This question asks you, broadly, to share (in 1-2 paragraphs) <\/p>\n
What insights about writing literature reviews and growing into this work that you found within this chapter 2.\u00a0Give specific examples from Mason\u2019s Chapter 2 to support your perspective.<\/p>\n
In addition to sharing any insights, you are encouraged to reflect upon how you see your own work as a scholar unfolding.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Note: Annie Mason\u2019s dissertation is likely very different academic writing than you imagined when you first entered a doctoral program.\u00a0However, I want to highlight two things:\u00a01)\u00a0It is very rigorous academically, and her work is highly respected; and 2) the use of narrative and, in particular, the foregrounding of one\u2019s positionality and experience with one\u2019s topic is not only becoming more common within many kinds of social science research, it is often expected, particularly within qualitative work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a011\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 2\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Relevant literature\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a summer fellowship spent working among social workers at a homeless\u00a0 shelter, I returned for my senior year at Grinnell College with a backpack full of notes\u00a0 about theories and experiences that would lead to a senior paper connecting Pierre\u00a0 Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction to homelessness and education in the United\u00a0 States. In that context, the link between theory and practice seemed clear. Theories, as I\u00a0 understood them then and understand them now, are tools that help us explain the world\u00a0 to ourselves. There was a lapse in this understanding, though, when, several years later, I\u00a0 chose to become a teacher. After much deliberation, I had decided on teaching\u00a0 elementary school as the most intellectually rigorous and personally satisfying way I\u00a0 could do good in the world. It had been that way for my mother, who described herself as\u00a0 an \u201ceveryday activist\u201d in her career as an elementary school teacher. Teaching had also\u00a0 been described that way during my education courses at Grinnell; there, professors\u00a0 encouraged me to teach because it was hard, but I would enjoy the challenge, and it\u00a0 could change things for the better.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A generation apart, my mother and I entered teaching with similar goals, yet had\u00a0 very different experiences. The climate around public education changed so quickly that\u00a0 my classmates and I, considering careers just before the 2001 reauthorization of the\u00a0 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, hardly saw it coming. Thus, after beginning\u00a0 my teaching career with what I thought was an unshakeable commitment to a career in\u00a0 the classroom, I found myself shaken. Returning to the United States after teaching third\u00a0<\/p>\n
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grade in Guatemala, I now had notebooks full of unanswered questions that my new\u00a0 position as an early childhood teacher was not affording me the time or intellectual space\u00a0 to explore. I was deeply troubled by how global and domestic injustices played out in\u00a0 classrooms and communities everywhere, yet it seemed no mechanism existed to help me\u00a0 explore answers to my questions. Meanwhile, I felt the popular shift in perceptions about\u00a0 teaching shape the ways we talked about ourselves as educators; I felt like I was among\u00a0 the last of a dying breed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Looking back with new eyes, of course I can see the story differently. I left my\u00a0 teacher preparation program with a sense that I was ready for anything: so well\u00a0 prepared, in fact, that the arrogance of moving to work in a foreign country where I was\u00a0 only a beginner in the dominant language was lost on me. Armed with a social justice\u00a0 orientation and the \u201cbest practices\u201d in fashion at the time, I felt certain I could meet the\u00a0 social and academic needs of twenty-six eight and nine-year-olds whose daily lives bore\u00a0 striking differences to my own. I was lucky that the school community was a forgiving\u00a0 one, or had seen my type enough times to know that eventually I would come around. As I\u00a0 see it today, guided by those teachers and families, I stumbled across some of the basic\u00a0 building blocks of culturally relevant pedagogy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Acknowledging the inequitable patterns in how society shapes us with regard to\u00a0 dimensions of identity such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and religion, culturally\u00a0 relevant pedagogy attempts to interrupt the reproduction of inequities via schooling by\u00a0 inviting educators to approach curriculum and teaching with students and their realities at\u00a0 the center. The need for such interruptions, particularly in the face of an overwhelmingly\u00a0<\/p>\n
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monolingual, monocultural, white female teaching force entering an increasingly diverse\u00a0 school system, is exhaustively documented (e.g., Abbate-Vaughn, 2008; K. Au, et al.,\u00a0 2008; Nieto, 2009) and thus accepted as a given in this dissertation. This predominately\u00a0 white middle-class teaching force tends to share similar historical memories of white and\u00a0 middle-class school experiences that are no longer the norm in U.S. public schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
My theoretical guides in the design and analysis of this dissertation research\u00a0 contribute to our understanding of contextual factors that can be missed in the study of\u00a0 discrete classroom practices. Beginning with my own intellectual roots in educational\u00a0 anthropology and sociology, I draw from a theoretical framework that helps me harness\u00a0 the particular to gain a clearer view of the general. Specifically, with support from\u00a0 sociologists concerned with culture (Bourdieu, 1977; 1984), educational anthropology\u00a0 has advanced deeper understandings of the relationships between culture and schooling\u00a0 (e.g., K. Au & Jordan, 1981; Erickson & Mohatt, 1982; Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987).\u00a0 This work provides the foundation for discussions of how culturally relevant pedagogy\u00a0 (e.g., Ladson-Billings 1995a; Delpit, 1988; Gay, 2002), a theory that is unique in its\u00a0 efforts to engage with the space between theory and practice, can serve transformative\u00a0 goals through education. Thus, I begin the literature review with a description of CRP’s\u00a0 theoretical underpinnings in sociology and anthropology of education, followed by a\u00a0 description of CRP itself and then discussions of literature explicating (1) how teachers\u00a0 develop CRP and (2) the challenges faced by teachers as they engage with this work. This\u00a0 review establishes grounding for the interpretive work to come in the following chapters,\u00a0 in which CRP figures in two distinct ways: as the theoretical backdrop to Pioneer City’s\u00a0<\/p>\n
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transformation and as the body of work I aim to push forward in teacher education and\u00a0 professional development.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
What research says about culture and schools that led to the theory of CRP\u00a0 As I suggested in the introduction to this chapter, CRP is a way of thinking about\u00a0 teaching and learning that cannot be \u201cdiscovered\u201d or created in isolation. Aside from\u00a0 those basic building blocks I can see myself, in retrospect, having used in my Guatemalan\u00a0 classroom, CRP draws on, expands, and sometimes challenges a rich tradition of\u00a0 sociological and anthropological research on the relationship between culture and\u00a0 schooling. What follows are brief introductions to important concepts in the historical\u00a0 development of CRP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Social reproduction. Anthropologists and sociologists of education are tasked with\u00a0 unraveling the complicated ways that cultures interact with schooling (Pollock, 2008).\u00a0 Concepts that are foundational to this discussion include social reproduction and cultural\u00a0 capital. A body of theory on social reproduction (e.g., Bourdieu, 1984) applied to\u00a0 educational settings makes the case that we are sorted through schooling according to a\u00a0 raced and classed taxonomy that is incompatible with notions of equal opportunity or\u00a0 schooling as a social equalizer. Cultural capital, one among four forms of capital that\u00a0 Bourdieu first described (the others include economic, social, and symbolic capital), can\u00a0 be described as resources people possess and can draw on to advance their contextualized\u00a0 status positions (Bourdieu, 1977). Schools offer a compelling setting to explore questions\u00a0 about the flow of cultural capital because of the school\u2019s role as part of an institutional\u00a0 network \u201cthrough which social groups are given legitimacy and through which social and\u00a0<\/p>\n
