Date of Award
8-12-2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Department
Educational Leadership
First Advisor
Ibrahim Duyar
Abstract
Educators across the nation have seen an increase in diversity in their classrooms, which challenges them to be more aware of the need for cultural intelligence in working with their students. Demographic data indicate that the Latino student population is the fastest growing minority group nationally. The growing Latino population has also been noted in states where that population has historically been low. In Arkansas, a nontraditional destination state for Latino immigrants, that population increased by 114% from 2000 to 2010. While the Latino population is growing, Latino student academic achievement has tended to remain static. Given the increase in the Latino student population and higher expectations in the classroom associated with the Common Core State Standards, Arkansas educators are challenged to meet the needs of students, especially those like Latino students in the Targeted Achievement Gap Groups. The concept of cultural intelligence of principals and teachers figured prominently in the discussion of meeting the needs of students in increasingly diverse classrooms. The current study was conducted to examine cultural intelligence of principals and teachers as it relates to Latino student achievement in K-12 settings in the state of Arkansas. Quantitative data were gathered for reading and language arts from the Arkansas state assessment, the Augmented Benchmark Exam, for 5th through 8th grade Latino students in selected large and small school districts containing at least 7% Latino population. Average scale scores for Latino students in both math and English-language arts were used as a measure of achievement levels and compared to principal and teacher cultural intelligence levels as measured by the Cultural Intelligence Scale. The descriptive analyses on the Cultural Intelligence Scale scores showed that teachers had significantly higher cultural intelligence than principals, but the Cultural Intelligence Scale scores were not predictive of Latino math or English Language Arts scores. Conversely, some of the measures of multicultural exposure, such as percentages of teachers who were multilingual or had visited other countries, were somewhat predictive of Latino student achievement.
Recommended Citation
Collins, Kathy Sue, "The Intersection Between Cultural Intelligence and Targeted Achievement Gap Groups: Understanding Factors Affecting Latino Student Achievement in Arkansas School Districts" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 596.
https://research.ualr.edu/etd/596
