Physical Education Teachers’ Understandings of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Teaching Black Male Students

Abstract The purpose of this study was to analyze high school physical education teachers’ beliefs and understandings regarding culturally relevant pedagogy and teaching Black males in urban high schools. The participants were forty Black1 and White2 physical education teachers (male = 23, 57.5 %; female = 17, 42.5 %) randomly sampled from urban high schools. The research method was descriptive survey. Data were collected with a demographic questionnaire and a multidimensional attitude scale, which was constructed in the theoretical orientation of culturally relevant pedagogy. Descriptive and inferential statistical procedures were used to analyze the data. The teachers held mostly favorable beliefs about teaching Black male students, but their beliefs tended to vary as a function of their gender and race/ethnic status. The findings and implications are discussed.