round 1 Codes Name Description Files References Academic Success Students’ ability or perceived ability to succeed in class, course, or higher education. 2 4 Access to Technology Needs associated with having technology for success in the classroom, or the complete course work. 2 3 Assignments 6 8 Assignment Choice Where students get some choice in what type or format of assignments they will be completing. 6 11 Assignment Deadlines Related to assignments deadlines or completion. 5 7 Assignment References What are students being asked to use, or using to complete their assignments in terms of secondary sources. 1 1 Grading 6 10 Assimilation In relationship to assimilating to higher education or Western/Eurocentric academic culture. 1 1 Authenticity How an instructor presents themselves in the classroom in terms of their abilities, approaches, practices, identity. 2 2 Classroom Community Instructor facilitates, through relationship building with students and between students, the experience of working together as a collaborative group towards learning within the context of the course. 7 9 Classroom Environment Intentional structures and practices that instructors develop as part of their course(s) to facilitate and support the learning environment. 7 12 Confidence Confidence in teaching, or using CRP approaches 2 2 Course Resources Readings, guest speakers, podcast, films etc. 9 18 CRP Definition How are participants resonating with the definition and see it in their practice. 12 19 Difference in Student Year The different approaches used when you teach a first year, versus a second, versus a third year etc. 5 5 Failure Failure in trying something in regards to teaching (could be CRP related or not). 2 4 149 Name Description Files References Indigenization Specific to the campus, or for a course, and how that connects with CRP. 5 8 Instructor perspective How do instructors see their own place within the classroom and how does that connect with CRP. 4 5 Instructor Reflection When an instructor reflects on their own teaching practices, or identity and how it relates to the context of the course. 6 10 Land Acknowledgment - Settler Context Incorporation of land acknowledgements and/or discussion of instructor settler context within the classroom. 4 7 One-on-One Time with Students Intentional time with students outside of office-hours. 2 3 Peer Work When students work is informed and pushed by each other in the classroom 3 4 Positionality Where one is located in relation to their various social identities (gender, race, class, ethnicity, ability, geographical location etc.) 11 21 Story Telling The use of stories as part of positionality, identity, and positioning within the classroom. 8 9 Professional Development Work that instructors are doing to develop in their teaching and practices within the area of CRP or related aspects. 2 2 Reciprocal Learning Where the instructor learns from the students and vice versa. 2 2 Responsibility Responsibility to conduct teaching and the practices of teaching in a responsible and intentional way. 3 3 Student Advocacy Instructors advocating for students in terms of the classroom and course context and within the larger context of higher education. 1 1 Student as Partner Opportunity created for students to collaborate on the course content or topics, assignment details or choice of the format of assignments, as well as being co-contributors to the learning. 8 11 Student Autonomy Students’ opportunities to have control and choice within the context of the course. 3 6 Student Engagement How students engage with the classroom activities, with instructor, or with each other. 3 5 150 Name Description Files References Student Feedback Feedback provided by the student in regards to the course content, structure, practices etc. 1 1 Student Identity How students identify themselves within the classroom or how instructors think about student identity within the context of a course or teaching scenario 7 12 Student Lived Experience or Knowledge Experiences and histories that students have before and when in the classroom that could impact how they engage or not. 10 16 Student Reflection Students’ reflection as part of course work. 3 4 Syllabus Anything referring to the syllabus for a course. 1 2 Teaching Evaluations 2 2 Transparency Transparency with students about their approaches or what they are doing, particularly in a culturally responsive way. 3 4 Value of the Student The value that students bring into the classroom, is connected with lived experience. 1 2 Vulnerability In instructors teaching in how they present or teach in class. Or in how the engage with students outside of the classroom. 3 3 151 Appendix D – Round 2 Codes Name Description Files References Academic Success Students’ ability or perceived ability to succeed in class, course, or higher education. 5 8 Access to Technology Needs associated with having technology for success in the classroom, or the complete course work. 3 4 Assignments 9 16 Assignment Choice Where students get some choice in what type or format of assignments they will be completing. 10 17 Assignment Deadlines Related to assignments deadlines or completion. 5 11 Assignment References What are students being asked to use, or using to complete their assignments in terms of secondary sources. 1 2 Grading 6 11 Assimilation In relationship to assimilating to higher education or Western/Eurocentric academic culture. 1 1 Authenticity How an instructor presents themselves in the classroom in terms of their abilities, approaches, practices, identity. 4 4 Classroom Community Instructor facilitates, through relationship building with students and between students, the experience of working together as a collaborative group towards learning within the context of the course. 11 22 Classroom Environment Intentional structures and practices that instructors develop as part of their course(s) to facilitate and support the learning environment. 13 31 Confidence Confidence in teaching, or using CRP approaches 3 4 Contribution beyond classroom Where instructors reflect or speak to the impact students can, could, or will have beyond what they do in the classroom. 4 5 Course Documents Items beyond syllabus and assignments. 4 6 Course Resources Readings, guest speakers, podcast, films etc. 14 29 COVID References to COVID and the impact on teaching. 7 11 CRP Definition How are participants resonating with the 12 27 152 Name Description Files References definition and see it in their practice. Difference in Student Year The different approaches used when you teach a first year, versus a second, versus a third year etc. 7 8 Failure Failure in trying something in regards to teaching (could be CRP related or not). 2 4 Feedback Student feedback to instructor. 3 4 Indigenization - Decolonization Specific to the campus, or for a course, and how that connects with CRP. 5 12 Instructor 0 0 Instructor Identity 7 9 Instructor perspective How do instructors see their own place within the classroom and how does that connect with CRP. 5 10 Instructor Reflection When an instructor reflects on their own teaching practices, or identity and how it relates to the context of the course. 8 22 Land Acknowledgment - Settler Context Incorporation of land acknowledgements and/or discussion of instructor settler context within the classroom. 6 9 Modeling Behaviour Where instructor/faculty see something that they do in the classroom, through their practices, as an opportunity to model for students how to be effective in other avenues of life or beyond the classroom 5 6 One-on-One Time with Students Intentional time with students outside of office-hours. 5 9 Peer Work When students work is informed and pushed by each other in the classroom 9 13 Positionality Of the instructor 12 25 Story Telling Where one is located in relation to their various social identities (gender, race, class, ethnicity, ability, geographical location etc.) 9 14 Power Structures The use of stories as part of positionality, identity, and positioning within the classroom. 7 10 Professional Development Work that instructors are doing to develop in their teaching and practices within the area of CRP or related aspects. 2 3 153 Name Description Files References Reciprocal Learning Where the instructor learns from the students and vice versa. 3 6 Responsibility Responsibility to conduct teaching and the practices of teaching in a responsible and intentional way 3 4 Student Specifically referring to students and their role or experiences 0 0 Student Advocacy Instructors advocating for students in terms of the classroom and course context and within the larger context of higher education. 2 2 Student as Partner Opportunity created for students to collaborate on the course content or topics, assignment details or choice of the format of assignments, as well as being co-contributors to the learning. 8 13 Student Autonomy Students’ opportunities to have control and choice within the context of the course. 11 18 Student Engagement How students engage with the classroom activities, with instructor, or with each other. 7 15 Student Feedback Feedback provided by the student in regards to the course content, structure, practices etc. 3 5 Student Identity How students identify themselves within the classroom or how instructors think about student identity within the context of a course or teaching scenario 11 26 Student Lived Experience or Knowledge Experiences and histories that students have before and when in the classroom that could impact how they engage or not. 14 25 Student Reflection Students’ reflection as part of course work. 8 13 Syllabus Anything referring to the syllabus for a course. 4 6 Teaching Evaluations 4 4 Transparency Transparency with students about their approaches or what they are doing, particularly in a culturally responsive way. 6 7 Value of the Student The value that students bring into the classroom, is connected with lived experience. 1 2 Vulnerability In instructors teaching in how they present or teach in class. Or in how the engage with students outside of the classroom. 4 4 154 Appendix E – Consent Form Informed Consent Form for Research Project Faculty perceptions and action in implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in higher education classrooms Principal Investigator: Dr. Catherine Broom, PhD, Associate Professor, Okanagan School of Education, UBC Okanagan Co-Investigator [Data collector]: Sajni Lacey, Learning and Curriculum Support Librarian and Masters of Arts Candidate in the Okanagan School of Education, Sajni.lacey@ubc.ca Purpose: The purpose of this research project is to explore and define what makes a culturally responsive classroom and a culturally responsive instructor in higher education within the Canadian context using a mid-sized university for a convenience sample. Semi-structured interviews will be used to ask instructors how they have developed a culturally responsive teaching approach (if applicable), their application of it within higher education classrooms, their own articulation of their teaching practice from a culturally responsive perspective, and the rhetorical and discourse choices they make in course documentation, such as syllabi, assignments, and rubrics. This will be used to determine themes, practices, and descriptions of culturally responsive pedagogy to provide a framework and/or descriptions for generalizable practice. The co-investigator Sajni Lacey will be collecting and analyzing the data, and the principal investigator Catherine Broom will be responsible for storing the research data. Study Procedures: 1. Participants will be contacted for interviews and course documents based on eligibility criteria. 