Implementing Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Toward Community Advancement

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Multistakeholder Collaborations for Culturally Sustaining Community Schools

Abstract

Community schools often provide a “service model” in vulnerable neighborhoods where they distribute resources to children and families to remove barriers to learning (Warren, 2005). Community schools acknowledge that students and their families may not have proper access to health care, recreational services, sufficient meals, etc, and therefore provide resources. However, what does it mean pedagogically for community schools to serve its surrounding community? This presentation will examine a case study of one school that bridges teaching and learning with community advancement.
Analysis is drawn through the lens of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (Paris and Alim, 2017) that stems from critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970) and culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson Billings, 1995). Like CRP, CSP leverages one’s cultural identities for the purpose of learning and student empowerment, but also examines power and how one’s positionality shapes their experiences. CSP includes an education that sustains the communities students emanate from as Paris and Alim write, “CSP exists wherever education sustains the lifeways of communities who have been and continue to be damaged and erased through schooling” (Paris & Alim, 2017, p. 1, emphasis mine). CSP works to shift power to create a pluralistic democratic society with the understanding that one’s culture and community are not just recognized as a difference, but an asset.
Data were collected during the 2018-2019 academic school year at Truth High School (THS) and include participant observations, interviews with students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community organization leaders and staff, and site documents. Participant observations were conducted to collect rich descriptive fieldnotes to inform the author of the setting, people, actions, and relevant conversations (Bogdan & Biklen, 2016). A locally-developed protocol captured interactional components: instruction, THS leadership, classroom culture, and sustaining and transforming pedagogies, such as teaching and learning practices that identify if and how curriculum is culturally sustaining toward student cultures and identities, as well as toward their home and community life (Paris & Alim, 2017).
Thematic analysis revealed that instructors drew on pedagogies that were relevant to the lives of students across the curriculum that not only developed academic skills, but focused on examining the socio-political histories of their communities and community development. From math to humanities, students discussed social issues and the intersections of race, class, and gender. THS and partnering grassroots community organizations worked together to provide support and opportunities for students to be leaders and serve their communities through curriculum and internship program. This “real world learning” allowed students to contribute to their community as part of their schooling. Further, students reflected on their learning and community engagement as “healing” and a critical part of their growth and development.
CSP practices that center community elucidate the resilience, knowledge, and power of vulnerable communities. Dialogic relationships between school and community foster self determination for youth and their communities given that these communities are often controlled by outside dominant groups. At THS, students are given the opportunity to lead themselves in their own learning, sustaining not just themselves and their learning environment, but also communities toward social justice and equity.

Author

• Hui-Ling S. Malone, Michigan State University