Sustainability Spotlight: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
When I was based in Flagstaff, Arizona, I was fortunate enough to teach in the community and learned a lot from each and every student in my classes. Education is a key component to sustainability because the nature in which we pass along information determines how it is received. Culturally relevant pedagogy is a teaching approach that relies on the students and their cultural background to guide the educational experience. I found this method to be the best way to present my courses on environmental science, community gardening, community-driven economics and sustainability. The following text is taken from my thesis work where I detail the underpinnings of the pedagogical approach. As always, thank you for reading!
The application of culturally relevant pedagogy, “a pedagogy of opposition not unlike critical pedagogy but specifically committed to the collective, not merely individual” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 160), connects students directly with their learning. In this framework, students are encouraged to draw on their own cultural knowledge to understand content and express their opinions. The teacher and student form a symbiotic relationship of mutualism in which both parties depend on each other equitably for the learning process to occur. Riding on the coattails of the 20th century, culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) challenges the educational arena to pursue equitable opportunity to every student in the classroom. This noble interruption of the current social order, which advantages some and disadvantages most, drives my motivation to implement culturally relevant pedagogy.
Culturally relevant pedagogy focuses on quality education for students through addressing academic success, cultural competence, and critical awareness. Each area relates to the quality of education for students. The impacts also connect the learners to their surrounding communities expanding their knowledge outside classroom walls. Creating a space for identifying with culture is the basic premise of the pedagogy, while academic acuity and critical consciousness are valuable additions that make the teaching meaningful to the students.
Academic success is underscored to highlight how the end goal of learning is for the students to be successful. Cultural competence makes education inclusive through using the students’ culture as a vehicle for learning. Critical consciousness addresses the disconnection of the classroom to the community and highlights how inequities are ever-present in school and society. The tenets of this teaching approach are therefore grounded in theory with intention to promote action in the name of social justice for historically marginalized populations.
The following sections further explain these three tenets through “process” and “benefits”. The process includes describing how culturally relevant pedagogy accomplishes utilizing its three tenets. The benefits include why culturally relevant pedagogy is important to society. The process and benefits are used to spark the discussion for the suitability of culturally relevant pedagogy for implementing community-driven economics into curricular development. The final section delineates the influence of Public Achievement upon the development of the lesson plan.
Historical Context
The origins of culturally relevant pedagogy come from encouragement to utilize education for the purpose of inspiring students to effect change in society and identify inequities to challenge in the status quo. Disparities in achievement among different races and cultures caused the rise of this interest (Crenshaw, Gotanda, & Thomas, 1995). To right the imbalances of inequity, curricular development becomes more than training for the job market and future careers. To understand how the transition in curricular reform changed from structural recommendations to meaningful social insights, it is important to examine a brief history of educational policy.
The first major prescription for education came with the creation of the Committee of Ten, circa 1892, to establish a uniform set of standards for public education. The group was comprised of educators from major universities such as Harvard, Colorado, Michigan, and Missouri, from colleges such as Oberlin and Vassar, and high schools in New Jersey and New York. This range of gentlemen made recommendations to the National Council of Education (Hertzberg, 1988). The extensive document of proposals detailed how long students should be in each level of education, when certain courses should be taught, inclusion of lab teaching in elementary schools, time allocated for subjects during the school week, and the postponing of bifurcation (specialization of coursework) to allow a chance for students to find their own niche in academia (Mitchell, 1999). We steadfastly hold to many of these recommendations today with schools largely being set up in the same hierarchical manner with specific grade levels based on age and students taking a number of different subjects throughout elementary education. These first adjustments for curricular development were strictly structural. With this institutional format in place, discussion of change is dominated by determining what levels of funding are appropriate for improvements.