2. Consenting participants will be interviewed and provide course documents (optional) such as syllabi, assignment descriptions, and/or reading lists. a. Interviews will be recorded for transcription. b. Transcripts will be provided participants for review. 3. Transcripts and course documents will be coded and analysed using a grounded theory approach and critical discourse analysis. a. Grounded Theory was developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) developed this approach, with a focus on being constantly comparative, where the collection and analysis of the data occur together, with every piece of data being compared to every other piece of data (Cutcliffe, 2000). This approach allows for themes to 155 emerge from semi-structured interviews, and allows for the researcher to direct that conversation to identify interests of the participants, as well as enabling the researcher to ask additional questions to bring themes to the forefront, rather than preconceived ideas, themes, or topics (Strauss & Corbin, 1999). b. Critical Discourse Analysis is a methodology that analyses texts and spoken language to assess the meaning of language used to describe and explain concepts. It sees language as a social practice. Course Documents: This component is optional. Participation in this study only requires an interview but course documents are requested to provide additional depth to the study. If you agree to provice course documents you are asked to provide a minimum of two course documents. These documents are to be provided in advance or at the interview. These documents are the property of the instructor, and are offered voluntarily. You can request your documents to not be included at any point in the project. All references to the documents will be anonymized, including any quotes. Additionally, original ideas and content will be protected, and only used to supplement content from the interviews. These documents will be used to further develop general themes related to culturally responsive, sustaining, and textured teaching and will be used in conjunction with the transcripts to develop codes and themes. Eligibility: Eligible participants must be faculty or instructors who have been awarded at least one campus teaching awards including. Study Results: The study findings will be published in a Master’s thesis project, and available via UBC’s institutional repository cIRcle. Additional academic articles or conference presentations may also occur. Potential Risks and Benefits: This project is a small sample size, with a maximum of 12 participants. Quotations may be used in the final project from transcripts and course documents, but all participants will be anonymized, and every effort will be made to anonymize and remove any identifying information from any data used. You have the right to decline to answer any questions and you may withdraw from the study at any point without explanation up to confirmation of your transcript. You will receive your transcript to review and can withdraw from the study up to the point when you are asked to review and confirm the transcript. After the transcript is confirmed, you will not be able to withdraw. 156 Benefits of this study is helping to inform culturally responsive pedagogies and practices in higher education. Confidentiality: Your privacy will be strictly protected. You will not be identified by name or distinguishing characteristics in the thesis project for this data, and any publications, reports, or presentations about the completed study. Data will be stored electronically on the co-investigators personal institutional drive that is password protected and can only be accessed on an institutional server backed up in Canada. Audio files of interviews will be deleted once transcripts have been developed and checked against the audio recording. Stored data will include transcripts of interviews, course documents, and any analysis documents resulting from interviews and course documents. All data will be stored and backed up in Canada. In accordance with UBC requirements, all original data will be stored for five years following all publications arising from this project. Contact information for this study: If you have any questions, desire for further information with respect to this study, or you wish to withdraw your participation, you may contact Dr. Catherine Broom, the principal investigator for this study, and the supervisor for this thesis project. Catherine Broom, Associate Professor, Okanagan School of Education Catherine.broom@ubc.ca Contact for concerns about the rights of the research participants: If you have any concerns or complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research Services at 1-877-822-8598 or the UBC Okanagan Research Services Office at 250-807-8832. It is also possible to contact the Research Participant Complaint Line by email (RSIL@ors.ubc.ca). Please reference the study number H23-01279 when contacting the Complaint Line so the staff can better assist you. Consent: Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary and you may refuse to participate or withdraw from the study at any time. If you wish to withdraw from the study please contact the PI as listed on the first page of the consent form. Please select one of the following: o I consent to being in the study o I do not consent; I do not wish to participate 157 Please select one of the following: o I consent to being recorded for the study o I do not consent to being recorded for the study Please select one of the following: o I consent to providing two course related documents as described by the researchers for the study o I do not consent to providing two course related documents as described by the researcher for the study Participant name: Signature:
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Broom, Catherine
Faculty perceptions and action in implementing culturally responsive pedagogy in higher education classrooms
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