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cultural ideologies are built, recreated, and maintained\u201d (Apple & Weis, 1983, p. 5). \u00a0 Bourdieu’s descriptions focused specifically on the reproduction of social class,\u00a0 but the arguments fit smoothly into discussions of advantages based on race, as well.\u00a0 While all children come to school with vast knowledge that is valued in their home and\u00a0 community environments, the fact that white middle-class children are more likely to\u00a0 experience home lives that are congruent with the expectations of school results in what\u00a0 Lareau (2003) calls the \u201ctransmission of differential advantages\u201d (p. 5). These advantages\u00a0 exist in society at large and are continually reinforced through schooling. In other words,\u00a0 students with cultural capital (Lareau, 1987) know how to navigate the unwritten codes\u00a0 and expectations for their conduct in school. This means that students who do not possess\u00a0 this cultural capital need to engage in an extra layer of learning, first mastering the rules\u00a0 of school in order to access academic content. Building on this work, Lewis (2003)\u00a0 describes social reproduction as \u201ca set of interactions in which the racialized social\u00a0 system is reproduced at least partly through processes of schooling\u201d (p.156).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, school-based learning is only a piece of the whole picture of a child’s\u00a0 intellectual life. In her ethnography Unequal Childhoods, Lareau (2003) identified two\u00a0 \u201ccultural logics of child rearing\u201d (p. 3) that begin at home and impact how children might\u00a0 experience their relationships with institutions such as the school. Lareau’s work provides\u00a0 an example of how social reproduction can work in schools when the institution is not\u00a0 attentive to how its practices and policies are oriented toward the habitus, or typical ways\u00a0 of being and acting, of the dominant group.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The maps for understanding social life provided by theories of social reproduction\u00a0<\/p>\n
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are incomplete, however. For example, resistance theories from educational anthropology\u00a0 (e.g., Fordham & Ogbu, 1986, discussed further below) have critiqued their social\u00a0 determinism. Indeed, if we accepted social reproduction at face value, structural\u00a0 constraints on individuals would inevitably stunt their growth. For example, a strict\u00a0 reading of Lareau\u2019s (2003) work might lead one to frame a working-class third grader as\u00a0 irreversibly constrained by class status, and therefore unable to attain the cultural capital\u00a0 that her middle-class peers gathered via their upbringing. Such a deterministic stance\u00a0 would impede movement within social positions, and could cause or bolster teachers’\u00a0 negative attitudes about marginalized students’ behaviors and potentials. Without the\u00a0 possibility of movement, education would serve as nothing but an instrument of the status\u00a0 quo.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Li’s work adds depth to the body of work on social reproduction through\u00a0 schooling because she recognizes that individuals and institutions interact in\u00a0 multidirectional relationships. In Culturally contested pedagogies (2008), Li explains her\u00a0 central assumption that access to cultural capital predicts a student’s ability to succeed in\u00a0 school, where middle and upper-middle class cultural values and behaviors are\u00a0 privileged. Thus, social inequality endures. Li’s work brings often unheard voices from\u00a0 the margin to the center by examining how literacies expressed in home life intersect with\u00a0 school experiences, and by exposing the role that powerful institutions (such as schools)\u00a0 play in shaping families\u2019 choices and opportunities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The failure to acknowledge that a growing number of students have to make\u00a0 cultural shifts to succeed in school devalues these students\u2019 experiences and\u00a0<\/p>\n
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communicates to them that it is their fault if they cannot devise a way to succeed in that\u00a0 system. Meanwhile, dominance becomes further entrenched as we continue to reproduce\u00a0 inequitable power relationships. As described later in this chapter, CRP\u2019s view that\u00a0 school is often structured in a way that normalizes the rules and discourses of dominant\u00a0 society goes beyond just acknowledging the extra work marginalized students must\u00a0 undertake to negotiate a coherent identity among home, community, and school. Roots in anthropology of education. The work of educational anthropologists underpins\u00a0 CRP, beginning in the early 1980s with various studies of how educators might address\u00a0 \u201cmismatches\u201d between home and school culture (e.g., K. Au & Jordan, 1981; Erickson &\u00a0 Mohatt, 1982; Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987). In what looks like a linguistic tornado, in\u00a0 retrospect, the key descriptors used in these anthropologists’ work shifted significantly,\u00a0 but the strategies themselves primarily and consistently focused on incorporating\u00a0 students’ home languages in academic instruction: Kathy Au and Jordan (1981) described\u00a0 their work with native Hawaiian students as culturally appropriate, while Mohatt and\u00a0 Erickson (1981) referred to similar strategies with Native American students as cultural\u00a0 congruence. All of these approaches have since been criticized for the way they privilege\u00a0 dominant perspectives and seem to imply that teachers must shift their work in the\u00a0 direction of difference only to a limited extent (Ladson-Billings, 1995b). Culturally\u00a0 compatible teaching (Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987) works from a similar model, inviting\u00a0 educators to recognize students\u2019 backgrounds in order to bring \u201cculturally different\u201d\u00a0 students closer to the mainstream. Stretching these ideas somewhat, Erickson and Mohatt\u00a0 (1982) introduced a new way of viewing the relationship between schooling and culture\u00a0<\/p>\n
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with culturally responsive teaching, which implies that educators must at least position\u00a0 themselves in response to cultural messages they learn to recognize in their students. \u00a0 In another development in the \u201cmismatch\u201d theories of educational anthropology,\u00a0 the \u201cfunds of knowledge\u201d approach challenges teachers of young culturally and\u00a0 linguistically diverse students to view themselves as students of their students\u2019\u00a0 backgrounds. By conducting home visits and interviews with family members,\u00a0 elementary teachers can learn about the knowledge their students bring from home to the\u00a0 classroom, and classroom activities can then be planned to create a better match between\u00a0 home and school learning (Moll, et. al, 1991). Dworin (2006) exemplifies this in his work\u00a0 with bilingual Latino fourth graders. He describes a shift in power that results when\u00a0 teachers give students space to begin with their own stories and use their native languages\u00a0 and cultures as a way to connect with, and contribute to, the expectations of school.\u00a0 A more complex view. Like Ladson-Billings (1995b), Villegas (1988), and Irvine\u00a0 (1990), I am concerned with the loss of contextualization when ethnographic work is\u00a0 limited to either micro or macro-level interactions only. As I discussed in the introduction\u00a0 to this dissertation, the simplest version of a story can be perilously incomplete.\u00a0 Similarly, in Pollock’s (2008) description of how popular descriptions of culture\u00a0 \u201cdangerously oversimplify the social processes, interactions, and practices that create\u00a0 disparate outcomes for children\u201d (p. 369), she emphasizes educational anthropology’s\u00a0 goal of avoiding generalized, concrete, or static descriptions of how certain categories of\u00a0 students typically approach school:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shallow analyses of ‘culture’ that purport to describe only how a ‘group’s’ parents\u00a0<\/p>\n
