Moving Toward Culturally Restorative Teaching Exchanges

The assumed achievement gap between students of color and their counterparts continues to be a source of public concern. Educators have reacted to this difference in achievement by allocating more and more instructional time to covering instructional content through direct instruction, remediation and memorization of lower order skills without regarding the contextual factors that influence instructional delivery. For more than three decades Geneva Gay has advocated for teachers to match instruction. However, despite best practices culturally responsive teaching still continues to be under-used by teachers. This article explores the use of restorative practices as a mediator for improving teacher sense of efficacy or future facing self-evaluations of knowing what and how to use culturally responsive teaching practices.