ABSTRACT
Issues of race, ethnicity, and social class continue to influence the quality of education that students of color receive in US schools. When educational tools, such as computers, laptops, and iPads, are available, they are often underutilized in high-poverty schools because some teachers lack technology training and/or fail to understand the importance of using such tools, especially in mathematics. Cultural pedagogy has historical roots in American Indian and Native Hawaiian education. Culturally relevant pedagogy has been described as an effective way to meet the intellectual and social needs of African-American children. It supports the following three goals: student learning, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. According to Au and Kawakami, “studies of cultural congruence are based on the premise that school learning takes place in particular social contexts, often through teacherstudent interactions”. The concept of culturally responsive teaching emerged from the multicultural education literature of the 1970s. Irvine’s research on cultural synchronization led to the articulation of culturally specific pedagogy.
