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Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Ladson-Billings (1995) conceptualized culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) as an approach that would encourage students to achieve academically, demonstrate cultural competence, and critique oppressive social order(s). Students of socially marginalized groups possess an "array of cultural knowledge, skills, abilities, and contacts" that in many cases go "unrecognized and unacknowledged' (Yosso, 2006, p.69). Pedagogical frameworks such as Community Cultural Wealth and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy offer asset-based approaches to counter cultural deficit perspectives in ways that center students’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds as resources in teaching and learning.
As educators, it is important to understand and acknowledge oppressive social structures, ideologies, politics, and pratices in education so that we can create teaching and learning experiences where all students can excel. Culturally relevant pedagogies strive to cultivate multilingualism and multiculturalism, especially “where racist teaching practices are part of a larger deculturization project in schools, as in the case of enforced monolingual education” (Paris & Alim, 2017). Culturally relevant pedagogy centers the ongoing social and poltical struggles for recognition an liberation.
Approaches to education that utilize culturally relevant pedagogies can help support the ability and efforts to “make education a practice of freedom” (Freire, 1970) by moving beyond individualistic solutions to practices and strategies that acknowledge the nuanced histories embedded within long standing disparities in education. In moving beyond individualistic solutions, students and teachers can discover how interconnected and interdependent all academic disciplines are. Furthermore, culturally relevant pedagogies provide students with the knowledge, skills, and tools to address social disparities inside and outside the classroom. Yosso (2005) affirms that students of marginalized communities already possess these tools in the form of navigational capital. Navigational capital, a form of cultural capital which has its foundations in a historical legacy of resistance, empowers students to maneuver hostile systems and institutions.
Within the context of culturally relevant pedagogy, linguistic and cultural pluralism refers to the recognition of multiple languages and cultures in the classroom. Linguistic and cultural pluralism can assist us in cultivating a classroom culture that embraces cross-cultural and global perspectives by connecting students to their local communities, recognizing and affirming students’ experiences, and connecting curriculum to students’ lives (Mihut, 2019).“skills attained through communication experiences in more than one language and/or style” (Yosso, 2005, p. 78), are assets in teaching and learning. Students may draw on their linguistic capital as interpreters, storytellers, artists, poets, and musicians.
Earlier research has determined that incorporating students' cultural knowledge and norms positively impacts both reading comprehension and mathematical thinking. Neuroscientific research, such as Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain, supports this by highlighting that individuals learn new information most effectively when it is connected to their preexisting knowledge.
Like the goals of CRP, UTRGV’s core values include cultivating “a multicultural and welcoming environment that grants all members of our community ample opportunities to thrive”. In addition, UTRGV seeks to “encourage a spirit of collegiality and mutual respect among all members of our community in pursuit of our shared goals.” Read more here: Strategic Planning | UTRGV
Anderson, K. C., Stern, M. J., Powell, R. B., Dayer, A. A., & Archibald, T. G. (2022a). A culturally responsive evaluation framework and its application in Environmental Education. Evaluation and Program Planning, 92, 102073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2022.102073
Salvador, K., & Kelly-McHale, J. (2017). Music Teacher Educator Perspectives on Social Justice. Journal of Research in Music Education, 65(1), 6–24. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48588573 
Solovyeva, E., Sabirova, D., & Morozova, T. (2015). Forming students’ linguistic and cultural competence in academic translation and interpretation studies. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 199, 415–422. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.527 
Weiland, T., & Williams, I. (2023). Culturally relevant data in teaching statistics and data science courses. Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/26939169.2023.2249969
To learn more about these resources, please click here for an abstract and notes from SaLT HSI Student Partners. 

