Infusing Culturally Relevant Content in Gateway Courses in Postsecondary Education

Findings and Insights From College Faculty

Culturally affirming practices not only recognize the many contributions of mathematicians, scientists, poets, authors, and key figures in history but also allow students to describe the various  concepts in the language that best helps them understand the concepts. This project provides insight into how faculty in postsecondary education create a “sense of belonging” for diverse students. Sense of belonging is 1 of 6 core evidence-based teaching practices (EBT) identified by researchers affiliated with the Every Learner Everywhere network.

In this report, we first describe our survey design. Second, we discuss the survey respondents’ demographic data. Third, we present the survey results broken into two main sections: one focused on use of culturally relevant instructional practices and one focused on use of culturally relevant course materials. This report concludes with implications for practice and future research on culturally relevant content in postsecondary education and gateway courses.