The Intractability of White Supremacy: Race, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, and the Professional Development of Teachers in a Small Urban School District

• In Event: 70.058 - A Dream Deferred: A 20-Year Retrospective on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Abstract

The “demographic divide” between predominantly white, monolingual, middle class teachers and diverse K-12 classrooms poses a serious challenge for teacher education (Sleeter, 2001). Research has demonstrated the need to better prepare pre-service teachers to work with students who are racially, ethnically, and culturally different than themselves. The literature stops short in considering already miseducated in-service teachers. Interrogating racist beliefs about their own and othered racial and ethnic groups has the potential to influence how in-service teachers teach (Tatum, 2001). With critical race theory as an analytic tool, this paper examines the observed discomfort and reluctance of teachers to confront and discuss issues of race and racism in relation to student academic data, disproportionate discipline referrals and special education placement, and disparate family engagement. Practicing teachers may ignore or at best minimize the potency of race, racism, and discrimination as explanatory rationales for these patterns (Milner, 2010). Professional development for in-service teachers that focuses on culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1992, 1994) and responsive teaching strategies could potentially redress inequities minoritized students and families experience in schools.

Authors

• Adrienne D. Dixson, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign

• Rema Ella Reynolds, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign