Leveraging Cultural Differences to Promote Diversity and Equity

By acknowledging and valuing diverse cultural backgrounds, educators can devise lessons that contextualize critical content and skills within students' everyday lives. Through this process, students learn more about one another in safe, respectful environments that promote pro-social behavior, reduce bullying, spark intrinsic motivation, increase home-school connections, and close opportunity
gaps through personalized learning. This session examines the complexities of culture, employs the Cultural Proficiency Continuum as a language to analyze responses to diversity, and offers strategies teachers can transfer immediately into their classrooms to reach and engage learners of all cultures, ages, and abilities.