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train its children blame a reduced set of actors, behaviors, and processes for\u00a0 educational outcomes, and they include a reduced set of actors and actions in a\u00a0 reduced set of projects for educational improvement\u201d (Pollock, 2008, p. 369).\u00a0 Later, she continues:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anthropologists of education know that patterns in the distribution of opportunity\u00a0 to children [in schools and classrooms] are human-made (and in that sense,\u00a0 cultural) rather than natural or random. We know too that the opportunities\u00a0 provided and denied in schools often align with existing inequalities in the\u00a0 surrounding society\u201d (Pollock, 2008, p. 374).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thus, studies concerned primarily with either schools or their contexts must be able to\u00a0 shift between and draw from observations at micro, meso, and macro levels. \u00a0 As the next sections will show, culturally relevant teachers see all students as\u00a0 possessing great potential, while acknowledging that society does not always reward\u00a0 marginalized people for their hard work. This view marks a step beyond explanations for\u00a0 racial variation in academic outcomes that either over-emphasize structural barriers (e.g.,\u00a0 Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1987) or focus too intently on the role of individuals in\u00a0 working around barriers without addressing the structure itself (e.g. K. Au, 1980). More\u00a0 recently, Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005), among others, advocate \u201cadaptive\u00a0 expertise,\u201d which offers a construct of the flexible and responsive classroom teacher. This\u00a0 construct does not challenge the inequities upon which it relies; in other words, an\u00a0 adaptive expert is always ready to respond when a student deviates from the norm, but\u00a0 the norm is accepted as such in the form of \u201cbest practices\u201d or a sense of the routine work\u00a0<\/p>\n
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of teaching. Adaptive expertise may be a helpful move in this direction, but at present it\u00a0 fails to disrupt hegemony in teaching and teacher education, much in the way that early\u00a0 educational anthropology perspectives did before CRP.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Again, reflecting common assumptions about who and what is normal in school\u00a0 settings, there is still literature in the field that frames culture as something that white\u00a0 teachers must study in order to better connect with students of color. For example,\u00a0 Brown-Jeffy and Cooper (2011) continue pointing to \u201ccultural discontinuity\u201d (p. 66)\u00a0 between teachers and their students as the primary barrier to cultural competence. In this\u00a0 conception, cultural competence would matter less for a white teacher working with\u00a0 white students, because as a racial insider, the white teacher would already possess the\u00a0 cultural toolkit to connect with white students. In contrast, Kathy Au (2006), who\u00a0 conducts literacy research with native Hawaiian elementary school students, tells in her\u00a0 more recent work of white teachers making space for changes in the discursive style used\u00a0 in whole-class instruction. When they adapt to the conversation patterns from students\u2019\u00a0 home communities, Au argues, culturally relevant pedagogues combat cultural\u00a0 discontinuity by acknowledging differences between school and home cultures while also\u00a0 validating both. Au extends this notion to language use as a whole, suggesting that\u00a0 learning and language acquisition are enhanced if students receive native language\u00a0 support along with instruction in the second language (K. Au, 2006). CRP offers\u00a0 opportunities to acknowledge conceptions about cultural discontinuity such as these, but\u00a0 also moves beyond them by decentering dominant perspectives about, and attempting to\u00a0 disrupt socially reproductive processes through, schooling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u201cSuccess\u201d is key among the layers of school life that can be difficult for\u00a0 marginalized students to access. This notion is rooted in theories of social reproduction\u00a0 that describe a self-perpetuating cycle that continually regenerates patterns of dominance\u00a0 and marginalization (e.g., Bourdieu, 1984; Lareau, 1999). Disrupting this reproductive\u00a0 process by identifying strategies for supporting marginalized students is particularly\u00a0 important at the elementary school level, considering that the formative nature of school\u00a0 experiences at this stage can shape lifelong attitudes and trajectories (Li, 2005). Within\u00a0 this social and cultural context comes the basic fact that students who find their\u00a0 community norms and discourses underrepresented in school life are also unlikely to see\u00a0 their personal interests reflected in curriculum and pedagogy. In the following section, I\u00a0 describe how CRP grew from this research critiquing the ways that schools privilege\u00a0 dominant culture and thus deepen the marginalization of the cultures, voices, and\u00a0 experiences of students of color.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Culturally relevant pedagogy\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conceptions of social reproduction and cultural capital come into sharp relief\u00a0 when a marginalized child enters any institution of the dominant culture: in the case of\u00a0 this dissertation, school. To study school through these lenses, we need to be able to\u00a0 maneuver between the schooling process and its context, viewing school as embedded\u00a0 within the social structures surrounding it. Culturally relevant pedagogy offers one such\u00a0 framework. Following this introduction to the development of CRP itself, I provide brief\u00a0 illustrations of how its three components (academic achievement, cultural competence,\u00a0 and sociopolitical consciousness) have been addressed in literature related to elementary\u00a0<\/p>\n
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schools, leading toward a discussion of successes and some challenges in developing\u00a0 CRP in schools and classrooms with young children.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Theorists of CRP, like their predecessors and colleagues in the previous section,\u00a0 acknowledge that generations of power imbalances have created constraints that\u00a0 marginalized3 children face every day. CRP, as described by Ladson-Billings and\u00a0 summarized above, has three aims: to \u201cproduce students who can achieve academically,\u00a0 produce students who demonstrate cultural competence, and develop students who can\u00a0 both understand and critique the existing social order\u201d (Ladson-Billings, 1995b, p. 474).\u00a0 Educators who acknowledge the political nature of teaching are making pedagogical\u00a0 shifts toward granting students \u201cthe right to grapple with learning challenges from the\u00a0 point of strength and relevance found in their own cultural frames of references\u201d (Gay,\u00a0 2000, p. 114).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ladson-Billings began with Hill Collins\u2019 Black feminist epistemology (1990) as a\u00a0 lens through which to view effective teachers of African American elementary school\u00a0 students, and from there built the foundation for her theory of culturally relevant\u00a0 pedagogy. Collins summarizes the four dimensions of black feminist epistemology as\u00a0 follows:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
-Lived experience as criterion of meaning\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
-The use of dialogue in assessing knowledge claims\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
