Fostering Inclusive and Participatory Classroom Practices with a California Middle School

Abstract

We partnered with a middle school in California to explore how teachers foster inclusive and participatory classrooms. The school, the district, and county all face challenges with low student achievement. Our work strives to develop awareness of how patterns of interaction between teachers and students in the classroom impact student participation. Our project design used multiple methods of data collection centered on observations, triangulated with performance assessment data and interviews. We found inhibitors to student participation and inclusion related to limited questioning strategies, bias towards males in interactions, and reliance on independent work. We also found selective school wide use of positive phrasing in both praise and corrections. Our recommendations center on increasing affordances for student participation to provide transferable information for teachers and administrators.