Rethinking Banks's Multicultural Education Approaches for Understanding Teachers' Culturally Relevant Practices

• In Event: Dynamic Applied Visions of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This paper analyzes the practices of eight Spanish-English dual language teachers at an urban elementary school who learned to teach the cultural and social justice tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) through school-based professional development. Employing critical sociocultural theory and based on qualitative methods, the authors drew on James Banks’ seminal work on the levels of multicultural content in school curriculum. Results show the wider range and dynamics of teachers’ CRP practices than captured in Banks’ framework as well as the resistance, hybridity, and fluidity exhibited over time. The authors call for a rethinking of Banks’ multicultural education approaches that better allows their use for research analysis of teachers’ CRP practices. Implications for teacher preparation are discussed.

Authors

• Juan A. Freire, New Mexico State University

• Veronica E. Valdez, University of Utah