Creating a Classroom Culture that Celebrates Diversity

Teresa L. Draguicevich
High Tech High Graduate School of Education

Abstract
In today's increasingly diverse classrooms, children often need to collaborate with peers from
diverse backgrounds who might see the world differently than they do. As an educator, I am
preparing my students for a world that simultaneously struggles to trust diversity of thought and
begins to acknowledge its innovative benefits in the workplace. To create a classroom culture
where all children feel a strong sense of belonging and reap the benefits of group learning, I need
to help them trust those whose views differ. This six month study with a diverse group of 18
kinder and first grade students utilizes improvement research methods to determine which
change efforts towards building trust among diverse populations prove most effective. The key
findings suggest that teaching children language protocols, using concrete objects to illustrate
abstract concepts and providing more opportunities for guided collaborative play have an almost
immediate positive impact on their reported sense of belonging in the classroom and social
networking patterns. Additionally, this study explores implications for the teachers role in
supporting young learners as they navigate their differences in a group setting, often for the first
time.

Keywords: diversity, equity, group learning, collaborative play