Effects of Curricular Integration of Students’ Identities

The curricular integration of students’ cultural identities is a critical component of maximizing students’ learning as educators bridge their students’ lived experiences and cultural backgrounds to their learning (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Another component of students’ identities entails their learning styles. When students’ preferred learning styles are implemented into the classroom they showed higher levels of academic achievement and engagement (Lauria, 2010). A final component of students’ identities explored in this classroom research includes students’ interests. Engagement is learning when students’ choices and interests are considered for their learning (Beecher & Sweeney, 2008). The significance of this research project is to analyze the effects of curricular integration of students’ identities. Student identities in the context of this research can be defined in three sectors. The first sector includes cultural identities, which is how students define themselves as part of different groups such as ethnicity, religion, etc. The second sector includes learning styles defined as the modes and methods in which students prefer to learn to better engage and maximize their achievement. The final sector includes students’ interests such as extracurricular activities, sports, games, etc. This research was conducted in a third-grade classroom with 18 students in a bilingual school, in a school district in Central Illinois. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and Engagement Theory (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1998) are the theoretical frameworks that align with this research synthesis.