Enacting Agentive, Decolonizing Literacies Through Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies in K–12 Urban Classrooms

• In Event: 64.011 - Cross-Cutting Session 1. The Significance of Culture, Context, and Ways of Knowing From Pre-K Through Higher Education

Abstract

Standardization of instructional practices has become a norm in literacy education through national legislation, regulations embedded in funding requirements, and the prevalence of prescriptive instruction. Building on the legacy of asset pedagogies, Alim and Paris’ (2017) framework of culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSP) places instructional practices within layers of people, communities, and ecological systems. This paper considers the findings from two critical ethnographic studies in urban K-12 schools and reports the multiple ways four urban educators use agentive practices to mediate and adapt prescriptive, dehumanizing curricular and assessment mandates to sustain students’ languages and community memberships. The studies challenge discourse focused on standardization, efficiency, and effectiveness by examining instruction that critically centers students whose cultures are erased through standardization.

Authors

• Leah Panther, Mercer University

• Kindel Turner Nash, University of Maryland - Baltimore County

• Selena Hughes, Cristo Rey High School

• Haydee Dohrn-Melendez, Central Park East II

• Alicia Arce-Boardman, Northern Parkway Elementary

• Kerry Elson, Central Park East II