-The ethics of caring\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
-The ethic of personal accountability\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
3 Because of the complexity of social life explored in this study, I chose the term \u201cmarginalized\u00a0 students\u201d instead of \u201cstudents of color,\u201d or an explicitly racial term, to include the other dimensions of\u00a0 identity that can marginalize elementary school students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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(Collins, 1990, p. 275)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both Ladson-Billings (1995a; 1995b) and Delpit (1988) were trained in\u00a0 anthropology and thus see race and culture as important factors in children\u2019s school\u00a0 experiences. Ladson-Billings (1995a) argues that efforts toward culturally relevant\u00a0 pedagogy should be viewed as a way of being as opposed to a way of doing education. It\u00a0 is important, then, for culturally relevant pedagogues to resist the urge to \u201cstrategize\u201d our\u00a0 way into CRP and instead take on CRP as an ethical position. This important distinction\u00a0 has often been missed in translation to research and practice. For example, one CRP\u00a0 study concludes with a 19-item checklist that describes helpful strategies for building\u00a0 community in elementary school classrooms (Sanchez, 2008). Other studies rely on\u00a0 rating scales or measurement instruments that purport to determine whether or how well a\u00a0 teacher is doing CRP (e.g., Mueller & O’Connor, 2007). While many educators will\u00a0 understand the allure of an easy-to-digest model, approaches like this miss the mark in\u00a0 framing a checklist as a replicable way to do CRP (see Sleeter, 2012, for a similar\u00a0 critique). In fact, coming to be culturally relevant is a far more personal, iterative, long term, and difficult-to-define process: \u201cbecause of the centrality of context to culturally\u00a0 responsive pedagogy, researchers can not skip over the task of grounding what it means\u00a0 in the context being studied\u201d (Sleeter, 2012, p. 15).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Ladson-Billings (1995a), suggesting that teachers use the same\u00a0 strategies regardless of cultural context is undemocratic, and we should prepare new\u00a0 teachers to address this injustice via culturally relevant pedagogy. Delpit (1988) agrees\u00a0 that society is antagonistic toward students of color, describing how a culture of power\u00a0<\/p>\n
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maintains and reproduces this antagonism. These scholars illustrate that the status quo\u2013 teaching students that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough\u2013reproduces a system\u00a0 that was already set up in ways that advantage white children and marginalize students of\u00a0 color. This is a particularly salient concern in a socially reproductive (Bourdieu, 1977)\u00a0 education system that continually confuses equality (providing identical resources\u00a0 regardless of context) with equity (providing particular resources depending upon\u00a0 context; Nieto, 2006). Meanwhile, these practices are subtractive, as they devalue\u00a0 students\u2019 out-of-school selves (Valenzuela, 1999). Implied in each of these messages is a\u00a0 belief that teaching and learning are not politically neutral endeavors (Giroux, 1988). One\u00a0 way CRP moves beyond these critiques is by placing students’ interests, lives, histories,\u00a0 and cultures at the center of their school experiences, making school relevant while\u00a0 showing that all knowledges matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Academic achievement. Many CRP scholars acknowledge the flaws of using\u00a0 achievement test data to assess student learning. Ladson-Billings herself has lamented\u00a0 that she wishes she would have chosen student learning instead of academic achievement\u00a0 because of how, since her initial publications (1995a; 1995b), achievement has been\u00a0 taken up so narrowly and defined in relation to standardized test scores. Nevertheless,\u00a0 academic success is complicated to measure without straightforward data from\u00a0 achievement tests. CRP scholars, like our colleagues in critical pedagogy (e.g., Duncan Andrade & Morrell, 2008), thus face the difficult task of often having to rely on measures\u00a0 we know to be faulty in order to build the arguments we want to make (see Schultz, 2008\u00a0 and Chapter 4 for further analysis). Thus, much of the literature on CRP that addresses\u00a0<\/p>\n
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academic success takes a long-range view. Brown-Jeffy and Cooper (2011), for example,\u00a0 argue that CRP is about changing the learning environment to better reflect students\u2019\u00a0 cultural orientations, and that this will, in time, amount to increased academic\u00a0 achievement. They refer to \u201chigh expectations for all\u201d (2011, p. 72), thus acknowledging\u00a0 a goal of academic success but not describing what it looks like for young children whose\u00a0 school experiences have been shaped by the education debt. Likewise, Howard (2003)\u00a0 suggests that CRP can be difficult to argue for in data-driven environments because its\u00a0 academic outcomes may not be immediate. This focus on the long term can make the\u00a0 specifics of academic achievement via CRP difficult to define, yet it is important for CRP\u00a0 to not get swept up by the achievement discourse that is so antithetical to its\u00a0 transformative aims.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, when researchers working with elementary school students and\u00a0 teachers focus on within-classroom measures, they can often attribute increases in\u00a0 marginalized students\u2019 academic achievement to culturally relevant approaches to\u00a0 teaching and learning. For example, Kathy Au (2001) describes increases in native\u00a0 Hawaiian elementary school students\u2019 literacy levels when their teachers devised\u00a0 activities that drew from students\u2019 home values and activities. Schultz’s (2008) students\u00a0 scored considerably better on standardized achievement tests during a year of culturally\u00a0 relevant curriculum and pedagogy, even though they spent no time at all preparing\u00a0 explicitly for those tests.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0A deeper view of CRP encourages us to view academic achievement as the result\u00a0 of interactions between the individual student and his contexts. Also, since academic\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a026\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
rigor contributes to achievement, culturally relevant curriculum design is more than a\u00a0 series of single, disconnected lessons. As Ullucci writes, \u201cpotentially trite activities gain\u00a0 richness when they are embedded in extended studies of a topic, and that study goes\u00a0 beyond coverage and addresses issues of equity, fairness, justice, and\/or bias\u201d (Ullucci,\u00a0 2011, p. 396).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cultural competence. CRP requires teachers to work with students as they cultivate\u00a0 abilities to navigate the culture of power without compromising their cultural identities\u00a0 (Delpit, 2002). This way of viewing cultural competence rejects static definitions of\u00a0 culture, acknowledges the fluid nature of both culture and identity, and welcomes\u00a0 differences as resources on which to capitalize in the classroom (Lee, 2010). Metzger\u00a0 (2011) remarks that, \u201cculture is about experiences and community and therefore CRP\u00a0 begins with understanding what the experiences of our students are like and the\u00a0 communities from which they come\u201d (p. 7). Building cultural competence via CRP, then,\u00a0 involves individual work on the part of the teacher as well as pedagogical work to be\u00a0 carried out in classrooms and communities. Buehler, Gore, Dallavis, and Haviland (2009)\u00a0 suggest that in order to keep students at the center of CRP, cultural competence requires\u00a0 much more attention in teacher preparation and professional development.\u00a0 Sociopolitical consciousness. Sociopolitical consciousness involves one’s awareness of\u00a0 the social injustices that pervade our lives because of unequal power relations. People\u00a0 who are sociopolitically conscious take a complicated view of life in society, recognizing\u00a0 the social and the political in every aspect. Freire\u2019s work around sociopolitical\u00a0<\/p>\n
