Instructional Framework for Integrating Cross-Cultural Content Using Culturally Responsive and Linguistically Affirming Pedagogies

Introduction

This chapter describes an instructional framework for culturally relevant and affirming teaching and curricula that addresses effective ways to interconnect cross-cultural content to expand cultural and content literacy in P-16. This cross-cultural content is based on the historical, cultural, and geographical context of the students and communities of the lower Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in deep South Texas. The framework for teaching content using Culturally and Linguistically Affirming Pedagogies for Local Context (CLAP-LC) focuses on providing P-16 teachers and university professors with professional development opportunities to learn content that reflects the history, culture, and geography of the region to enhance the existing curriculum to develop content literacy. This Framework was developed to create culturally and linguistically affirming content, promote equitable education, and nurture student engagement. Although the framework emerged from a curriculum and pedagogical program designed for educators that teach in schools with predominate Mexican origin student population, it can be applied in diverse and distinct cultural and linguistic contexts. The Framework centers on the intersection of cultural knowledge and lived experiences of students, families and communities and curriculum to promote student achievement, especially students from minoritized and marginalized groups.

The U.S. experienced a significant demographic shift with the growth in the Hispanic/Latino population during the first decades of the twenty-first century. According to the Pew Research Center (2019), national census figures showed that the Hispanic/Latino population stood at 60.6 million, comprising 18% of the nation’s total population with 63% of the overall Hispanic/Latino population being of Mexican origin. Much of this population resides in the Southwest, Illinois, New York, and Florida. Texas alone is home to 11.5 million Hispanics/Latinos, comprising approximately 40% of the state’s total.¹ The increase in this demographic also contributed to the growth of the Latina/o student population in public schools. Between 1996 to 2016, the number of Latina/o students enrolled in PreKinder-12 schools, colleges and universities in the United States doubled from 8.8 million to 17.9 million (Bauman, 2017). Thus, in 2016 Latina/o students made up an average of 22.7% of all students enrolled in P-16 schools nationwide (See Figure 1). In some areas of the country, such as the lower Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in deep South Texas, this percentage is higher and growing. With the sharp increase of Latina/o students in PK-12^th grade schools, it is critical that the curriculum and teaching methods reflect the growth of this student population to meet their needs and provide an equitable education (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Graph on the number of Latina/o/x students enrolled in public schools

Source: US Census, Current Population Survey, Student Supplement Survey Files, 1996-2016

Located along the Texas-Mexico border, the lower RGV is comprised of four counties: Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy Counties with Hidalgo and Cameron Counties being the largest, and has a total population of 1.36 million. The adjacent Mexican border cities of Reynosa, Matamoros, Camargo, Rio Bravo, and Valle Hermoso have a population of 1,444,091. According to census figures for 2019, the region’s demographic is predominantly Mexican origin, constituting 91.5% of the RGV’s total population.² The two largest MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas), McAllen-Edinburg- Mission and Brownsville-Harlingen, are surrounded by towns, small cities, and rural colonias. Between 2010 and 2019, the Hispanic/Latina/o population in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission MSA grew by 13.7%, reaching 804,000.³ The RGV is also a transnational borderland (Anzaldua, 1987) that has been largely shaped by its historical, social, cultural, economic, and political development on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. (Alonzo, 1998; Hernández, 2014; Montejano, 1987; Pagan, 2004; Valerio-Jiménez, 2013). The social cultural, linguistic and economic milieu remains heavily influenced by the steady immigration from Mexico and other Latin American countries over the last 40 years.