Harnessing Cultural Capital to Foster Inclusive Learning and Academic Belonging
Posted by anne.grey
Presenter: Maria Sefchick (Part-time Instructor, College Success & Career Guidance).
Summary
In this presentation, Maria Sefchick explores how educators can move away from a deficit perspective and create learning environments that recognize the strengths, knowledge, experiences, and cultural resources students already bring to the classroom. Using Tara Yosso’s cultural wealth framework, the session introduces aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial, and resistant capital as valuable assets that can support student learning and academic success. Participants examine how deficit thinking can appear unintentionally through low expectations, curriculum choices, classroom interactions, assessments, and assumptions about language or culture. The presentation then offers practical strategies for shifting toward an asset-based approach, including using culturally relevant readings, storytelling, reflective writing, multiple ways of demonstrating knowledge, and activities that invite students to connect course content with their own lives and communities. Through lesson plans, writing prompts, and classroom activities, educators learn ways to help students recognize their cultural strengths, build confidence, develop a sense of belonging, and become active contributors to the learning community.
Slides: Harnessing Cultural Capital to Foster Inclusive Learning and Academic Belonging
Presentation Outcomes
- Recognize how a cultural deficit perspective can influence expectations, curriculum choices, classroom interactions, assessments, and student engagement.
- Explain the cultural wealth framework and identify aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial, and resistant forms of cultural capital.
- Reflect on personal assumptions and teaching practices to identify opportunities for more inclusive and asset-based approaches to learning.
- Apply strategies such as storytelling, reflective writing, culturally relevant materials, collaborative activities, and multiple forms of expression to help students recognize and use their cultural strengths.
- Adapt cultural capital lesson plans, writing prompts, and reflection activities to strengthen student identity, engagement, resilience, academic belonging, and connection to course content.
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