Culture, Relevance, and Schooling: Exploring Uncommon Ground

Culture, Relevance, and Schooling Exploring Uncommon Ground

Edited by Lisa Scherff and Karen Spector

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD EDUCATION

A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

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Published by Rowman & Littlefield Education A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.rowmaneducation.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Scherff and Karen Spector All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scherff, Lisa, 1968Culture, relevance, and schooling : exploring uncommon ground / Lisa Scherff and Karen Spector. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60709-888-1 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60709-889-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60709-890-4 (electronic) 1. Education—Social aspects—United States. 2. Education—Parent participation— United States. 3. Critical pedagogy—United States. I. Spector, Karen. II. Title. LC191.4.S34 2011 306.430973—dc22 2010043443 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

Foreword The Legitimacy of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Resolved or Unresolved Alfred W. Tatum Acknowledgments

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Introduction Spatial, Discursive, and Embodied Borders Karen Spector and Lisa Scherff Vignette Making Culture Visible through Experience and Understanding Kenan L. Metzger 1

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Collective Cultural Relevancy through Hybrid Communities of Practice Angela Calabrese Barton and Corey Drake

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Seeing Relevance: Using Photography to Understand How School, Curricula, and Pedagogies Matter to Urban Youth Kristien Zenkov

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Expanding Notions of Culturally Responsive Education with Urban Native Youth: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for Equity and Social Justice Dorothy E. Aguilera-Black Bear

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Weaving Spiritualities into Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Nadjwa E. L. Norton

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Staying Fat: Moving Past the Exercise-Industrial-Complex Joshua I. Newman, Carolyn Albright, and Ryan King-White

65 85 103

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Putting “Culturally Relevant” into Professional Development Charnita V. West

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Overcoming (Under)Lying Assumptions: Approaching Language Education from a Freirean Perspective Miguel Mantero

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Index

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About the Editors

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About the Contributors

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Foreword The Legitimacy of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Resolved or Unresolved Alfred W. Tatum, University of Illinois at Chicago

I penned the following poem on a Sunday evening following a dinner conversation during which I was asked to generate an oral script to convince teachers that having students write for their lives is a legitimate educational practice. I refused to provide a script devoid of urgency and connected to the status quo. Instead, I wrote Its odd shape stared at me Seeming bothered by my troubled stance And strange position In a place reserved for rocks and losers I was out of place for sure Not knowing exactly how I ended up here But the rock tempted me to talk Sharing a conversation reserved for a gOD I had long since abandoned Silly I know, but the rock opened its mouth And asked, “What?” I kneeled beside it and whispered my most sacred thoughts “I am scared to go on.” “Too weak to surrender.” “Can you help me?” That damn rock just stared at me For six hours and fourteen minutes Until the sun went down I walked out of the desert never to return With a rock that forced me to listen to my own voice Renewed with a vision to find all that was lost (“The Desert Rock”) v

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Reading the chapters in this volume reminded me of this poem and the need for an unwavering commitment to protect the rights of children and expand the vision of educators to embrace some form of pedagogy that yields the most promising outcomes and addresses the nation’s most urgent needs. What is less clear are the conversations and necessary action steps required to move these pedagogies from the margins to a deep anchoring that governs teaching, professional development, school/parent/community relationships, and other educational-related practices. Particularly striking was the breadth of the issues in this volume and their associated framings within culturally relevant practices. Topics of discussion include culturally relevant, “border” kinesiology, theoretical forms of culturally relevant pedagogy, the relevance of spirituality, the use of visual media, culturally relevant professional development, hybrid communities of practice where “collective culturally relevant pedagogy” is performed by teachers and parents, and responsive education with urban, native youth. While some chapters seem more urgent than others in terms of the immediate need to address socially important issues, other chapters seem to argue against a “pedagogical paralysis” that traps schooling within age-old practices or modern-day limitations propagated by policy dictates. Briefly, I want to address three broad questions that emerged as I read the chapters: 1. What is the legitimacy of culturally relevant pedagogy? 2. What are the challenges and dilemmas of culturally relevant pedagogy? 3. What remains elusive about culturally relevant pedagogy? It is important to note that I have framed my research and advocacy over the past 14 years on instructional, curricular, and cultural-ecological variables that speak to the educational needs of students from multiple contexts (Tatum 2000, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009). More recently, I have become concerned about feelings of learned powerlessness by administrators and teachers who are responsible for providing a high-quality education to students of color, namely the students struggling to navigate schools, and in some cases, struggling to navigate tenuous life experiences precipitated by a wide range of factors that include, but are not limited to, poverty, community destabilization, limited English proficiency in predominantly English-speaking environments, and single-parent rearing. These feelings of learned powerlessness, as I have stated elsewhere (Tatum 2009), are connected to the following:

