The authors examined the effects of a culturally responsive teacher' s pedagogy on urban low-income African American and Latino high school students' interpretations of racial diversity, racism, and individual and collective agency in U. S. history. The authors found that students incorporated instruction about the diversity and agency of people of color and the changing forms and complexity of racism in U. S. history. Students were less responsive to instruction about the diversity of white people’s historical experiences and particularly their roles as an oppressed group or as members of anti-racist movements. They also had difficulty conceptualizing the difficulty or “long arm ” of change in history. The authors conclude by speculating on the potential and constraints of culturally responsive teaching, as well as areas for further research.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AshbyR.LeeP.&J.ShemilD. (2005). Putting principles into practice: Teaching and practice. In Donovan.M. S. & Bransford.J. D. (Eds).How students learn: History in the classroom. Washington, DC: National Acadamies Press.
2.
BanksJ. (2006). Democracy, diversity and social justice: Educating citizens for the public interest in a global age. In Ladson-BillingsG., & TateW. F. (Eds.), Education research in the public interest: Social justice, action, and policy. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
3.
BanksJ. A. (2007). Educating citizens for a multicultural society. New York: Teachers College Press.
4.
BartonK. (2003). A sociocultural perspective on children’s understanding of historical change: Comparative findings from Northern Ireland and the United States. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 881-913.
5.
BartonK. & McCullyA. W. (2005). History, identity, and the school curriculum in Northern Ireland: An empirical study of secondary students’ ideas and perspectives. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37, 85-116.
6.
BartonK. C. & LevstikL. S. (1998). “It wasn’t a good part of history”: National identity and students’ explanations of historical significance. Teachers College Record, 99 (3), 478-513.
7.
BolgatzJ. (2005). Talking race in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.
8.
BranchA. J. (2003). A look at race in the National Standards for the Social Studies: Another bad check. In Ladson-BillingsG. (Ed.) , Critical Race Theory Perspectives on the Social Studies (pp. 99-120). Greenwich, Ct: IAP.
9.
BrophyJ. (1999). Elementary students learn about Native Americans: The development of empathy. Social Education, 63, 39-45.
10.
BrownC. S. (2002). Refusing racism: White allies and the struggle for civil rights. New York: Teachers College Press.
11.
EpsteinT. (2000). Adolescents’ perspectives on racial diversity in United States history: Case studies from an urban classroom. American Educational Research Journal, 37, 185-214.
12.
EpsteinT. (2009). Interpreting national history: Race, identity and pedagogy in classrooms and communites. New York: Routledge Press.
13.
FineM. (1993). You can' t just say that the only ones who can speak are those who agree with your position": Political discourse in the classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 63, 412-33.
14.
GayG. (2002). Preparing for culturally relevant teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53, 106-116.
15.
GrantS. G. (2003). History lessons: Teaching, learning, and testing in U. S. high school classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
16.
GutierrezC. (2000). Making connections: The interdisciplinary community of teaching and learning history. In SteamsP., SeixasP. & WineburgS. (Eds.)Knowing, teaching, and learning history: National and international perspectives. New York: New York University Press.
17.
HessD. (2009). Controversy in the classroom: The democratic power of disucssion. New York: Routledge Press.
18.
HowardT. (2004). Docs race really matter? Secondary students’ constructions of racial dialogue in the social studies. Theory and Research in Social Education, 32, 484-502.
19.
IrvineJ. (2008). Reclaiming culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy: Historical dimensions and future directions. Paper presented at the American Educational Rescach Association annual meeting.
20.
JacobsonM. (1998). Whiteness of a different color: European immigrants and the alchemy of race. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
21.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1994). Dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
22.
Ladson-BillingsG. (Ed.) (2003). Critical race theory perspectives on the social studies: The profession, policies, and curriculum. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
LeeP. J. (2005). Putting principles into practice: Understanding history. In DonovanM. S. & BransfordJ. D. (Eds).How students learn: History in the classroom. Washington, DC: National Acadamics Press.
25.
LeeP. J. & AshbyR. (2000). Progression in historical understanding among students ages7-14. In SteamsP. N., SeixasP., and WineburgS. (Eds). Knowing, teaching and learning history: National and international perspectives. New York: NYU Press.
26.
LevstikL. S. (2000). Articulating the silences: Teachers’ and adolescents’ conceptions of historical significance. In SteamsP., SeixasP. & WineburgS. (Eds). Knowing, teaching and learning history: International and international perspectives. New York: NYU Press.
27.
LevstikL. S. & GrothJ. (2006). “Ruled by our own people”: Ghanaian adolescents’ conceptions of citizenship. Teachers College Record, 107, 563-586.
28.
LoewenJ. (2007). Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong. New York, NY: Touchstone Books.
29.
MarriA. (2005). Building a framework for classroom-based multicultural democratic education (CMDE): Learning from three skilled teachers. Teachers College Record, 104, 1036-1059.
30.
NewmannF. (1990). Higher order thinking in teaching social studies: A rationale for the assessment of classroom thoughtfulness. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 22, 41-56.
31.
OmiM. & WinantH. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Taylor & Francis Publishers.
32.
RubinB. (2007). ‘There’s still no justice’: Youth civic identity and development amid distinct school and community contexts. Teachers College Record, 2, 449-81.
33.
ShropshireS. Y. (1999). Including diverse perspectives in the history curriculum. In HollinsE. R., & OliverE. I. (Eds.), Pathways to sucess in school (pp. 125 - 138). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Assoc.
34.
SuD. W. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life: Race, gender and sexual orientation. New York: Wiley and Sons.
35.
TatumB. D. (2008). Can we talk about race? And other conversations in an era of school resegregation. New York: Beacon Press.
WillsJ. (1994). Popular culture, curriculum and historical representation: The situation of Native Americans in U. S. history and the perpetuation of stereotypes. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 4, 277-294.
38.
WillsJ. (1996). Who needs multicultural education? White students, U. S. history and the construction of a usable past. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 27, 365-389.
39.
WillsJ., LintzA., &MehanH. (2004). Ethnographic studies of multicultural education in U. S. classrooms and schools. In BanksJ. A. (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education. 2nd Edition. New York: Macmillan.
YeagerE., FosterS. & GreerJ. (2002). How eighth graders in England and the United States view historical significance. Elementary School Journal, 103, 199-219.
42.
YeagerE. & TerzianS. (2007). “That’s when we became a nation”: Urban Latino adolescents and the designation of historical significance. Urban Education, 42, 52-81.
