“But Is This Actually Culturally Sustaining?” Examining English Language Arts Teachers’ Artifacts at a Test-Driven Middle School

• In Event: Educators, Youth, and Policy Mediation and Sensemaking at the Local Level

Abstract

How do teachers describe efforts to teach in culturally sustaining ways amid high-stakes test pressure? To what extent do their classroom artifacts illustrate the tenets of culturally sustaining pedagogy? This study explores how teachers describe enacting culturally sustaining pedagogy over a school year, with a special focus on what their instructional materials look like *after* the state exam has passed. Analysis of interviews and artifacts from nine middle school ELA teachers found that teachers’ post-test lessons were more likely to be characterized by 1) criticality, including a focus on activism; 2) plurality, as evident across linguistic, cultural, and textual dimensions; and 3) democracy, driven by student choice and student voice.

Author

• Daniel P. Moore, Seton Hall University