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Abstract
ABSTRACT With substantial demographic shifts in the U.S. student population, today’s teachers educate growing numbers of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (Kena, Aud, & Johnson, 2010). While these students bring an abundance of different cultures and languages from their families and communities, these dynamic shifts add to the instructional intricacy faced by teachers in providing reading instruction for diverse learners (Bui & Fagan, 2013). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore elementary school teachers’ perceptions of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) practices and to examine how professional development impacts teachers’ implementation of CRT practices. This study explored instructional practices teachers used, examined teachers’ familiarity and knowledge of CRT, specifically the impact of professional development, and how this collectively translated into literacy instruction. The study took place at an elementary school site in a rural school district of North Carolina. Three participants were interviewed at the start of the study and once again after observations were completed in their classrooms. I observed each participant six times over the course of seven weeks during the 2nd and 3rd quarters of the 2016-2017 school year. In addition to interviews and observations, documents such as lesson plans and professional development agendas were collected. Data were coded and the following five major themes surfaced: multicultural literature, acceptance of others, cooperative work, technology, and lack of resources.