The monetary approach seems sensible, yet it takes more than just an influx of money to make a school better. A recent Newsweek report relates the disconnect between funding and actual improvements in school quality. Billionaires have invested millions of dollars into schools around the country and came up with only mediocre results (Beamish, 2011). A natural conclusion is that the business approach of a pecuniary influx may not be efficient, or even an effective device for improving schools. Therefore, pedagogical conversations and theoretical applications are being considered as the prime path to educational improvements.
Progressive social justice efforts are now common and provide a purpose-driven function for curricular development. This trending characteristic is evident as the prime motivation for culturally relevant pedagogy involves revealing the social inequities that exist in the current world order. The disparity, clearly evident in terms of social and financial regards, amongst cultures that exists requires change. Education is seen as a vessel for promoting the necessary changes to ultimately achieve equity in society (Shor, 1992). The hope is that with students at the center of foundational transformation, a productive dialogue in the classroom can foster into alterations in society. This higher calling of education is a constant theme in culturally relevant pedagogy. Multilingual education and classroom integration are common approaches to reform in this regard (Mills & Mills, 1993; Rief & Heimburge, 2006; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003). This background in pedagogical improvements sets the stage for the specific history of culturally relevant teaching.
A pedagogical approach that first focused primarily upon improving literacy among students (Ladson-Billings, 1992), the teaching method has adapted to a broader application across the spectrum of education. Because culture acts as a powerful tool that people use as a “sense-making device that guides and shapes behavior” (Davis, 1984, p. 10), students associate much of their actions and values with the inclusion of culture in their lives. Culturally relevant pedagogy ensures this is a pivotal piece of education by giving daily attention and opportunity for students to encounter their backgrounds in life. Even with a school-age population comprised of immense diversity, there is a constant quest to find a “universal design” (Bowe, 2000). This form of teaching combats the uniformly structured classroom and underscores a necessity to include students in meaningful, significant, and relevant ways.
An adaptive and integrative classroom cannot be constrained by a top-down approach to teaching. Settings where this has seen success in terms of addressing inequities have been the breeding grounds for exemplifying applicability of the pedagogy. Culturally relevant teachings have been primarily implemented in settings of predominantly African-American (Foster, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Lee, 1993), American-Indian (Klug & Whitfield, 2003; Pewewardy, 1994), and Mexican-American cultures (Gutstein, Lipman, Hernandez, de los Reyes, 1997). CRP rendered positive results. Students engaged, became empowered, and challenged inequities.
When framing the intention of building knowledge it is important to consider the apogee of its fruition: “It is only because knowledge gives immediate, automatic, and cumulative access to man’s necessities and comforts that any degree of intellectual advancement has been possible” (Ayres, 1961). Providing a freedom of knowledge and the ability for inquiry and creativity, students develop their perspectives of culture. The cumulative access described signifies the goal of collective empowerment. Culturally relevant pedagogy provides a path to utilizing inquiry and creativity to foster an equitable society. With this foundation in history, I will now describe the details of the pedagogy to familiarize the reader with its potential applications.
Pedagogy
Culturally relevant pedagogy is “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings, 1994, p. 20). Students are not explicitly told what the situation is or how they should be involved in the community. Instead, they are asked and invited to provide their personal input and experience into every day of teaching.
Connections to Academic Success
Armed with economic knowledge and skills, students will leave school with the ability to not only make informed choices, but also recognize the long-term consequences of their decision on themselves and others (Meszaros, 2010, p. 7). Meszaros points out that success in economics translates to tangible skills and informed decision-making later in life. In correlation, CRP builds proficiency in literacy, numeracy, technological, and social skills through connecting with issues important to the students. The choice of academic success Ladson-Billings (1995) refers to results from the innate connection the pedagogy promotes with each student’s background. The onus falls on the teacher to create the opportunities for a successful learning environment. The direct involvement of students’ culture facilitated by the teacher result in learning that changes the classroom model from students expecting the teachers to simply tell them what to do; to students determining what knowledge is presented in the classroom. Academics are bolstered because the skills retain personal and collective meaning. Students simply care more; therefore they will pursue success with intentional fervor.
The method of choosing an appropriate teaching technique to ensure achievement in the classroom is a process that has undergone constant scrutiny and critique in order to find the most effective avenue to this end goal. The common approach translates to an authoritative relationship in which a teacher’s mission involves banking knowledge into the minds of students (Freire, 1968). In Paul Willis’s respected ethnography on working class kids in Hammertown, UK, the students reveal their feelings about teachers and their misgivings of this power relationship in place (Willis, 1977). Many students say explicitly that they want the “golden rule” approach to the classroom where both students and teachers must abide. Culturally relevant pedagogy aims to alter the one-way-street mode of education to bridge the students’ desire to learn with their desire to succeed. Efforts in culturally relevant pedagogy bring a sense of ownership to students that tie in to student motivations. Teachers can use this connection to spur engagement with inclusion of students’ cultural ties in the classroom.
The main determinants in encouraging academic achievement are the classroom atmosphere and the pedagogy (Newmann, Marks, & Gamoran, 1996; Pallas, Entwisle, Alexander, & Cadigan, 1987). Students excel when they have a space they want to be a part of and encounter teaching methods that invoke student involvement. Studies reflect the notion that a student’s motivation ties directly to academic success (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Crandall, 1965; Nicholls & Burton, 1982; Weiner, 1972). Having the right stimuli in teaching translates to increased participation and interest in class material. This level of engagement spawns a purpose motive, which is powerful in compelling students to attain a higher level of cognitive skill (Pink, 2010). Rather than being forced to go to school, students are looking forward to learning of their own volition because they are a primary actor in creating the reason for being in the classroom.
The altruistic mission of employing education to increase unity through embracing diversity contains another academic parallel. Numerous studies show improvements in student performance as a result of including additional languages in the classroom (Diamond, 2010; Mills & Mills, 1993; Troike, 1978). Expanding the mind in its language capacity improves the potential for intellectual growth (Diamond, 2010). Hearing other students speak in their native tongue and creating awareness of different perspectives generates an inviting atmosphere. Rather than setting aside a number of days for cultural immersion or scheduling an event at school for minimal exposure, culturally relevant pedagogy bestows daily connections to culture. This contrasts the common practice of relegating cultural immersion to specific times and supplemental instruction.
The connection to academic achievement is pivotal in making this pedagogical approach a reality. As Ladson-Billings (1995) promotes, this teaching form permits the student to make the choice of academic success through the teacher creating a conducive learning space. The students engage in dialogue around cultural backgrounds and experiences because the structure of the classroom invites this occasion. The inclusion of culture elicits students to embrace the school day, and take on academic challenges more readily. Pursuit of standards continues through this teaching; it merely alters the path toward academic achievement. This form of pedagogy relies on its connection to students’ cultures for its motivation for academic success.
Ties to Culture
If culture can be thought of as a system of beliefs, values, customs, etc. shared by a group, then cultural interactions among members of other groups can be modeled as transactions or exchanges of symbolic or material goods within an economising framework… Cultures may differ, but their evolution will not be determined by the ideas they embody but by their success in dealing with the challenges of the material world… (Throsby, 2001, p. 10)
A perspective that relates culture to the economic framework sets the stage for why it is important to bring cultural characteristics into the realm of the social science. Throsby puts an intriguing spin on how culture evolves through rising above challenges, rather than the ideals we believe in. The level of success in dealing with these hindrances in the material world determines how we view, and pursue our lives. Culturally relevant pedagogy puts the evolution of culture at the forefront of education.
In culturally relevant pedagogy’s pursuit of academic success, the teaching concurrently strives for the goal of maintaining and empowering cultural identity (Gay, 2000). The time spent at school represents a main contribution to building this very identity. With culturally relevant pedagogy, students celebrate diverse voices, opinions, and viewpoints. Students become a part of decisions for classroom learning and decide on the atmosphere for discussing cultural issues that create inclusive learning environments. Embracing cultural differences becomes important because it sheds light onto diverse epistemologies, ontologies, and axiologies that affirm student knowledge coming from outside the classroom (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003). Combining this learning promotes a cooperative approach, rather than an adversarial one, toward embracing other ways of building knowledge.
Culture includes racial and ethnic identities as well as topics pertinent to youth culture such as music, sexual orientation, language, gender, disability, age, hobbies, and family. Therefore, when bringing education to culture it is important to remain aware of the multitude of opportunities to connect with each student. This awareness encompasses both what interests students and what change they want to see in the world.
By expanding the concept of culture and asking questions about each other, students quickly learn what they share in common. First divided by certain aspects of culture, students discover connections around interests, such as music, that builds relationships and establishes ties. When, “popular culture and media relentlessly reproduce existing relationships between dominant and subordinate groups,” the exposure to culture is a key piece to exposing cultural norms and sparking critical discussion (Marshall & Sensoy, 2011). Ultimately the classroom and, in turn, the community become more informed as students draw upon their own background to contribute to the classroom as a whole. For example, the collective association with music is what defines the relationship to its meaning, not the original intent from the artists:
Though much of this style, and the music associated with it, might be accurately described as arising from purely commercial drives and representing no authentic aspirations of its adherents, it should be recognized that the way in which it is taken up and used by the young can have an authenticity and directness of personal expression missing from its original commercial generation. (Willis, 1977, p. 17)
Willis explains how young people are capable of owning an idea and providing original interpretations. The more we know in society about different cultures, the higher the level of refinement in thought and experience that occurs in school (Jewell, 2002). Connecting to our cultures encourages awareness of similarities and differences.
From their interactions discussing cultural backgrounds and experiences, students can foster a truly univocal approach for promoting change. Building awareness of our diversity brings out the similarities that connect us all as human beings. A united voice promotes change in society: “[T]he univocal act that modifies the valence of one of the components of the situation must gradually begin to transform the logic of the situation in its entirety” (Badiou & Zizek, 2007). This idea speaks to the power of change through a united front that emboldens fresh ideas and new resources required to bring about transformation in a proper fashion; gradually. The aspect of cultural competence encourages dialogue that is rare in daily life, resulting in new experiences and knowledge that substantiates our understanding of each other. It is this deeper relationship that creates the benefit of unity in purpose.
The second goal of cultural competence is where this pedagogy promotes a “commitment to students and their communities” (Gutstein et al., 1997). Cultural competence encourages teachers to celebrate students’ lived experiences and use their culture as a vehicle for learning (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Forms of education are limited when only some aspects of culture are permissible. When students don’t feel comfortable expressing themselves through their culture (values, history, food, language, gender, social class, sexual orientation, etc.), their desire to learn diminishes in similar fashion. Including cultural competence improves the education of all students and invites all students into the discussion. Cultural competence underscores equity (fairness and justice) for the classroom. The tenet provides awareness that our values are different and unique, yet equitable in their validity.
Culturally relevant pedagogy raises awareness of inequities in the current social order. To truly gain ground on curtailing these inequities, educators need to stop treating students as empty vessels (Freire, 1968; Peterson, 2007). Students address critical issues in their lives and community in the classroom correlating to meaningfulness in the learning environment. Building on broadening exposure to culture is the critical consciousness of inequities. Students should be encouraged to embrace education that addresses meaningful and substantive problems not restricted by rote subject matter. Through a culturally relevant approach, teachers can intentionally connect with this audience by engaging them in a critical dialogue. Knowledge of inequities in society presents the opportunity to first inspire awareness, then to empower students to change the current situation. This expansion of the teaching connects critical awareness to purpose. Students collectively develop a space to participate in discussions on how to promote equality in society.
The final goal of critical consciousness provides an avenue of action for what students learn in the classroom. The students transfer learning into practice by taking discussions with peers proactively and embracing the role of critically conscious citizens. A natural consequence of inviting learners to engage with the world and others around them is the dissemination of pertinent social issues. CRP encourages students to embrace dialogue around cultural norms, values, and institutions that foster social inequities (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Classmates come together to engage in discussion around these issues and collectively ask what can be done to inspire change. Freire’s intention of “conscientization” rings true as students burst through the sheltered bubble of ignorance keeping them from critical evaluation (McLaren, 1989). With this knowledge, students are empowered with a purpose for applying their learning to the community.
Using a problem-posing approach to teaching allows the students to develop the specific issues confronted. Critical inquiry connects the knowledge of these issues to community outside the classroom. The awareness built in the classroom translates to local knowledge and power (Oakes & Rogers, 2006). This knowledge and power enable students to make a difference in challenging the inequities they reveal. The evocative connection to social justice inspires students to become more informed citizens.
Culturally relevant pedagogy’s three tenets can be pursued concurrently and holistically to engage the students to be active in their education. The focus is on the individual students working in a collective community. I firmly believe there are connections between the theoretical framework and the content that produces a perfect marriage for promoting change.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy’s Correlation to Community-Driven Economics
Just as shared values provide the basis for cultural identity of various sorts in the world at large, so also in the restricted domain of intellectual discourse of economics we can interpret a coalescence of schools of thought, whether they be Marxist, Austrian, Keynesian, neoclassical, new classical, old institutional, new institutional or whatever, as a cultural process. However, the impact of culture on the thinking of economists goes further, because the cultural values they inherit or learn have a profound and often unacknowledged influence on their perceptions and attitudes. (Throsby, 2001, p. 8)
Simply put, cultural values and economic values are intertwined. Many of our economic decisions are in large part due to our cultural backgrounds. This perspective provides the first connection between the values. And because culture is such a powerful impetus, there is a need for relevancy to economics (Fernández, 2008). Utilizing the connection to economics, educators can use their teaching in this area to begin the shifts of the economic paradigm.
Society holds the capacity to institutionalize equity into economic practices by supporting appropriate policies (Dugger & Peach, 2009). Education is a key aspect of restructuring the causes of our socialization to accept the inequities in life: “To choose equality means to reconstruct the shared system of institutionalized processes – schools, governments, markets, banks, and courts – in ways that enlarge and ensure access to the community’s joint stock” (Tool, 1996, p. 103). When community needs are considered over individual desires, equity is a natural outcome. Therefore, the two-fold mission of increasing and assuring accessibility to the power of the community provides a route to realization. By employing culturally relevant pedagogy in the institution of education, equity becomes part of life rather than an ideal strived for endlessly; translating what is merely aspirational to something that is practical and meaningful.
With the world changing in terms of demographics, economics, and technology, it is imperative that teacher education responds (Levine, 2010). Culturally relevant pedagogy provides a balanced approach to inspiring a critical consciousness. Current theorists point out that the dated progressive suggestions of Dewey and the radical implications of Freire’s critical pedagogy are not adaptable to current goals surrounding educational reform (Au & Apple, 2007; Bowers, 2003). Therefore, the innovative approach of Ladson-Billings culturally relevant pedagogy supplies a process of change for the present.
This process includes expanding beyond conventional means and undertones of concepts. In order to truly engage in critical discussion, the hindrances of preconceived notions must be relieved. Being in touch with Chet Bowers, respected educator around culturally-transformative education, I found that even the term “community” can be constrictive in inspiring critical discussion:
And by using community, rather than the cultural commons you do not have a way of explaining how the largely non-monetized aspects of the cultural commons (which is based on barter, mutual exchanges, mentoring relationships, local currencies, etc.) are being enclosed by market forces--and by other forms of enclosure--such as being left out of the discussion. (Bowers, 2011, personal correspondence)
With this in mind, I stressed the dialogue around experiences and cultural backgrounds rather than how the students only associated with the concept of community. This also connects with the idea behind community-driven economics that a commons is a space that can be a setting for socially beneficial interactions.