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consciousness4 reminds us of two things: that the oppressors and the oppressed are\u00a0 engaged in the same struggle for liberation (1970), and that with sociopolitical\u00a0 consciousness comes the ability to transform the reality within which we all struggle\u00a0 (1974).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sociopolitical consciousness offers a way for marginalized students to view\u00a0 themselves as thinkers and leaders, rather than only as future workers (Freire, 1974).\u00a0 Esposito and Swain (2009) define sociopolitical consciousness as an \u201cawareness of the\u00a0 symbiotic relationship between the social and political factors that affect society\u201d (p. 38).\u00a0 When we locate ourselves in those social and political contexts via CRP, sociopolitical\u00a0 consciousness carries with it a demand that we work beyond the too common approach of\u00a0 simply raising awareness about the unjust workings of the world (McKinley, 2006) and\u00a0 actually encourage students (and ourselves) to be agents of change. Sociopolitical\u00a0 consciousness is particularly complicated because it is an individual endeavor that also\u00a0 involves a deep engagement with other individuals and with society. CRP successes\u00a0<\/p>\n
A review of literature describing ways that individuals and groups of educators\u00a0 have developed culturally relevant pedagogy in their settings helps to situate this study.\u00a0 Specifically, I am interested in teachers’ successes and challenges in the process of\u00a0 bringing this theory to classrooms and schools. This section primarily includes studies\u00a0 that refer directly to CRP as the teachers’ goal, but also includes several that draw more\u00a0 broadly on critical approaches to teaching and learning. All of the studies reviewed here\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
4 Freire\u2019s terminology is translated to English as critical consciousness. I do not take issue with this\u00a0 translation, but simply prefer the nods to social life and politics in the term used in this dissertation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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share a focus on critical, creative thinking by both the students and the teachers.\u00a0 Interestingly, while I wanted to review literature at both the micro (classroom) and meso\u00a0 (district) levels of interaction with CRP, very few studies have considered CRP at the\u00a0 district level (e.g., Patton, 2011).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ladson-Billings (2001) states that, \u201cIn the classroom of a culturally relevant\u00a0 teacher, the students know exactly what success entails. They receive a variety of\u00a0 information from the teacher about what matters academically\u201d (p. 75). From this angle,\u00a0 academic success can be measured in multiple ways, including work samples, exams,\u00a0 performance assessments, or informal assessments. For example, in a description of how\u00a0 culturally relevant teachers promote academic success for working class African\u00a0 American students in The Dreamkeepers (1994), Ladson-Billings tells of one second\u00a0 grade teacher who bookends the daily schedule with conversations about how each child\u00a0 was successful at school that day. Sometimes a student will share a social skill they felt\u00a0 good about that day, and another day the same child might tell about doing well on a\u00a0 math assignment. With support from their teacher, these young people learn to frame, and\u00a0 claim ownership of, their academic and nonacademic successes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
CRP can be viewed as a move toward conceiving of elementary school children as\u00a0 knowers who not only consume, but can also produce new knowledge. For example, the\u00a0 African American boys in Boutte and Hille’s (2006) study showed academic gains when\u00a0 their third grade teacher put them in charge of a long-term unit based on black\u00a0 barbershops. When success is viewed through the lens of academic autonomy, we can\u00a0 encourage students to more fully inhabit themselves by making choices about when and\u00a0<\/p>\n
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how to take responsibility for their school learning (Ladson-Billings, 2001).\u00a0 Katrina Jocson (2008) documented June Jordan’s \u201cPoetry for the People,\u201d or\u00a0 \u201cP4P,\u201d after-school literacy program. P4P\u2019s pedagogical strategies provided urban high\u00a0 school students with a venue to express and further develop social consciousness. The\u00a0 program’s practice-process-product framework allowed students to view what may have\u00a0 begun as personal revelations through poetry as something that, through publication\u00a0 and\/or performance, might connect with others\u2019 experiences. This extension of the\u00a0 personal to the social had varying effects; for some students it remained a private forum\u00a0 that reflected their engagements with the social world, while for others it became a\u00a0 medium through which they engaged outward. For one student in particular, social\u00a0 consciousness flowed through and beyond his poetry, and his performances became an\u00a0 avenue to invite others to join in a call to action. Whether it served as the reflection or the\u00a0 reflector, poetry through P4P seems to have activated the social consciousness of each of\u00a0 the focal students. While this work was conducted with high school students, the question\u00a0 of the best scenarios for developing sociopolitical consciousness is similarly relevant in\u00a0 elementary settings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In their study of Canadian elementary and secondary teachers, Parhar and Sensoy\u00a0 (2011) found that those who were identified as culturally relevant \u201cused the curriculum as\u00a0 an entry point to instilling a sense of critical awareness\u201d (p. 198). They worked with the\u00a0 mandated curriculum to make it relevant to their students. This study sought to confirm\u00a0 and extend the original tenets of CRP, and determined that CRP demands that teachers\u00a0 allow for shared ownership of school-related decisions with families and other school\u00a0<\/p>\n
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staff, and requires ongoing professional development to support teachers (Parhar &\u00a0 Sensoy, 2011).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Teachers in these studies framed critical thinking as a primary goal of activating\u00a0 their students\u2019 sociopolitical consciousness, especially regarding how school curricula\u00a0 can reflect social injustices. In their profiles of elementary school teachers who self identified as social justice educators, Esposito and Swain (2009) describe a process of\u00a0 interrupting the messages of social reproduction that convince dominant and\u00a0 marginalized students of their rightful places in society. Silva (2010) found that a first\u00a0 grade teacher\u2019s transgressive approach to teaching sociopolitical consciousness permitted\u00a0 her students to take on identity orientations aimed toward social change.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Siedl (2007) found that engaging preservice teachers in an intensive community\u00a0 experience contributed to their developing bicultural identities, which she determined is\u00a0 necessary for teachers to develop culturally relevant pedagogy. The preservice teachers’\u00a0 immersion in an African-American community context was coupled with intensive and\u00a0 interactive reflection, through which the teacher educator and a small number of students\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
worked together to read, review, and revise their stories about working toward their\u00a0 personalized versions of culturally relevant pedagogy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The power of such intensive and supportive relationships between teacher\u00a0 educators and teachers learning to develop CRP is clear in Hefflin’s (2002) work.\u00a0 Through conversation and study with Hefflin, a colleague finds new ways to engage\u00a0 students by making literature and discussion choices based on her students’ knowledges\u00a0 and experience as African-Americans. This study is also, however, an example of CRP\u00a0<\/p>\n
