This post is a summary of the article “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy” by Gloria Ladson-Billings. One of the major contributions of this paper is attempting to define examples of culturally relevant pedagogy in the classroom of several teachers.

Problem

The problem addressed in this paper is multifaceted but can be summarized as follows. The author claims that success is defined in school for minorities by adapting their behavior to the expectations of the teacher and majority culture. For the author, this is poorly defined as meritocracy. The concern with adapting culturally for minority students is that they are not being affirmed in their own culture.

Galdson-Billings continues by stating that schools are guilty of reproducing the current system and thus reproducing the inequities of the existing system. This is a common critical pedagogy critique of the existing educational system. Therefore, students need to develop an awareness of the inequity in school, which calls for the development of a critical perspective or critical consciousness as explained by Friere.

With this background, the author shares the following proposition when she states that pedagogical practice needs a theoretical model that deals with student achievement and the affirmation of minority students’ cultural identity while also developing a critical perspective for challenging inequities in school.

The proposition above addresses the following problems

1. Student achievement of minority students
2.  Cultural affirmation of minority students
3.  Development of a critical perspective
4.  The need to challenge inequities in school

To put it simply, the other is looking for evidence of the propositions mentioned above in her research.

Questions

Galdson-BIllings lays out the following questions that she wants to answer in this paper.

1. What is student success?
2.  How can academic success and culture complement each other in settings where student alienation characterizes the school experience?
3.  How can pedagogy promote student success that critically engages larger social structural issues?
4.  What are the implications for teacher preparation generated by this pedagogy?

Notice in question two the use of the word “alienation.” Alineation is a term commonly used in Marxist literature to mean a feeling of estrangement or being marginalized. There is an assumption in this question that students are feeling alienation even before any data is collected.

In question three, the word “critical” is used. Again, the word “critical” has a different meaning and it means to question and oppose power dynamics. In this question, the author is looking for a specific predetermined answer rather than exploring the data

Methodology

Gladson-Billings collected data from 8 teachers who were considered to be excellent teachers. The method of data collection was done through participant observation in which the author was actively involved in the classes that she visited.

There were four phases to the data collection.

1. Ethnographic interview of the 8 teachers.
2.  Participant observation of the teacher’s teachings 3 days a week for 2 years.
3.  Videotaping of the teachers (this was in the 1990’s)
4.  Teachers observing each other videotaped teaching.

There was no direct explanation of how the data was analyzed but it can be assumed that this was a qualitative study and the result section is focused on summaries and the occasional vignette to provide support for propositions the other shares.

Results

Among the findings, the author shares that students struggle to achieve academic excellence while showing cultural competence. This may be due in part to who has the power to define academic excellence, which the author thinks is unjustly given to the majority culture.

Another major finding is that teachers must help students to understand and critique social inequities. The need to challenge social inequities goes back to the critical pedagogy viewpoint of the paper. Students must become activists to challenge the existing system. The author then shares several examples of students becoming involved in community activism through the support of their teachers.

The author then shares three propositions that emerged from her research.

1. The culturally relevant teacher’s conception of self and others
2.  How culturally relevant teachers structure social relations.
3.  Culturally relevant teacher’s conceptions of knowledge.

Proposition one stresses the beliefs that the teachers of the study had about students. These excellent teachers believed that all students could succeed, that teaching is an art, that they were members of the community, and that teaching was a way to give back to the community.

Proposition two is focused on social relations. Excellent teachers believed that social relations should be fluid, show connectedness, develop a community of learners, and focus on collaboration and responsibility towards each other all for critical consciousness. On the last point, the relations are developed to be aware of injustices in terms of power dynamics another key part of Marxist thought.

Proposition three addresses conceptions of knowledge or epistemology among excellent teachers. For these teachers, knowledge is not static, which implies it is relative and not fixed, teachers need to be passionate about learning and knowledge, scaffolding is necessary, and there should be multiple forms of assessment.

According to the author, culturally relevant teachers are teachers who demonstrate these propositions in their classes. The goal is to be culturally relevant for developing a critical perspective in the students.

Conclusion

For someone who is looking to understand what critical relevant teaching is this article is an excellent source. Not only is it defined but the author can provide examples from actual teachers in the classroom. Therefore, anybody can implement these examples and be able to show that they are a culturally relevant teacher.