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1. Educators not fully understanding the continually shifting experiences of students of color in the United States and how to respond to these shifts within schools ruled by stifling educational mandates and age-old traditions of curriculum. 2. Educators not understanding or accepting historical forces and the residual effects of race-based disenfranchisement and oppression and the intentional suppression of identities of people of color perpetuated by White hegemonic practices inside and outside of schools. 3. Educators not understanding shifting educational policy mandates and the resulting destabilization of many urban and rural centers. 4. Educators not being aware of educational practices that have been, and continue to be, effective with students of color. As a result, many attempts by educators to advance the educational needs of students of color have taken the “usual path,” that is, using pedagogical practices that have failed to close the gaps between academic high performance and academic low performance on standardized and informal measures. In short, educational practices have been woefully inadequate for many students of color and White students. The inadequacies are painfully clear when examining disparities in ACT and SAT scores, the attainment of bachelor’s degrees from U.S. colleges and universities among the ethnic groups, housing patterns, high school dropout rates, poverty rates, and incarceration rates among African Americans, American Indians, Latinos, and other ethnic groups. The usual path’s approach, although well intentioned, has suffered from underestimation and oversimplification in at least three major areas: 1. Pedagogy is rooted in the idea that all children are the same with a failure to accept that all children are not the same and do not receive the same treatment in schools. 2. Undergraduate and graduate education programs do not sufficiently prepare administrators and teachers to understand the interdisciplinary nature of providing a legitimate education for students of color with the pedagogical know-how to avoid failing larger numbers of students of color. 3. The language used to discuss the education of students of color often ignores the broader context of their lives. For example, the field of reading is trapped behind productive catchphrases that function as politically expedient clarion calls. Phrases such as “every teacher is a reading teacher,” “close the racial reading achievement gap,” and “no child left behind” are often used; however, pessimism related to teaching many students of

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color, namely African American and Latino children—the largest subgroups of students of color in U.S. schools—continues to grow despite the prevalent use of these catchphrases.

LAYING OUT THE LANDSCAPE Three major trends shape the landscape for a needed culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). They are (1) the rapidly and continually shifting demographics in the United States, (2) an ahistorical approach to education that fails to pay attention to the rich historical precedent that exists for educating peoples of color, and (3) the difficulties of penetrating educational policy in ways that yield serious, systematic efforts for advancing the education of students of color who enter schools wrapped in their cultural and linguistic cloths. The outcome of not addressing these trends is an educational system in the United States that remains steeped in a Westernized tradition and an overreliance of scholarship conducted and informed by a Westernized tradition. This steeping and overreliance contribute to a de-racialized, de-languaged, de-ethnicized, de-genderized, de-sexualized, and a de-legitimate view of education for students who enter educational spaces with their multiple identities. The demography of the United States continues to change. We now live in a nation with more than 29 million foreign-born citizens. In 2006, 12.5 percent of the U.S. population was foreign born compared to 6.2 percent in 1980. Eighteen states have a population of more than 10 percent of foreignborn citizens. This compares to only five states in 1990. California, the state with the largest foreign-born population, is at 27 percent, with more than 9.9 million foreign-born residents. Hispanics and Latinos continue to be the fastest growing population. The Hispanic and Latino population grew 53 percent between 1980 and 1990 and another 58 percent between 2000 and 2009. Between 1980 and 2006, the number of Hispanics nearly tripled growing from 14.6 million to 43.2 million. African Americans and Latinos are now 27.9 percent of the U.S. population representing more than one-quarter of the total population. With more than 55 million students enrolled in public and private schools in the United States and 3.3 million teachers, it is inconceivable that any approach to education that fails to account for cultural, historical, linguistic, sociological, and psychological factors of the students will be effective. A failure to become astute about these factors and how they impact educational outcomes becomes inimical not only to students of color, but to the nation and our national imagination as a whole.