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that does not attend to sociopolitical consciousness, but instead focuses more simply on\u00a0 increasing engagement and achievement by de-centering white and middle-class\u00a0 perspectives in school curricula.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Schultz and his fifth graders from the Cabrini Green housing projects in Chicago\u00a0 offer an illuminating example of CRP, where the drive for justice comes first and other\u00a0 goals fall into place as a result (Schultz, 2007; 2008). For this to happen, Schultz (2008)\u00a0 describes plainly, \u201cthe role of the teacher is to provide opportunity and space to students\u201d\u00a0 (p. 4). In his case, this meant introducing his class to the idea that they could design a\u00a0 project aimed at improving something in their school community. After brainstorming,\u00a0 the class realized that many of their ideas were connected to a need to replace their\u00a0 dilapidated school building, and so this became the focus of an all-encompassing\u00a0 yearlong effort. As Schultz learned to step back and reconsider his role as a guide to his\u00a0 students, meaningfulness grew from students’ control and ownership of the curriculum\u00a0 (Schultz, 2008). The authenticity of the project’s tasks, rooted completely in the children’s\u00a0 lives, allowed them to progress beyond grade-level expectations. Test scores and\u00a0 attendance rates increased, and the need for discipline decreased (Schultz, 2008). Actual\u00a0 change was at the root of these students’ goals, not charity. It is important to note, as well,\u00a0 that Schultz drew from the intellectual and social resources provided to him as a graduate\u00a0 student while he and his students engaged in this project (Schultz, 2008); CRP requires\u00a0 time, commitment, reflection, and support.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Culturally relevant teachers also create space within standards and mandates to\u00a0 place students’ perspectives at the center of the curriculum. Schultz emphasizes that\u00a0<\/p>\n
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viewing curricula and teaching this way requires teachers to see themselves as constantly\u00a0 theorizing their practice. Indeed, he notes that, as he took on this student-centered\u00a0 approach to teaching, he had to reconsider the role of lesson planning. While he went in\u00a0 to every lesson with countless ideas for how things might go, Schultz describes having to\u00a0 let go of the idea that his lesson plan would actually dictate how things would go. To be\u00a0 truly student-centered, he had to be prepared for any number of scenarios, and he wrote\u00a0 up detailed and reflective \u201clesson plans\u201d to submit to school administration after the fact.\u00a0 By widening the available routes to academic achievement, his students developed a\u00a0 remarkable sense of ownership of their school experiences while still demonstrating\u00a0 formally-measurable achievement gains (Schultz, 2008). Sociopolitical consciousness\u00a0 was at the absolute root of this work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Challenges in pursuit of CRP\u00a0<\/p>\n
CRP\u2019s instrumental role in increasing academic outcomes for students of color is\u00a0 a slippery target, which may also help to explain the dearth of evidence linking CRP to\u00a0 measurable increases in elementary school student achievement. This is a primary\u00a0 challenge that educators seem to face in their efforts to develop CRP. The studies\u00a0 reviewed here tend to measure success by formative and informal assessment measures\u00a0 rather than by attempting to link the students\u2019 experiences with CRP to standardized test\u00a0 scores. In addition, because CRP tends to be enacted on an individual classroom level and\u00a0 elementary school students tend to have the same teacher for only one year, it would be\u00a0 difficult to isolate the relationship between a culturally relevant approach to teaching and\u00a0 learning and increases in standardized student achievement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00a0When approached too shallowly, CRP can present dangers. For example, Abbate Vaughn (2008) describes a teacher education program that uses children\u2019s literature to\u00a0 initiate discussions about the experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse students.\u00a0 While the preservice teachers do gain exposure to multicultural literature, the text choices\u00a0 feature individual success stories but fail to situate the individuals within a sociocultural\u00a0 context; thus, the message can be misconstrued as evidence that anyone can succeed, so\u00a0 our education system must be equitable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The white elementary school teacher in Hyland\u2019s (2009) study learned to frame\u00a0 knowledge in innovative ways and to diminish the fallacy of the omniscient teacher by\u00a0 acknowledging her own instances of not-knowing. She also, however, struggled to\u00a0 connect with black parents and became defensive of her attempts at making meaningful\u00a0 connections in the African-American community. While these authentic relationships in\u00a0 and with communities are more frequently described in CRP literature about high school\u00a0 and community settings (e.g., Duncan-Andrade, 2004; 2010), Schultz’s work is one\u00a0 notable exception. After one year of teaching fifth grade at an elementary school in\u00a0 Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing projects, Schultz, a white man, realized he was not\u00a0 connecting with his African American students or their families (Schultz, 2007; 2008).\u00a0 The project described in the previous section was initiated by Schultz’s realization that it\u00a0 was him and his approach to curriculum and pedagogy that needed to change. \u00a0 Dutro, Kazemi, Balf, and Lin (2008), a team comprised of researchers and an\u00a0 elementary school teacher, investigated how cultural relevance was pursued in one\u00a0 diverse classroom. These authors highlight an extended unit during which fourth and fifth\u00a0<\/p>\n
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graders conducted interviews and other forms of research to create displays of their\u00a0 cultural identities. The assignment required students to identify themselves with a single\u00a0 cultural identity (if the student was both African-American and white, for example, she\u00a0 would choose to focus on either her African or European ancestry), which, the teacher\u00a0 noted later, led to the mistaken conflation of culture and country. Nonetheless, the\u00a0 authors defined the project as reinforcing cultural competence because \u201cchildren were\u00a0 asked to bring their home experiences and cultural backgrounds explicitly into a\u00a0 classroom\u201d (Dutro et al., 2008, p. 270). We must consider, though, what a lesson like this\u00a0 truly communicated to students about culture and what it means to be culturally\u00a0 competent. For example, choosing a single culture and representing it visually may\u00a0 reinforce messages that culture is unitary and fixed, or that one’s daily life is necessarily\u00a0 shaped by one’s historical ancestry.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0CRP scholars frequently acknowledge the risks associated with developing CRP.\u00a0 Epstein and Oyler (2008) tell of a first grade teacher\u2019s complicated work managing an\u00a0 accountability-focused mandated curriculum while working toward building\u00a0 sociopolitical consciousness among young children. This is promising because, despite\u00a0 being criticized for making what were construed as overly political moves in the\u00a0 classroom, the teacher acknowledges the limitations of the present system while working\u00a0 to change it. Further studies should look more deeply at how CRP can be both politically\u00a0 progressive and work from within to transform the mainstream.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0On the other hand, risk can also refer to the culturally relevant educator\u2019s ability\u00a0 to interrogate his or her own work around sociopolitical consciousness. Young (2010)\u00a0<\/p>\n
