Culturally Responsive Teaching as an Ethics- and Care-Based Approach to Urban Education

Abstract

Research shows culturally responsive teaching affects urban students positively. Current literature is an excellent resource for urban teacher preparation and provides definitions, models, and examples to help preservice teachers recognize the “how” and “what” of culturally responsive teaching. Missing, however, is an accessible, in-depth discussion of the “why” or theoretical components of culturally responsive teaching—a crucial part of developing culturally responsive teaching practices appropriately. This article addresses the gap by using Noddings’s care theory to frame culturally responsive teaching as question of ethics, inquiry, and caring and explores critically the theory–practice links that make this approach so effective.