Looking Back to Move Forward: Exploring Urban Secondary Education Teacher Perceptions of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Abstract

This study draws on Gloria Ladson-Billings’ theory of culturally relevant pedagogy to explore how faculty at a private, Catholic, low-income serving, secondary school translated this theory into practice. Through a three-part action research methodology, the authors sought to answer two primary questions: How indicative are annual plans of culturally relevant pedagogy? How is culturally relevant pedagogy reflected in instructional practice? The data revealed faculty were not uniformly aware of the meaning or implications of culture nor culturally relevant pedagogy and incorporated such fractured knowledge into their annual plans to a limited degree, if at all. When those practices took place, they were often precipitated by student requests and linked directly with specific events in students’ lives in or outside the school environment. Additionally, faculty did not express a strong association between school-wide initiatives that were meant to be culturally relevant and the pedagogical work conducted in their classes. Further, Faculty of Color exhibited a greater level of critical consciousness and enumerated significantly more examples of cultural work than White faculty. Recommendations are made for additional research as well as targeted professional development, changes in staff learning practices, and fairer distributions of cultural work across faculty.