Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

What is emerging as central to your educational philosophy / pedagogical commitments?

What has informed this stance?

“Culturally responsive teaching is defined as using the cultural characteristics experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching them more effectively” (Gay, 2001, 106). This essentially means that educators should think deeply about the social and cultural influences on the material that they are teaching and the materials and content that are within their classroom regardless of the subject of the class. Being aware of these factors and influences and working to counteract negative messages and stereotypes in the classroom will also promote “the academic achievement of ethnically diverse students will improve when they are taught through their own cultural and experiential filters” when done well (Gay, 2001, 106). As such, figuring out ways to implement culturally responsive pedagogy and teaching are critical in increasingly multicultural classrooms.

There are many recommendations that educators have provided on how to build in culturally relevant pedagogy into the classroom that are often really broad with directions that are less clear, some of which are listed on the left (See Image). However, there are many places to start. “One specific way to begin this curriculum transformation process is to teach preservice (and inservice) teachers how to do deep cultural analyses of textbooks and other instructional materials, revise them for better representation of cultural diversity, and provide many opportunities to practice these skills under guided supervision” (Gay, 2001,108). Furthermore, culturally responsive teachers are critically conscious of the power of the symbolic curriculum (i.e. bulletin board decorations, images of heroes and heroines, trade books, and publicly displayed statements of social etiquette, rules and regulations, ethical principles and tokens of achievement) as an instrument of teaching and use it to help convey important information, value and actions about ethnic and cultural diversity” (Gay, 2001, 108) This includes a “thorough and critical analyses of how ethnic groups and experiences are presented in mass media and popular culture” (Gay, 2001, 109). All of these recommendations point to the need for educators to deeply critical of the texts, media, and curriculum that are used in the class and complicate the ways in which we talk about the content that we are presenting and the groups of people we are speaking about.

However, it is also important to remember that culture is not a static thing or a tool to be coopted and used on a whim. The use of hip-hop, for example, should be avoided if its only purpose is to “hook students” and reinforce “the same old hegemonic, hierarchical structures” (Ladson Billings, 82). Furthermore, culture is not a concept made up of dominant groups within cultures, and instead is made up of a multiplicity of identities that contribute to a greater, more complex culture. “Paris and Alim make an important turn from what people think of as culturally relevant pedagogy to incorporate the multiplicity of identities and cultures that help formulate today’s youth culture. Rather than focus singularly on one racial or ethnic group, their work pushes us to consider global identities that are emerging… It also points to the shifts in identity that now move us toward a hybridity, fluidity, and complexity never before considered in schools and classrooms” (Ladson-Billings, 82). In order to accommodate these complexities of culture and its usage, I hope to also draw from the idea of “culturally sustaining pedagogy” that acknowledges that what it means to be culturally relevant has to change and evolve to the needs of each new generation of students and incorporate the complexities of various sub groups in larger cultures (Ladson-Billings, 80).

While there are greater ways to implement this as a practice and more meaningful (or less superficial ways) to implement this in the classroom, one way I have seen it done in one of my placements at Overbrook Elementary was the teacher’s use of door decorations to combine conversations about important Black figures in science with the modern conversation of Black Lives Matter. While additional dialogue and conversation are needed within the class to be able to understand the complex social, economic, and political factors that are important to understanding Black success and struggle in the United States, being a visible supporter of such movements critical to the identities of the students can be very important in the classroom.