A Multilevel Framework of Racism as a Barrier to Teachers’ Implementation of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Abstract

Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP; e.g., Ladson-Billings, 1995) is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to serve culturally and linguistically diverse student learners. Although a large body of work describes its tenets and permutations, and its implications for students, less work has been done to outline the myriad barriers that teachers face when trying to implement CRP. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a race-conscious, multilevel, ecological framework to illuminate the societal, institutional, and individual obstacles that teachers must navigate in the pursuit of CRP. Implications for teacher training and development are discussed.

Black Educators’ Racial Identity Attitudes and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Psychological Framework and Survey of Within-Race Diversity

“…Additionally, it is possible that resources offered through Title I enable Black educators who desire to be more culturally responsive. Nevertheless, due to hostilities locally and nationally, Black and other educators of color are often constrained in their abilities to fully exercise their attitudes and beliefs in practice (e.g., Paga ´n, 2022). Such misalignment between one's belief systems and affordances of school environments is a heightened concern in education that threatens retention of exemplary Black educators, who disproportionately experience racial (Pizarro & Kohli, 2020) and gendered racial battle fatigue (Carter-Andrews, 2015).…”

Towards justice-oriented science teaching: examining the impact of the science capital teaching approach on teachers

“…Yet the literature also highlights that justice-oriented pedagogies take time to be fully embedded into practice, and thus any measurement of change is difficult to obtain (Romijn et al, 2021). Moreover, as Pagán (2022) has argued, the sustainable enactment of justice-oriented approaches, more particularly, often encounters both structural and individual barriers. The actions identified by Debnam et al (2023) and Kolovou (2023), in the context of straddling the line between common and justice-oriented practices, resonate with our own work investigating equitable practice in science education.…”

“…The parallel exploration of power at societal and classroom level is crucial in the enactment of justice-oriented teaching, yet it can feel overwhelming for teachers. As pointed out by Pagán (2022), there is a need to consider larger societal barriers within which schools and teachers work to fully explore the potential of justice-oriented pedagogies. We can see these tensions coming up within our data, where teachers encounter larger issues of redistribution and inequalities within the system.…”