Sociocultural Perspective and Its Application in The Classroom

There are many different ways of how people or animals think, feel and behave. Essentially, psychologists explained human behaviour by using five major perspectives specifically Biological, Learning, Cognitive, Sociocultural and Psychodynamic perspectives. However, this paper will focus primarily on the Sociocultural Perspective and how it affects human behaviour, applications of it in my teaching career and how it can be beneficial to teachers inside the classroom. Wade and Tavris (2008) described sociocultural Perspective as a psychological approach that emphasizes social and cultural influences on behaviour. Furthermore, this put emphasis on how an individual’s family, religious and cultural values may influence what he/she learn on a daily basis.

As we read thoroughly about the sociocultural Perspective, what seems to interest us the most was the fact that we realized that the family, culture and community are important elements that influence an individual’s actions. From a very early age, the family’s role is to set expectations for their children’s behaviour, attitudes and values. In addition, the family teaches the children to obey rules dictated by the authorities in society and as it relates to schooling, students are trained to adapt to the demands of formal setting. However, not all students will develop positive behaviors and values at home since some students may not have stable families. Hence, the teachers at school must instill these values and attitudes in these students which should influence positive behavior and academic success.

Moreover, the sociocultural Perspective can be effectively utilized in the classroom by reinforcing classroom rules and cooperative learning strategies to achieve expected behaviour in the class. These rules should emphasize on respect since students need to respect each other’s unique diversity. Firstly, cooperative learning strategies in which students are grouped randomly enable students from various genders, religious beliefs, cultural groups and socio-economic statuses to work together to achieve a common goal. This allows the students to practice social skills while they learn to appreciate the different perspectives and experiences that these students bring to the discussion.

Learning about the Sociocultural Perspective in my psychology class, I am now aware that I can implement it in my classroom and it will surely reap the intended behavior from the class. Teachers can embrace their students by developing activities to help students to understand and appreciate each other’s culture. For instance, students learn about different cultural groups when they are asked to do presentations on cultural groups at school. In addition, teachers can make learning meaningful to students by including cultural references to food, folklore stories and common activities in their lives. Finally, teachers who understand diversity of culture in students help their students transfer their prior knowledge of first languages such as Creole or Spanish learnt at home to new knowledge of Standard English. Hence, these teachers must speak Standard English and correct the students’ mistakes in order to prepare them for the workplace.

In conclusion, social and cultural forces highly influence the type of behaviour an individual may portray. This plays an important role in education since it allows students to learn and appreciate cultural differences in schools, community and the workplace. This allows the students to develop social skills, produce creative content, enhance their learning experiences and feel accepted and safe in school. As a result, these students are more willing to contribute to their community when they become successful adults. For instance, many people have developed feeding programs, tutoring programs, elderly care programs and children’s summer camp in order to assist the members of their communities. Student diversity should be used as tool to help the students understand their uniqueness and the uniqueness of others.