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found that several of the elementary educators in her study struggled to integrate\u00a0 sociopolitical consciousness into their understanding of a pedagogical framework that\u00a0 emphasizes academic achievement. One white teacher in particular demonstrated\u00a0 reluctance to discuss social injustice with her racially diverse elementary school students,\u00a0 citing what she perceived as young children\u2019s limited ability to perceive oppression.\u00a0 Importantly, Howard (2003) makes a case for teacher education and professional\u00a0 development to do a better job addressing these issues throughout teachers\u2019 careers;\u00a0 indeed, sociopolitical consciousness cannot be developed in students if their teachers\u00a0 have not done this work themselves.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Because of its local situatedness, we cannot rely on one success story to provide a\u00a0 road map for how to \u201cdo\u201d CRP in other contexts (e.g., McKinley, 2006). Likewise, it is\u00a0 important to note that sociopolitical consciousness is going to have different faces in\u00a0 different communities. Epstein and Oyler (2008) describe the coming-to-consciousness of\u00a0 a group of middle-class, white elementary school students who learned big lessons about\u00a0 global injustice. In their case, the authors believed that unjust aspects of life in society\u00a0 had to be brought into the classroom to make them real for the students, who had not\u00a0 previously seen themselves in such struggles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Sociopolitical consciousness tends to be the least-studied component of CRP\u00a0 (Morrison, Robbins, & Rose, 2008). Like CRP\u2019s other two tenets, much of the work\u00a0 around CRP and sociopolitical consciousness frames it as something that students from\u00a0 the dominant society can develop in order to understand what life is like for marginalized\u00a0 people. For example, in Epstein and Oyler\u2019s (2008) discussion of building solidarity\u00a0<\/p>\n
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among first graders, a teacher and her students designed \u201csocial action\u201d projects that grew\u00a0 organically from discussions about academic content. While the goal of this study is\u00a0 explicitly critical, the language around dominance so easily slips toward being focused\u00a0 primarily outward, from the benevolent toward the disenfranchised, and sociopolitical\u00a0 consciousness is positioned as only visible through social action. Certainly, building\u00a0 empathy for the plight of some \u201cOther\u201d can be an important component of CRP, and the\u00a0 study does demonstrate that empathy can be developed in young children through an\u00a0 awakening of sociopolitical consciousness via academic curriculum (Epstein & Oyler,\u00a0 2008). However, a focus on the Other fails to engage with Freire\u2019s (1970) claim that the\u00a0 oppressor and the oppressed are engaged in the same struggle for liberation. This notion\u00a0 of entangled struggles needs particular emphasis in predominately white settings where\u00a0 colorblind discourse dominates and community members may be suspicious of the\u00a0 relevance of race in the first place (Lewis, 2003).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Students of color and other marginalized students need to be walked through this\u00a0 stage of consciousness-raising less frequently, however. Milner (2010) shares one white\u00a0 teacher\u2019s process of coming to know what his middle school students already knew about\u00a0 their positioning within dominant society. The teacher needed to rewrite his own scripts\u00a0 in order to honor his students\u2019 lived experiences. Here again, CRP shows itself as\u00a0 difficult to both define and enact.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0While the white teacher in Milner’s study made quick changes to become more\u00a0 culturally relevant, the challenge is not always so easily recognized in communities\u00a0 unaccustomed to racial and other forms of diversity. Describing how this can happen,\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a037\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garza and Crawford (2005) introduce the term hegemonic multiculturalism:\u00a0 The result of dissonance between a school\u2019s desire to promote an inclusive and\u00a0 welcoming learning environment for their culturally and linguistically diverse\u00a0 students and the pervasive, yet persuasive, assimilation agenda that underlies\u00a0 instructional practices and programs designed to educate them. (p. 601)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the prestigious suburban district they studied, Garza and Crawford determined that\u00a0 English learners there were “disciplined to emulate and internalize this [hegemonic\u00a0 multicultural] ideology” (p. 600). In other words, this study found dissonance between\u00a0 professed ideology and assimilationist practice among teachers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sleeter (2012) suggests that this agenda may be linked to broader trends in U.S.\u00a0 politics and education. Expressing concern with the role of neoliberal reforms in\u00a0 diminishing the presence and impact of culturally relevant approaches in United States\u00a0 schools, she suggests \u201cpolitical work to combat its marginalization due to persistent\u00a0 simplistic conceptions of what it means, and backlash prompted by fear of its potential to\u00a0 transform the existing social order\u201d (p. 2).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Tying the educational process to the marketplace has implications that are\u00a0 antithetical to the aims of CRP. In particular, this leads us to value students based on their\u00a0 ability to contribute in a purely economic sense, which then ties curriculum and\u00a0 assessment too tightly to a way of thinking and being, with less space for creative\u00a0 problem solving or true engagement with the people, places, and ideas that make up our\u00a0 worlds. In addition, Sleeter (2012) argues that even when education reforms focus on\u00a0 reducing racial achievement gaps, the solutions they rely on still attempt to use a\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201ccontext-blind\u201d (p. 4) approach to curriculum and instruction that was designed from a\u00a0 white, English-speaking perspective.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ullucci (2011) investigated what she refers to as the translation process that\u00a0 occurs when new teachers attempt to draw on teacher education coursework in CRP.\u00a0 While I agree with her concern about engaging gaps between theory and practice, I argue\u00a0 that when this content is new to teachers (whether in-service or pre-service), the\u00a0 translation process may be premature. Just like we argue with CRP for younger students,\u00a0 teachers need a \u201chook\u201d to place the tenets of CRP within their own understandings and\u00a0 experiences first, and then they can think about bringing those new understandings into\u00a0 their work in schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Finally, moving beyond the anthropological roots discussed above, Paris (2012)\u00a0 has most recently offered an astute critique of the terms relevant and responsive in these\u00a0 traditions, offering \u201cculturally sustaining pedagogy\u201d as a new development in the CRP\u00a0 literature:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The term culturally sustaining requires that our pedagogies be more than\u00a0 responsive of or relevant to the cultural experiences and practices of young\u00a0 people\u2014it requires that they support young people in sustaining the cultural and\u00a0 linguistic competence of their communities while simultaneously offering access\u00a0 to dominant cultural competence. (p. 95)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paris’ proposal, while not adequately attending to a critique of the social order, remains\u00a0 an important reminder that CRP’s ultimate goal is to decenter dominant narratives about\u00a0 what it means to succeed in school and society.