Cultural Place Value: Exploring an Urban School Mathematics Teacher’s Realization of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

• In Event: A Call to Action for a Changing World: The Positionality of Accountable STEM Researchers

Abstract

Objectives/Purpose
Barriers to educating diverse student populations persist in urban schools (Bonner, 2009). Teachers having cultural awareness extends to teaching practices and can contribute to students’ academic experience (Author 1-redacted, 2018). Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) utilizes students’ cultural knowledge as an agent to facilitate the process of teaching and learning (Ukpokodu, 2011). When using culturally relevant pedagogy, opportunities for students in urban schools to learn mathematics become meaningful and influential, allowing students to truly experience education (Leonard, Brooks, Berry III, & Barnes-Johnson, 2010). Yet, there exists a lack of research on the process necessary for teachers to move culturally relevant theory (CRP) from theory to practice. The purpose of this research is to share a subset of findings from a larger qualitative critical case study examining ways in which culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) could translate from theory to practice in the urban mathematics classroom. The research question addressed in this subset of data is: What is a veteran urban mathematics teacher’s accumulated understanding of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP)?

Perspectives/Frameworks
Ladson-Billings (2014) created the term culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) to describe the teaching behaviors and beliefs of teachers working with Black students. Ladson-Billings (1994, 1995a, 1995b) further explained CRP describing its three core tenets: academic achievement/student learning, cultural competence, and critical consciousness. At the foundation of CRP is the ability to use students’ culture in the classroom to help students create meaning and understand the world (Ladson-Billings, 1992a).

Methods and Data
The study data were collected from a middle school mathematics teacher from a large urban school district in 2020. At the time of this study, the teacher participant was in their 16th year of teaching mathematics primarily in urban schools. This subset of data analyzed includes an initial interview that occurred prior to the teacher having experienced professional development on CRP in the mathematics classroom. Interview transcripts were coded using the tenets of CRP as theory-driven codes (DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2011) for hypothesis coding (Saldaña, 2009, 2013, 2016). Pattern and verbal exchange coding (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Saldaña, 2009, 2013, 2016) also occurred to reveal text that illustrated CRP but may not have fallen into the predetermined codes.

Results
The analysis of an interview transcript revealed six themes that each speak to the translation of CRP into practice in the urban mathematics classroom, namely: student learning, cultural connectedness, critical consciousness, classroom community/environment, teacher mindset (which included mathematics teacher self-efficacy), and mathematics identity.

Scholarly Significance/Conference Connection
Having no professional development or theoretical knowledge base on culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), the veteran teacher described ways in which culture manifests and has a place in their urban mathematics classroom. The teacher understood that their Black and Latinx students have long been portrayed as careless, hopeless, and underachieving and actively works to dismantle this demeaning and demoralizing stereotype in a way that Ladson-Billings would describe as “good teaching” (Ladson-Billings, 1995a, p. 159). Thus, this study has practical implications for practicing teachers, teacher educators, preservice teachers, education researchers, and policymakers.

Author

• Kelly K. Ivy, University of Maryland - College Park