4.3 Gather information about mismatches between cultures.

See the CIP Step 4 page for general suggestions about collecting and analyzing information about your puzzlement. If you think there might be a mismatch between home and school cultures, try to gather information about the relevant aspects of both the school-based and home cultures. As you gather information about students' home culture(s) be sure to remember that your goals are to listen and to understand their perspectives, not to judge. Such a stance is more likely to open productive channels of communication and lead you to deeper understanding.

In her book Teaching Other People's Children, Ballenger (1999) discussed a series of teacher research studies she conducted in her classroom, which focused on mismatches in both interaction and curriculum content between her Haitian students' home experiences and their classroom experiences. She discussed the kinds of information she collected in each study she conducted (see Chapters 4-7), and in Chapter 8 she presented an overview of the methods of data collection and analysis she used. Her work could provide some useful ideas because it was conducted while she was a classroom teacher. Corson (2001) presented summaries of research methods used in several projects to study language and education.

As you plan for your data collection, consider whether it would be useful to involve the community in your research. Stringer (2004, pp. 174-177 and 197-201) discussed the benefits of involving the community and presented some work by teachers who did collaborative studies. McCaleb (1994) reported on her efforts to build strong home-school partnerships through participatory research and co-authorship of family books.

Suggestions specifically related to subquestions are available at the following links:

• 4.3.1 Mismatches between a student's or groups interactional patterns and those of the school
• 4.3.2 Mismatches between a student's or group's home culture(s) and the school curriculum
• 4.3.3 Preferred Learning Approaches

Success Stories & CIP Studies Related to Mismatches Between Cultures

Reconsider question: 3.3 
Develop intervention: 5.3 
Guide for Reading Step 4 and Step 5 Pages