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THE LEGITIMACY OF CULTURAL RESPONSIVE PEDAGOGY What makes pedagogy legitimate? To answer this question, I borrow from Hilliard (1998), who characterizes a legitimate education as one in which teachers 1. 2. 3. 4.

Expect and demand excellence from children. Conceptualize education as an indispensable prerequisite for liberation. Engage students in a reawakening that focuses on deep thought. Shape an agenda for transformation, self-acceptance, and self-determination.

These historical orientations of a legitimate education, in this case for children of African descent, stand in stark contrast to modern-day iterations of educational outcomes that focus on efficiency characterized by meeting national norms or education standards devoid of cultural significance and meaning. Efficiency ⫽ legitimacy. Many traditional educators question efficiency whereas culturally relevant educators question legitimacy. The authors of the manuscripts provide strong foundational knowledge and theoretical knowledge for CRP. It becomes clear from the chapters that 1. Learners view themselves as powerful or powerless according to how they are positioned in the classrooms by the instructors and their peers. 2. Teachers’ beliefs and approaches distinctly shape the identities of students. 3. Identities of students come to life as they are involved in meaning-driven discourse in authentic contexts. 4. Using students’ and families’ sociocultural histories and cultural resources will empower them to negotiate educational contexts. 5. Focusing on a critical social consciousness will lead students to see the importance of traditional academic achievement. One of the major challenges for proponents of culturally relevant pedagogy is providing more illustrative examples to penetrate the educational discourse and interrupt the status quo. These chapters make a positive step in that direction.

CHALLENGES AND DILEMMAS OF CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY The authors provide a host of challenges for a culturally relevant pedagogy. The challenges, writ large, are ones that require some form of reconciliation, both practical and intellectual. It becomes clear from reading the chapters that

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the following have to be reconciled by policy makers, teachers, and administrators across PreK–20 environments: 1. How to situate lessons and students 2. How to increase knowledge and experience of preservice and in-service teachers and their conceptions of teaching students of color 3. How to balance the teaching of specific content while acknowledging and embracing students’ out-of-school lives and experiences 4. How to bridge the gap between teacher education programs and classroom teaching 5. How to wrestle with the ambiguity of immediate student academic outcomes and larger issues of equity, social justice, and critical consciousness 6. How to shape pedagogy that disrupts the status quo 7. How to move beyond deeply held viewpoints of inferiority for students of color, particularly of African American, Latino, and Native American children 8. How to become courageous and push against stifling currents in educational environments supported and mandated by school, district, local, state, and national policies. Those who have been successful with a CRP, as evidenced by each chapter, have identified ways or enacted approaches to establish trusting relationships with students, parents, and teachers; embraced and become sufficiently rooted in community contexts, adopting a courageous stance; developed intellectual capacity through ongoing study and reflection; accepted their culpability for the lives of students of color; and written candidly and responsibly to advocate for shifting paradigms and shaping an empowering ethos. Still, much remains elusive about CRP. ELUSIVE DIMENSIONS OF CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY Using CRP to disrupt the status quo can be characterized as a challenge and something that remains elusive. Likewise, there are other dimensions of culturally relevant pedagogy that remain elusive. Is CRP an issue of quality or access? Is there a threshold? Is there a developmental pathway for CRP or developmental stages of CRP? How much do new teachers need to know to enact a CRP? What do teacher educators need to know and do to support CRP? How do other disciplines inform CRP? How do we measure transformation, a concept often associated with CRP? Is CRP enough to counter some of the sociological, economic, psychological, biological, and personal

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entanglements of individuals and groups, entanglements engendered by racialized, genderized, and politicized backdrops in the United States? These are fair questions to ask. Asking the questions should not interrupt our teaching and research efforts to shape a pedagogy that pays attentions to students’ lives. We need to continue to think deeply about how healing, metaphorically speaking, manifests itself across educational contexts. Two of the authors in this volume mentioned that the phrase “culturally relevant pedagogy” has become archived in the educational canon. It may have been archived prematurely. It becomes obvious to the readers that CRP is still expanding to include a wider range of educational issues. While some dimensions of CRP have been resolved, there is a lot that is unresolved. The unresolved makes it difficult to penetrate educational policy, the most elusive dimension of CRP. Until the penetration occurs on a large scale, a penetration that I believe is warranted, I agree with several of the authors that this is a time for pedagogy strengthened by courage, not weakened by complacency. We must learn to listen to our own voices in hopes of finding that which has been lost and move forward with a vision to identify that which allows us to have an unwavering commitment to embrace pedagogical practices aimed to protect the rights of students and educators without apology. These chapters move us in that direction.

REFERENCES Hilliard, A. (1998). SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind. Gainesville, FL: Makare. Tatum, A. W. (2000). “Breaking Down Barriers That Disenfranchise African American Adolescent Readers in Low-Level Tracks.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44(1), 52–64. ———. (2005). Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap. Portland, ME: Stenhouse. ———. (2006). “Adolescents’ Multiple Identities and Teacher Professional Development.” In D. Alvermann, K. Hinchman, D. Moore, S. Phelps, & D. Waff (eds.), Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives II (pp. 65–79). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. ———. (2008). “Toward a More Anatomically Complete Model of Literacy Instruction: A Focus on African American Male Adolescents and Texts.” Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 155–80. ———. (2009). Reading for Their Life: (Re)Building the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful for the support of family, friends, and colleagues during the process of conducting our research and then editing this book. As with all of our scholarly endeavors, our voices in this text have been shaped and reshaped by fleeting contacts with others and by the long-term relationships that have, throughout the years, left their indelible marks on our thinking. We also wish to gratefully acknowledge the work of the chapter, vignette, and foreword authors who contributed to this volume. We know our readers will find your work useful and generative. We reserve our deepest gratitude for the students at North End High School who have taught us so much about pedagogy during the brief time our pathways crossed. Without them, this book would never have come to be. L. S. and K. S. Tuscaloosa

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Introduction Spatial, Discursive, and Embodied Borders Karen Spector and Lisa Scherff, University of Alabama

In Culture, Relevance, and Schooling we’ve brought together a series of chapters that conceive of culturally relevant and critically minded pedagogies in terms of opening up new spatial, discursive, and/or embodied learning terrains. As you read you will traverse multiple landscapes in pursuit of these spaces that tear down or build up pedagogical borders in productive and socially just ways. As Robert Frost (1919) wrote in “Mending Wall,” there is something in nature that “doesn’t love a wall” (line 1). Nature, the speaker of the poem suggests, rises up by way of frozen ground swells to dislodge stones that make up walls, allowing people to pass freely. Or hunters and their dogs come along to topple the stones as they single-mindedly pursue their prey, creating a more open field for dog and hunter and prey. Forces work to break down walls, and the speaker of the poem and his neighbor meet each spring to set the stones aright between them once again, the neighbor saying, “Good fences make good neighbors” (line 40). Frost’s fence metaphors may not be the most fitting for describing pedagogical practices, but the plea of the poem is apropos to this volume: “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out,/And to whom I was like to give offence” (lines 31–33)? Each of the chapters in this volume does some “walling in,” or depending upon how you look at it, some “walling out,” and in the end we are left to consider who is empowered by the building up or tearing down of walls, who likely to take offense?

RECONFIGURING BORDERS THROUGH THIRD SPACES Moje et al. (2004) argue for a “strategic integration” of various knowledges as a mechanism for creating new socially just terrain. They call for a “‘third 1

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space’ that merges the ‘first space’ of people’s home, community, and peer networks with the ‘second space’ of the Discourses they encounter in more formalized institutions such as work, school, and church” (p. 41). Moje et al. (2004) present three theoretical orientations toward hybrid or third spaces in their article, and we briefly sketch them out in the paragraphs that follow. First, Soja (1996) argues for a “thirdspace” that is not simply the middle of two poles—home and school—but a leaky space that spills over into neighboring territory and welcomes overflow from adjacent domains. Soja’s spatial metaphor is played out as we find ourselves at once sitting in our dens with our loved ones close by while simultaneously being present half way around the world via Skype discussing current work projects. This spatial metaphor is fitting for considering each chapter in the present volume. The teacher-parent collaborative space discussed in Barton and Drake’s chapter, for example, creates porous classroom walls in which knowledges, identities, and resources freely pass back and forth, mutually informing and building up one another. Writing about postcolonial scholar Bhaba’s (1994) conception of third space, Moje et al. (2004) state that it “evokes a sense of instability of signs and symbols, a challenge to dominant conceptions of the ‘unity and fixity’” (p. 37) of culture and language. Each of the chapters in this volume can also be read productively through this primarily discursive definition of third space. For example, in Nadjwa Norton’s chapter regarding spiritualities in the classroom, she widens what counts as culture within school settings by challenging the dominant view that spirituality has no place in public school classrooms. Finally, Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, Alvarez, and Chiu (1999) argue that third space is the “meditational context and tools necessary for future social and cognitive [and bodily] development” (p. 92). We see in this metaphor a mixture of the spatial, discursive, and embodied dimensions of third space. Each chapter in Culture, Relevance, and Schooling can be read productively through this lens as well. For example, Newman, Albright, and King-White in their chapter “Staying Fat” argue that neoliberal discourses of consumption fueled by market ideologies depend upon the “obese body” for their livelihood. The authors argue: By becoming critically conscious of differences in ways of being, thinking, knowing, and consuming—and how they are related to the socio-political regimes currently holding sway in the contemporary moment—perhaps we can start to actually do “something” about “fatness” and obesity. (p. 118)

Thus it is through hybrid and third spaces that new insights and transformed traditions can take hold, setting up new and provisional fences that will themselves, in due course, be dismantled and reconstructed.

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AN OVERVIEW OF THE TEXT Our volume opens with a personal vignette by Kenan Metzger, who, through a series of glimpses into the educational spaces of his life, introduces us to the borders he’s crossed over the last 30 years, from alternative schools in the 1970s, to dropping out of high school, to becoming a teacher and eventually a teacher educator. He learned that “Culture is a communal experience not based on some universal notion of a particular ethnic group,” but on specific life experiences (p. 3). In chapter 1, “Collective Cultural Relevancy through Hybrid Communities of Practice,” Angela Calabrese Barton and Corey Drake explore a TeacherParent Collaborative Community (TE-PAC2), through a series of vignettes centering on the creation and implementation of an elementary science life cycle unit. The third spaces created through parent and teacher collaboration allowed participants to “try out new identities, new practices, and new possibilities” (p. 33). Kristien Zenkov’s (chapter 2) “Seeing Relevance: Using Photography to Understand How School, Curricula, and Pedagogies Matter to Urban Youth” argues that questions of cultural relevance are productively answered by secondary students themselves. Using student photographs and reflective writings, Zenkov presents five broad themes related to how students see school relevance: “1) the real ‘real world’; 2) roles and role models; 3) structures serving youth and families; 4) relationships with teachers and community members; and 5) processes rooted in ongoing youth-directed visual inquiries” (p. 42). In “Expanding Notions of Culturally Responsive Education with Urban Native Youth: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for Equity and Social Justice” (chapter 3), Dorothy E. Aguilera-Black Bear argues for the creation of “intellectual spaces” in which teachers and “Native youth” might critically consider and collectively act to “maintain their values, cultural traditions, and identity by negotiating culture and power systems” (p. 74). Nadjwa Norton in chapter 4 argues for broadening the concept of “culture” in culturally responsive pedagogical practice to include the frequently overlooked category of spirituality, which is “ shaped by worldviews, which in turn shape masses of people, their understandings, and their actions” (p. 85). She presents her research with elementary school students who “name themselves as spiritual beings and read everyday texts through spiritual lenses” (p. 86). The roads to obesity studies are paved in gold. In the fifth chapter, “Staying Fat: Moving Past the Exercise-Industrial-Complex,” Joshua Newman, Carolyn Albright, and Ryan King-White, explore the shift in academia from

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Physical Education as a discipline that focused on the active body to Kinesiology as a lucrative discipline more interested in the “the increasingly sedentary and obese body” (p. 103). They argue for a radically re-conceived kinesiology that is a “more critically-inclined, socially-aware, and culturally-relevant pedagogical space in which students might become ‘border crossers’—and in so doing fashion new formations of knowledge that bring about sociallyrelevant change (Giroux 1992)” (p. 104). Charnita West opens up new terrain in chapter 6, “Putting ‘Culturally Relevant’ into Professional Development.” West demonstrates how teacher professional development can be productively viewed as a site “sensitive to educators’ needs as adult learners” (p. 129) and discusses her five-prong model of Culturally Relevant Professional Development (CRPD): 1) creating a suitable organization and structure; 2) developing trust; 3) welcoming non-standard language practices; 4) recognizing a variety of cultures; and 5) seeking commitment to professional learning activities. In the final chapter, “Overcoming (Under)Lying Assumptions: Approaching Language Education from a Freirean Perspective,” Miguel Mantero reveals false assumptions about English language learners and underscores the need for pedagogical spaces that embrace Freirean concepts of “hope, love, faith, humility, mutual trust, and critical thinking” (p. 141). It is fitting, we believe, that Culture, Relevance, and Schooling ends with a reminder of Freirean liberation centered on hope and faith.

REFERENCES Bhaba, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. New York: Routledge. Frost, R. (1915). “The Mending Wall.” North of Boston. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Retrieved from www.bartleby.com/118/. Gutierrez, K. D., Baquedano-Lopez, P., Alvarez, H., and Chiu, M. M. (1999). Building a culture of collaboration through hybrid language practices. Theory into Practice, 38, 87–93. Moje, E. B., Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K., Ellis, L., Carrillo, R., and Collazo, T. (2004). Working toward third space in content area literacy: An examination of everyday funds of knowledge and Discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(1), 38–70. Soja, E. W. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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Vignette

Making Culture Visible through Experience and Understanding Kenan L. Metzger, Ball State University

My ideas about what culture is and how we negotiate the pedagogical implications of culture have evolved over the last three decades. So I frame my discussion here within the realm of my experiences over the last 30 years with my own culture, particularly in relationship to my educational experiences, as well as in relationship to my own research. So let us begin by looking back at a young man who was bored with school. There was nothing that interested him at the small private high school he was attending. Even though his parents had been selective about sending him to this progressive alternative school where the pedagogical practices were meant to engage students, he found himself lost in the malaise of everyday activities. I begin with this experience because I want to understand the many facets of culture and cultural relevance. Although I was not in an urban district and I was not a “student of color,” I still found little cultural relevance in the pedagogical practices of Loretto High School. This was an alternative school run by the Sisters of Loretto, an order much like the Jesuits, who were very interested in progressive educational ideas and practices. The school was formed on the cusp of the alternative school movement of the 1970s, a time when students had free reign and were allowed to make choices. Much of the assumption was that students, when given the choice, would make the right choice, or at least the choice that was right for them. We had a smoking lounge and open lunch. Many times attendance seemed optional. This story may help us to begin to see how culture is not exclusive to any particular ethnicity or geographical location but is contingent upon experience and context. For example, to say “I am White” seems to mask the true familial and historical context in which I operate. Just because I do not know what my cultural background is does not mean I don’t have one. Therefore, 5

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simply having an open and free environment did not ensure that I would find relevance in my educational experience. So the young man in our story dropped out of high school and went to work. I recently conducted research in Mesa, Arizona, at a high school similar in some ways to the one from which I dropped out. The research concerned the use of young adult literature with Native American themes. Students in this high school did not necessarily see much cultural relevance in the high school curriculum. Local communities have their own distinct culture to which we as educators should pay particular attention. Specifically, students not only need to see their culture acknowledged but can benefit from having their culture included as part of the learning process. In other words, educators should collaborate with the local community when developing curriculum, not only for content but also for how to best structure its delivery. Beyond collaboration with local communities and integration of literature, how can we come to a clearer understanding of what culturally relevant curricula are? Before we examine this, perhaps we ought to return to our young high school dropout. Perhaps not surprisingly, or surprisingly, he became a teacher. He began his career in an urban school and was immediately confronted by a culture completely unfamiliar to him. This young teacher had not yet discovered his own culture and hid behind his “Whiteness” as a shield. His cooperating teacher was an African American woman with very strong beliefs about creating curriculum relevant not only to her largely African American students, but also for her students who were of European descent. The first thing I was asked to teach in this class was the Harlem Renaissance, something of which I was completely unfamiliar. In all my years in school, I had never encountered anything other than what we in English education call the Old Dead White Guys (ODWG). Not that this is not important literature, but it had no relationship to the experience of urban youth I was teaching. In addition, I learned there were thousands of writers, which my education had ignored, who had a wealth of relevant and intriguing literary traditions. I had to do much research and reading to get caught up and spent many hours preparing lessons I believed would draw students into an engagement with texts and with their own lives. In the 16 years since then, I have never looked back and have continued to seek out and teach diverse, multicultural, and relevant literature for my students. But there is something beyond simply selecting multicultural literature. It is about understanding where our students come from, without depending on preconceived notions of contextual circumstances. While collaborating with Dr. James Blasingame at Arizona State University and Andrea Box, a teacher at Westwood High School in Mesa, Arizona,

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I realized positive effects that carefully selected culturally relevant literature had on both Native and non-Native students, as well as pedagogical practices that fostered critical thinking about issues of multicultural education. Two issues have come to the fore in regards to such literature for Native Americans. First, it is paramount that educators select literature that is culturally sensitive and relevant. Second, educators must practice particular pedagogical strategies for using young adult literature with Native American themes with secondary students. The danger in using literature about Native Americans is that authors, through ignorance or neglect, can overlook important cultural aspects of a tribe or worse yet misrepresent such aspects. This can have harmful effects on students, particularly in situations where Native Americans are in a plural environment. More recent young adult literature has suffered in that some authors, mostly non-Natives, have focused on fictionalized accounts of mystical happenings in Native American communities. The first mistake these authors make is to play off the stereotype of the noble savage. Secondly, their narratives tend to be purely historical in nature, playing off the notion of the “vanishing Indian.” These authors do not portray Native Americans in contemporary settings or real-life situations. This is damaging to Native American students, who may come to feel invisible, as if all that exists is a historical Indian or an ethereal image of a medicine man. How do we guard against such harms in our classrooms? First, let us return to our young teacher, now many years later a teacher educator. He still has yet to understand his own culture beyond the mask of Whiteness. Then he attends a family reunion and sees all his German ancestors. They tell stories of how resilient they are, how they work hard, how they care for others around them. This, he realizes, is his culture. But there is a part sometimes hidden. His uncle sends him three thick stacks of genealogical research detailing the family’s Native American heritage. I understood then why I was so drawn to experiences with American Indian friends, why they said things like, “You’re part Indian, and you don’t know it.” This led me to how we can help our students explore their culture, find for ourselves as teachers a way to relate what we are teaching to our students’ lives, and develop culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). We should begin where our students are and help them discover who they are through inquiry. No longer should we accept students saying, “I’m just White. I don’t have a culture.” Nor should we limit our perceptions of culture to race, ethnicity, or geography. Culture is about experiences and community, and therefore CRP begins with understanding what the experiences of our students are like and the communities from which they come.

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8

Vignette

In conversations I had with Westwood High students, they indicated that learning about current events happening in their communities would be important because of the universality of those experiences. They also said that teaching others about their culture in a school setting was valuable because it could lead to a broadening of perspectives and a better understanding among students. Specifically, students said that being able to choose what they read would make them want to read and discuss in class more than being forced to read certain books. Even more specifically, they would be more likely to read books related to their culture than “regular” books. In later conversations I had with students after they had read the books with Native American themes, they began to notice similarities between Native and non-Native cultural experiences. Further, reading multicultural literature led to changes in thinking among the students. They were less racist and more concerned with others’ feelings and able to “step back and see the whole picture.” Another important factor was the teacher. According to the students, she was able to personify the authors’ intentions and showed enthusiasm when reading. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, students began to envision future situations where having read multicultural literature would be beneficial. Students believed reading this literature could lead to less discrimination based on outward appearances and more understanding based on significant cultural experiences and cross-cultural experiences. Survey results prior to the intervention indicated a limited experience with reading books about the students’ own culture. One significant response was very specifically “about the persecution of Native Mayans in Guatemala.” Subsequently, they believed that culture in the literature they read was very important, but that it needed to be specifically relevant, as in “a mixed girl like me, mixed with Native and Black. She’s dark skinned so she’s not accepted on her reservation.” Students noted differences between their home culture and school culture, since the stories they heard at home were more real and meaningful than the curriculum at school. The postintervention survey data were more specific to reading Native American literature. Overwhelmingly, students very much enjoyed reading Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. In particular, they liked how the book portrayed their culture as students struggling to find a better future for themselves so they will not mistakenly fall into their parents’ bad steps. Students did not see their culture as specific tribes portrayed in the literature but did see the larger culture of Native Americans. In addition, students saw a universality of experience in some of the struggles like addiction and poverty. Students believed learning about Native Americans was important not only from an historical perspective,

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since they are “the building blocks of America,” but also because of current events in “the valley” where there are many reservations and many tribes. Finally, students said they would continue to read Native American literature written for high school students, which was relatable and humorous, like Alexie’s book. Preliminary data from the study revealed significant implications not only for further research, but also for pedagogical practices. Students need to read books they enjoy. Students also need to discuss what they read in an interactive social setting. We need to worry less about whether they are reading outside of class and more about how to engage them in class. Students want to choose what they read and have books available that are culturally relevant. This means the culture represented is accurate and from an insider’s view but is current as well as historical. Culture is a communal experience not based on some universal notion of a particular ethnic group but based on a very specific experience. This requires teachers to select well-researched books based as much as possible on the specific communal experiences of their students. As much as possible the community itself needs to have input on the selection of these books. Reading culturally relevant literature can lead to cross-cultural understanding both in the classroom and in future situations students may encounter. Educators need to respect students’ specific cultural experiences as well as their home culture. Privileging school culture over home culture can have detrimental effects. Finally, classroom discussions about culture, race, and lived experiences can lead to a greater understanding of social justice as well as a practice of social justice in our students’ lives both now and in the future. CRP is a powerful tool that can and must be used to literally change the world, as long as we understand that this growth and change can be painful and difficult but well worth it.

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Chapter One

Collective Cultural Relevancy through Hybrid Communities of Practice Angela Calabrese Barton, Michigan State University; Corey Drake, Iowa State University

VIGNETTE: THE LIFE CYCLE OF FRUIT FLIES It was a cold spring afternoon in March, and six parents and teachers at Palmer Elementary School had just finished conducting a set of activities on the life cycle of fruit flies. Their talk turned to some of the lesson adaptations they had discussed the week before—about students taking pictures of the different stages of animals and plants at home and on their way to school as one way to explore life cycles in everyday life. Both parents and teachers had many ideas about where the children might observe life cycles of living things outside of the classroom. In working through these ideas, there seemed to be consensus among the teachers and parents that one potential lesson adaptation they might cocreate would be to design a lesson extension that involved parents and children observing and recording life cycles in their neighborhood together. The children would then bring these observations to school so that life cycle models could be created in class and then compared and contrasted. As the teachers and parents planned this extension, the conversation focused mainly on “how” these life cycles observed in the neighborhood might be recorded, what this might look like, and how the teachers might draw upon the life cycle projects in the classroom. Once the question was raised, Tina (a teacher) spoke first and suggested that the students could bring in life cycle pictures and make a collage that demonstrated life cycles. She suggested that the pictures could be of butterflies, fruit flies, or any other insects that they could think of or see at home. She suggested that children could take pictures 11

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and if families did not have cameras they might have cell phone cameras as “everyone has a cell phone!” Beth, another teacher, supported these ideas and suggested that children could get these pictures from books or the Internet in addition to taking the pictures themselves. