Cultivating Cultural Competence to Inspire Social Responsibility in Middle School Students

In World Language education, teachers pair linguistic and cultural instruction to prepare students to engage effectively with speakers of the target language. In my French classes, where most students enjoyed dominant racial and socioeconomic identities, I noticed limited cultural competency skills in students, as well as a lack of readiness to engage with diverse cultures. This was unsurprising, as pervasive White eurocentrism permeates American schools, covertly impacting students' social and curricular experiences. Specifically, curricula of World Language courses where the language of study originates in a country with colonial history, such as French, cloud and ignore the linguistic and cultural diversity of diaspora speakers. In hopes of nurturing change-makers by inspiring a sense of social responsibility and building social literacy skills, this study sought to determine if decolonizing curriculum and centering instruction in cultural exploration and self-reflection could develop cultural competency skills in a group of racially, socioeconomically, and linguistically privileged students. The findings revealed mixed results; quantitative data showed no notable change in students’ attitudes toward culture, a slight decrease in their readiness to engage with culture, and a significant increase in their cultural self-awareness while qualitative data indicated that self-reflection and exposure to the diversity of the francophone world did initiate curiosity, questioning, and the recognition of cultural hegemony in some students. Students’ cultural privilege and isolation were likely explanations for the mixed results of the study. Bolstering a limited knowledge base while critically examining their cultural selves challenged students’ coping mechanisms for engaging with diversity. In this regard, the intervention served as an effective initial step in developing cultural competency skills in students. Data informed instruction and suggested that similar curricular modifications throughout the school year could deepen students’ sense of social responsibility and better prepare them to engage with cultural diversity. The results of this study are not generalizable but may be relevant to other World Language teachers or applicable to other content areas and age groups, as well.