“What Are You?” Conceptualizing the Complexities of Bicultural and Biracial College Student Experiences

Abstract

Reflecting the increasing diversity of the United States, universities are seeing growing rates of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. The authors present culturally responsive suggestions to facilitate conceptualization and counseling with biracial and bicultural college students, integrating cognitions, behaviors, emotions, and relationships associated with culture and cultural identity of both culture of origin and mainstream U.S. culture. Recommendations for counseling an increasingly diverse student body are presented.

“That Makes Sense Now!": Bicultural Middle School Students’ Learning in a Culturally Relevant Science Classroom

“…students, many science teachers still struggle to address their cultural heterogeneity (West & Maffini, 2019). Unsatisfactory performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) creates an urgent need for implementing engaging and accessible science curricula for all students, including biculturals (Business Roundtable Group, 2005; National Center for Education Statistics, 2005).…”

“…Research has been done on culturally relevant pedagogy in science, but there are few studies of culturally relevant invention-based learning. Similarly, although English language learners' linguistic and cultural needs have been explored by researchers (Lee, 2005;West & Maffini, 2019), there is limited research on bicultural students. Taking a sociocultural perspective on science learning (Vygotsky, 1978), this study uses a multiple-case study design to explore six middle school bicultural students' experiences with culturally relevant HomeFun activities in the IBL curriculum.…”