The Culturally Responsive Research and Education Lab (CRERL) is a research and professional learning hub within the Centre for Research in Schools (CRiS). It brings together researchers, teacher educators, school leaders and community partners to develop and strengthen culturally responsive education.
We understand cultural responsiveness as an ongoing, relational and reflective professional capacity - not simply a checklist of teaching strategies. It involves recognising and valuing the cultural, linguistic and community knowledge that learners bring; critically examining how assumptions, structures and power relations around cultural and linguistic diversity shape educational experiences; building respectful relationships; and adapting curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and professional practice in response to particular learners and contexts.
The Lab draws on the UNSW School of Education’s expertise in teacher education and development, including the Teacher Education and Development Research Group, and connects this expertise with CRiS’s commitment to practical, school-facing research in Australia and international contexts. We investigate how cultural responsiveness is supported, enacted and advocated across different stages of teachers’ careers, and how culturally responsive practice can become transformative for teacher and student learning.
- Areas of focus
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The Lab’s areas of focus include:
- culturally responsive initial teacher education and professional experience
- professional learning, mentoring and teacher development
- multilingual, EAL/D and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
- immigrant, internationally educated and culturally and linguistically diverse teachers
- teacher identity, agency, belonging, wellbeing and professional recognition
- culturally responsive practice in rural, regional and international contexts
- school-university and community partnerships
- design and evaluation of context-responsive professional learning
- EnTeR: Enhancing Teacher Readiness
- Pre-service Teacher Readiness on Cultural Responsivenes
Culturally Responsive Mentoring for Higher Degree Researchers
Academic Members
HDR members
The Culturally Responsive Research and Education Lab welcomes collaboration with schools, teacher education providers, education systems, professional associations and community organisations.
Partners may work with the Lab to:
- identify professional learning needs
- co-design training and professional development
- develop culturally and contextually responsive resources
- pilot and evaluate programs
- participate in collaborative research
- translate evidence into sustainable school and system practice
For enquiries, please contact: