Abstract
There is a mismatch between the cultures of students and their teachers. In the focus county of this study, students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds make up 70.4% of the population. However, teachers in the county are 71.7% White. Since sociocultural interactions are the foundation of learning, this mismatch between cultures creates a barrier to learning for students from diverse backgrounds (Rogoff, 2003; Gay, 2018). Furthermore, the White dominant class’s cultural hegemony in schools serves as an oppressive structure that alienates and marginalizes diverse students (Giroux, 1991). The mismatch of cultures in the classroom and the resulting gaps in achievement and discipline are complex and multifaceted problems (Gay, 2018). Scholars have posited Culturally Responsive Teaching as a pedagogy capable of countering these hegemonic structures (Au, 1980; Gay, 2018; Ladson-Billings, 1995b). The development of critical consciousness, a habit of critical self-reflective and critical action, is necessary for teachers that seeking to develop more humanizing and culturally responsive practices in the classroom (Gay & Kirkland, 2003; Howard, 2003). The purpose of this study is to understand the nature of critical consciousness (Freire, 2018). This mixed-methods study uses a descriptive phenomenological design in two phases. Phase 1 is a quantitative analysis deploying the Opinions and Beliefs Survey ( a three-part survey measuring Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy and Critical Consciousness). Respondent (n = 92) data was used to evaluate how certain factors influence the development of critical consciousness. Primarily descriptive statistical analyses were conducted. Phase 2 included nine qualitative interviews on the nature of critical consciousness among K-12 teachers. The researcher focused the interviews on how teachers perceive, develop, and display critical consciousness. Finally, Phase 1 and Phase 2 data were analyzed together to identify how the quantitative and qualitative data speak to each other and extend, confirm, complicate our understanding of critical consciousness. This study yielded complex and multifaceted results.