Culturally Responsive Classroom Management

Jennifer Quigley

Dominican University

For this assignment, I chose to review Stephanie Smith’s article “Cultural Relay in Early

Childhood Education: Methods of Teaching School Behavior to Low-Income Children”. As the

title suggests, the article focuses on teaching acceptable classroom behavior to lower socio-

economic classes using either implicit or explicit methods of instruction. Traditionally, research

has shown that implicit methods such as modeling behavior, offering choices, and using directive

questioning have been used with higher socio-economic student populations and more direct,

explicit methods including strong hierarchies, direct orders, and “zero-tolerance” policies are

used when instructing lower socio-economic student populations. Smith questions the necessity

of explicit behavioral instruction and, to test her theory, looks at four preschool classrooms in

two of Chicago’s Head Start centers.

Smith’s first center, Malaguzzi, served primarily low income, Mexican-American

children of immigrants and all teachers in the study were Hispanic. The center used the Reggio

Emilia model of teaching which supported implicit behavioral instruction. Two of the four

classrooms in the study were at Malaguzzi, each with student population between 3 and 5 years

of age. The second center Smith looked at was called Woodlawn and served a primarily low-

income, African-American population. The center used a curriculum model, Teaching Standards

Gold, for teaching students academic and behavior standards. This is a much more traditional

model that utilizes explicit methods of teaching. The teachers in the study at Woodlawn were all

African-American as were the student who ranged in age from three to five in both classrooms

observed.

At the beginning of the school year, both classrooms at Malaguzzi used implicit methods

of instruction to help children internalize classroom behavioral requirements such as a teacher

saying “can you put it in the cup, please?” or “be careful”. Older and returning children were

reminded to model good behavior for younger or new children. In a marked contrast, both

classrooms at Woodlawn, utilizing explicit methods, would give children orders and established

a clear hierarchy from the beginning. They would say things such as “Attention!” and “don’t

make a mess”. Children, regardless of their length of time in the program were treated the same

and never given choices. Threats were utilized frequently as a behavior management and the

entire classroom was often punished by missing out on an activity because of the misbehavior of

just a few. Smith also found that consequences were more severe at Woodlawn than at

Malaguzzi, even for the same behavior. Teachers at Woodlawn did not try to find out why a child

was acting out and seemed oblivious to many of the children’s actions at times, including

important behaviors. In contrast, when children misbehaved at Malaguzzi, they were redirected

or had a brief meeting with the teacher to discuss good behavior. Children were given stories to

illustrated bad behaviors and what should be done if it seemed many of the children at Malaguzzi

were having the same problems.

Overall, Smith found that classroom behavior had, for the most part, been internalized

after just one month of the implicit teaching styles used at Malaguzzi. Children at Malaguzzi also

seemed to show more independence in task completion and required fewer reminders or

assistance as a result of the more supportive environment. Alternatively, children at Woodlawn

were, overall, less obedient regardless of the punishments and followed routines with less

success even though they knew what was expected of them. Along with these findings of her

study, Smith determined that although behaviors were more regimented and instructions more

clearly given at Woodlawn, transition times between activities were more than twice as long as at

Malaguzzi.

Smith’s findings interested me primarily because I hope to enter into a low-income

elementary school for the first few years of my teaching career. I was also intrigued in findings

because my own pre-school aged son is in a canter that uses the traditional Teaching Standards

Gold program. Smith maintains that implicit teaching of classroom behavior is essential for

successful classroom management across all socio-economic groups. I agree that more involved

teachers using methods that allow children to take responsibility for themselves and their actions

are important for teaching and that implicit teaching is involved. One of the most notable

problems that I found with this study was in the population sampled. The Mexican-American and

African-American cultures are inherently different and it stands to reason that they would each

respond differently to both implicit and explicit methods of classroom management. I also

disagreed with the author’s choice to refer to African-American children as “children of color” as

this was not a politically correct term when it was written 2012, nor is it today. Overall, this

study, although flawed, provided an interesting insight on alternative teaching methods and I

would be interested in find other similar studies to compare the results.

References

Smith, S. C. (2012). Cultural Relay in Early Childhood Education: Methods of Teaching School

Behavior to Low-Income Children. The Urban Review 44(5), pp. 571-588.