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a039\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The present study within CRP literature\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0To engage with CRP among elementary school students, their teachers need to be\u00a0 able to take risks, as the white, female teacher in Hyland\u2019s (2009) study did by\u00a0 acknowledging her need to understand her own racial identity better as she tried to\u00a0 improve her relationships with families of color. Perhaps more importantly, this fourth\u00a0 grade teacher reflected that teachers who want to ignite their students\u2019 sociopolitical\u00a0 consciousness must be prepared and willing to take risks in the sense that CRP in general,\u00a0 and sociopolitical consciousness in particular, consists of transgressive acts toward\u00a0 dominant school culture. Novice teachers like the one in Hyland\u2019s study may have the\u00a0 belief and motivation to build sociopolitical consciousness, but they may not feel they\u00a0 can take professional risks by modifying their curriculum and pedagogy. \u00a0 As a whole, the present literature on developing CRP in elementary settings is\u00a0 clear about the risks of engaging with CRP, but less clear on how these struggles play out\u00a0 in real settings, particularly in contexts where teachers in more than one classroom are\u00a0 trying to develop CRP at the same time. Perhaps this is because it is simply too hard a\u00a0 task to manage in the present educational climate, as Young (2010) suggests in her\u00a0 statement that sociopolitical consciousness can be raised in individual classrooms, but not\u00a0 on a systemic level when the education system already operates from what could be\u00a0 considered a sociopolitically dysconscious paradigm. Indeed, this concept undergirds the\u00a0 step that Pioneer City Schools took when they attempted to make aspects of CRP a part\u00a0 of their organizing framework for policy and practice. However, they reached an impasse\u00a0 in the process of institutionalizing something that is critical of institutions. This leaves\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a040\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
two options: Change the institution in response to the critique offered by CRP, or soften\u00a0 the critique so it fits within the constraints of the institution.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This dissertation makes contributions that address two key needs for additional\u00a0 scholarship around CRP in elementary school settings. First, on a broad and basic level,\u00a0 we need more studies that consider the relationship between CRP as a theoretical model\u00a0 and CRP as conceived and developed in real elementary school classrooms. Second, the\u00a0 theoretical model remains incomplete without a more robust consideration of what\u00a0 happens in the process of translation when a transformative theory meets a reproductive\u00a0 institution. Thus, I have paid particular attention to what may have contributed to this\u00a0 missing, critical element of CRP literature. I argue that a genuine culturally relevant\u00a0 pedagogy eluded them from the beginning because of the irresolvable tension between\u00a0 ideologies of excellence and equity, rooted in an unchanging notion of what success is\u00a0 and can be in public schooling and aided by an incomplete process of teacher education\u00a0 that addresses the contexts of school and society. In response, I see two primary areas of\u00a0 need: additional and deeper work toward helping teachers understand how oppression\u00a0 works in society, followed by work among educators at all levels toward making\u00a0 curriculum and teaching decisions that are informed by those understandings (Ullucci,\u00a0 2011).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The perspective that U.S. society offers a level playing field for academic and\u00a0 other forms of success tends to hold tightly to its conception of democracy as dependent\u00a0 upon a shared set of information. In this view, education can be a great equalizer (e.g.,\u00a0 Hirsch, 1987). Those of us who succeed have only ourselves to thank, and those who fail\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a041\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
have only themselves to blame. Such a claim, pervasive in the meritocratic structure and\u00a0 functioning of U.S. schooling, is dismissive of the ever-present effects of the systematic\u00a0 and systemic racism that have been part of the United States since its beginning.\u00a0 Culturally relevant pedagogy can and should be positioned as a transformative effort to\u00a0 reshape the role of education in society toward one that is liberatory for all students. As I\u00a0 discuss in Chapter 5, the need for these transformative efforts is just as great in\u00a0 predominately dominant communities as it is in predominately marginalized ones. Conclusion\u00a0<\/p>\n
Culturally relevant pedagogy is about power. Acknowledging and seeking to\u00a0 dismantle the many ways that power relationships structure life in school and society flies\u00a0 in the face of much public discourse around education, where success is marked by\u00a0 scores, and relationships rendered virtually irrelevant. While this makes CRP difficult to\u00a0 argue for and enact in schools, it is also what makes CRP worthwhile.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Along with power, CRP is about hope for equitable education. Borrowing from\u00a0 Duncan-Andrade (2010), my hope is a critical hope, or one to which I hold tightly as I\u00a0 recognize the struggle ahead. I take as my own point of hope a conversation I had with a\u00a0 faculty member in May 2011. At a curriculum development meeting for teacher education\u00a0 programs, I sat at a table with a group of faculty members. My task was to respond to\u00a0 their questions about proposed curriculum changes that would require teacher education\u00a0 candidates to engage in intensive writing and discussion to investigate several dimensions\u00a0 of their identities. This faculty member, with whom I had enjoyed a friendly, hello-in-the mailroom sort of relationship for several years, seemed to clam up the moment I started\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a042\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
talking about race and justice. When I asked about how his program area curriculum\u00a0 addresses race, he said that there is one textbook devoted to \u201cmulticulturalism\u201d that some\u00a0 people use, but that he has never come across himself. Near the end of what had felt, until\u00a0 then, like a stunted conversation about addressing race and justice in teacher preparation,\u00a0 he suddenly opened up and said something along the lines of, \u201cyou know, we just need\u00a0 you to help us do this. I\u2019m a [content area] person, and this hasn\u2019t been part of my\u00a0 training or experience. It\u2019s hard to give up what you know you\u2019re good at to try\u00a0 something new, even when you know it will help us teach all students better.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This conversation flooded my memory at a surprising moment later that summer\u00a0 on a woodsy drive with my husband and sons. To our left, the forest was hauntingly\u00a0 decimated, aside from some low-lying new growth hardly visible through the car\u00a0 windows. From the passenger\u2019s side, though, was a verdant view of a storybook forest: a\u00a0 thick canopy teasing us with near-views of wildlife and purple, yellow, and red flora\u00a0 dotting the forest floor. The contrast confused and delighted our sons. Soon enough, my\u00a0 husband and I found ourselves stumbling to respond to some very detailed questions\u00a0 about the differences between forest fires and controlled burning, and why you would\u00a0 ever have to burn something down to make it come back stronger. After some fits and\u00a0 starts, I finally landed on a response. It is confusing, I told the boys, but when we want\u00a0 the whole forest to look strong, fresh, and green, it actually needs to be carefully burned\u00a0 down, unlocking the good nutrients that will find their way back into the soil while the\u00a0 others burn or float away in the air. We have to temporarily give up some of the beauty\u00a0 and life above the surface in order to gain something even better and deeper. Giving up\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a043\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
what you know \u201cworks,\u201d whether it be the visual appeal of a lush forest or the\u00a0 automaticity of a tried-and-true approach to pedagogy, is never easy. But nothing\u00a0 worthwhile ever is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This question asks you, broadly, to share (in 1-2 paragraphs) What insights about writing literature reviews and growing into this work that you found within this chapter 2.\u00a0Give specific examples from Mason\u2019s Chapter 2 to support your perspective. In addition to sharing any insights, you are encouraged to reflect upon how you see your own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-80939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}