Bridging the Disconnect Between Culturally Responsive Theory and Practice by Elevating Community Cultural Wealth

• In Event: 66.072 - How to Make the Invisible Visible: Mixed Methods Approaches to Systematically Examining Classroom Enactments of Bias

Abstract

Scholars have argued that pedagogy which challenges students to think critically, socially, emotionally, and politically is paramount to engaging and empowering students from culturally and racially diverse backgrounds (e.g., Banks, 2016; Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 1995). In particular, Yosso (2005) has suggested that community cultural wealth (CCW) has the potential to be transformative within an educational context. We propose that counterstories highlighting CCW be employed in practice to advance culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP).

Early studies on CRP have concluded that more research is needed to evaluate its theoretical and practical aspects (Aceves & Orosco, 2014; Chu & Garcia, 2014; Griner & Stewart, 2012; Kea & Trent, 2013). Moreover, since most urban public school teachers are White, while most students are students of color (Howard, 2016), we need to better understand where and how disconnect in classrooms may be happening. Banks’ (2016) description of the four distinct approaches to infusing CRP in curriculum (see Table 5), argues that each approach presents strengths and problems in implementation. For example, ‘social action’ (Level 4) can be the most meaningful yet the most challenging for teachers to incorporate. Using videos from the MET database, we explored how teachers may or may not infuse CRP practices into their lessons.

The demographics of teachers from the 68 videos observed in our study (see Table 1), allowed us to see how CRP was and was not being used during instruction across different teacher backgrounds and classroom compositions (see Figure 5). Notably, culturally responsive forms of instruction were absent at Levels 3 and 4 (see Table 5), with most classrooms failing to include any CRP instruction. This suggests missed teaching opportunities in terms of rigor of instruction and cultural responsivity (see Table 5). Amongst the absence of CRP, however, some teachers incorporated CRP at Levels 1 or 2. For example, one teacher presented a lesson about multiple perspectives that represented two distinct cultural views (Level 2), while another encouraged a student to translate instruction for their peer (Level 1). Unfortunately, teachers disparaged students’ identities or cultural backgrounds through a ‘Deficit Lens’ (Level -1) (see Table 5) almost as often as Levels 1 or 2 combined (see Figure 5). Overall these findings indicate a gap between CRP theory and practice.

Some have argued that to effectively meet students’ needs, teachers should understand the implications of their culture in relation to the cultures of their students (Howard, 2016). Moreover, teachers need to consider how the capital their students possess can help transcend the curriculum into meaningful lessons that can be applied both inside and outside of the classroom (Yosso, 2005). Here, counterstories can be used to challenge the validity of accepted premises or myths, especially ones held by the dominant culture, of which many teachers are members (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Solorzano and Yosso (2002) describe a counterstory as a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the majoritarian stories of racial privilege. Integrating counterstories to emphasize CCW can help build a cultural bridge and further develop teachers’ understanding of their students.

Author

• Rosalinda Larios, California State University - Los Angeles