Negotiations of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in the Social Studies Classroom

• In Event: Discussions of Equity: Critical Race Theory, Culturally Responsive Schooling, and Identity Issues in Social Studies Education

Abstract

This study seeks to examine how social studies teachers conceptualize culturally responsive pedagogy in their practice. Rooted in a critical understanding of culturally responsive pedagogy, an analysis of focus group interviews, individual interviews, and curricular materials was conducted using a four-step inductive to deductive coding process. The findings of this study reveal that social studies educators negotiate various conceptualizations of cultural responsiveness in their practice, which include relational, global, and experiential understandings of cultural responsiveness. Though participants demonstrated some of the original conceptualizations of cultural responsiveness in their practice, their conceptualizations were avoidant of the deeper, systemic issues around ethnicity, culture, and race/ism that are critical to understandings of cultural responsiveness.

Author

• Kelly R. Allen, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee