Sustaining Cultural Flexibility, Heritage and Contemporary Ways, and Possible Futures With Indigenous and African American Youth

• In Event: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Educational Justice in a Changing World

Abstract

In this paper we take up the three areas of needed work for culturally sustaining pedagogies as outlined in Paris and Alim (2014): 1) Cultural and linguistic dexterity are increasingly needed for access and power in a rapidly changing nation 2) Asset pedagogies must consider both the heritage practices of communities and the intersecting and divergent contemporary community practices
3) Asset pedagogies must critically contend with difficult and problematic elements expressed in some cultural practices and beliefs of youth of color. To provide evidence of how each needed area occurs in classroom practice, we offer vignettes from semester long collaborative case studies with language and literacy teachers of African American and Anishinaabe (Indigenous) youth in Michigan. In vignette one, we detail the ways African American teacher Rashida fosters cultural and linguistic flexibility in both African American Language and Dominant American English among her African American high school students through the critical study of language. We focus vignette two on Anishinaabe teacher Simon, who negotiates both Anishinaabowin heritage language and traditional cultural practices and contemporary ways of being Anishinaabe with his middle school students through their study of the medicine wheel. Our final vignette portrays Yvonne, a biracial Chinese and African American teacher, who challenges her African American middle school students to create hope and enact their agency through a neighborhood park rejuvenations project in the face of rampant youth frustration and internalized dehumanization. Taken together, the portraits of these teachers show how CSP happens in nuanced and situated ways that extend previous visions of asset pedagogies.

Author

• Django Paris, Michigan State University