Culturally relevant pedagogy: ingredients for critical teacher reflection

Theory Into Practice, Summer, 2003 by Tyrone C. Howard

Teacher reflection continues to be part of the teacher education literature. More recently, critical reflection has been recommended as a means of incorporating issues of equity and social justice into teaching thinking and practice. This article offers critical reflection as a prelude to creating culturally relevant teaching strategies. The author outlines theoretical and practical consideration for critical reflection and culturally relevant teaching for teacher education. The author argues that the development of culturally relevant teaching strategies is contingent upon critical reflection about race and culture of teachers and their students.

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AS THE UNITED STATES ENDURES its largest influx of immigrants, along with the increasing number of U.S.-born ethnic minorities, the nation must be prepared to make the necessary adjustments to face the changing ethnic texture of its citizens (Banks, 2001). The shift in ethnic demographics has important implications for schools and, more importantly, classroom teachers. While students of color currently comprise approximately one third of the U.S. school population, the U.S. Department of Commerce (1996) projects that by the year 2050 African American, Asian American, and Latino students will constitute close to 57% of all U.S. students.

As educators address the demographic divide (Gay & Howard, 2001), teachers must face the reality that they will continue to come into contact with students whose cultural, ethnic, linguistic, racial, and social class backgrounds differ from their own. In short, U.S. schools will continue to become learning spaces where an increasingly homogeneous teaching population (mostly White, female, and middle class) will come into contact with an increasingly heterogeneous student population (primarily students of color, and from low-income backgrounds). Thus, teacher educators must reconceptualize the manner in which new teachers are prepared, and provide them with the skills and knowledge that will be best suited for effectively educating today's diverse student population.

In order to provide more meaningful knowledge and skills for teaching in today's cultural context, teacher educators must be able to help preservice teachers critically analyze important issues such as race, ethnicity, and culture, and recognize how these important concepts shape the learning experience for many students. More specifically, teachers must be able to construct pedagogical practices that have relevance and meaning to students' social and cultural realities. The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of critical teacher reflection as a tool for creating culturally relevant teaching practices.

Culturally relevant pedagogy has been described by a number of researchers as an effective means of meeting the academic and social needs of culturally diverse students (Gay, 2000; Howard, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Shade, Kelly, & Oberg, 1997). Gay (2000) asserts that culturally relevant pedagogy uses "the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning more relevant to and effective [for students].... It teaches to and through strengths of these students. It is culturally validating and affirming" (p. 29). An additional, and some would argue the most important, goal of culturally relevant pedagogy is to increase the academic achievement of culturally diverse students.

This article is concerned with ways that teacher educators can equip preservice teachers with the necessary skills to critically reflect on their own racial and cultural identities and to recognize how these identities coexist with the cultural compositions of their students. Three central ideas will be examine in the article. In the first section, I will examine why race and culture are important concepts in teaching and learning. The increasing degree of racial homogeneity among teachers and heterogeneity among students carries important implications for all educators. The second section will detail why critical teacher reflection is important in developing culturally relevant pedagogy. The racial and cultural incongruence between teachers and students merits ongoing discussion, reflection, and analysis of racial identities on behalf of teachers, and is critical in developing a culturally relevant pedagogy for diverse learners. The final section offers solutions and skills that can be utilized by teachers and teacher educators to conduct the critical type of reflection that may help teachers effectively develop and use culturally relevant pedagogical practices with students from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Why Does Race Matter? And What Does It Have to Do With Teaching?

Race has been, and remains, one of the more intriguing paradoxes of U.S. society. As a nation, the United States has explicitly and implicitly subscribed to racial hierarchies for the past four centuries (Horsman, 1981; Omi & Winant, 1986). DuBois (1903) notion that the preeminent problem of the 20th century would be the color line continues to ring true even louder in the 21st century. An examination of school achievement along racial lines underscores clear racial divisions about who is benefiting from school and who is not. Take for example the case of African American and Latino students. The two groups constitute the largest ethnic minority groups in U.S. schools. Yet the academic underachievement of many African American and Latino students has been abysmal for decades. Academically, a majority of African American students lag behind grade-level competence in core subject areas such as reading, math, science, and social studies (NCES, 1998, 2000). Latino students fare slightly better than African American students, but they have an unacceptable dropout rate that has remained near 30% over the past three decades and shows, no sign of improving (NCES, 1998, 2000).