Teaching Values and Beliefs:

  • How do I (or can I) foster and sustain linguistic and cultural pluralism in my classroom?
  • How do I (or can I) offer access to dominant cultural competence and help my students navigate social institutions, including educational spaces?
  • What opportunities do I (or can I) provide to my students to engage with and serve their communities?
  • How does the course build on students’ self-efficacy (belief in ability to succeed) and aspirational capital (hopes and dreams despite inequities)?
  • How are different perspectives represented in the course, including student voices?
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Prior Knowledge and Assignment Design:

  • How do I (or can I) aim to understand students’ prior knowledge and needs?
  • How can I embed students’ prior knowledge as an asset for learning new content?
  • How are assessment(s) differentiated or guided to ensure all students' ability to demonstrate learning, engagement, and empowerment through a growth mindset?
  • To what extent are my assignments and learning objectives engaging and relevant to a student’s personal growth and professional and civic engagement aspirations?
  • To what extent are my assignments and learning objectives engaging and relevant to a student’s personal growth and professional and civic engagement aspirations?
  • To what extent are students able to demonstrate learning in a variety of ways, such as multimodal projects, linguistically inclusive assignments, choice in assessments, contributions to the evaluation rubric, etc.?

Checking Assumptions:

  • How do we (or can we) help students navigate our institution? Interactions with other instructors? Interactions with student-facing staff?
  • To what extent do my teaching practices demonstrate awareness of historical struggles for recognition, emancipation and inclusion?
  • How willing am I to acknowledge that our institutions have a history of, and can continue to be, unsupportive to our students and communities?
  • What does the language in my assignments assume about students’ access to resources, prior knowledge, prior schooling experiences, literacy and language background, technology, books, car, travel, cultural background, etc.? How can I identify these assumptions and better address student needs?
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  • TBA

The Center for Teaching Excellence is committed to promoting reflection and collaboration on teaching and learning experiences. One of our programs, Students as Learners and Teachers at a Hispanic Serving Institution, aims to transform teaching and learning spaces in direct response to the experiences, knowledge, and insights from our students. We aim to promote student success by encouraging collaborative teaching and learning partnerships between students and faculty members from across academic disciplines.

For feedback on teaching documents and syllabi, please consider submitting a feedback request via our SaLT HSI Student Feedback Request Form.

Please read more about designating your courses as culturally sustaining through the B3 Institute here: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Designation | UTRGV

References/Resources

Freire, P., & Ramos, M. B. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Seabury Press. Hammond, Z., & Jackson, Y. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin, a SAGE Company. 

Johnston, E., D’Andrea Montalbano, P., & Kirkland, D.E. (2017). Culturally Responsive Education: A Primer For Policy And Practice. New York: Metropolitan Center for   Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, New York University. https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/culturally-responsive-education-primer-policy-and-practice 

Keengwe, J., Esquierdo, J. J., & De La Trinidad, M. (2023). Instructional Framework for Integrating Cross-Cultural Content Using Culturally Responsive and Linguistically Affirming Pedagogies. In Handbook of Research on race, culture, and student achievement (pp. 179–195). essay, IGI Global.  

Mihut, L. (2019). Linguistic Pluralism: A Statement and a Call to Advocacy. Reflections; Philadelphia New City Community Press, 18(2). 

Paris, D., Alim, H. S., Kinloch, V., Bucholtz, M., Casillas, D. I., Lee, J.-S., Lee, T. S., McCarty, T. L., Irizarry, J. G., Pedro, T. S., Wong, C., Peña, C., Ladson-Billings, G., Haupt, A., Rosa, J., Flores, N., Lee, S. J., González, N., Gutiérrez, K. D., … Lee, C. D. (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a Changing World. Teachers College Press.

Yosso, T. J. (2006). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth, Race Ethnicity and Education. Critical Race Theory in Education, 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006

  

 Created by Ryan McBride, Graduate Assistant and Lead Student Partner in Teaching in collaboration with Alyssa G. Cavazos, Associate Professor and CTE Director, as part of the SaLT HSI program’s collaboration with the Title V grant, Puentes: A Cultural Wealth Model for Student Success.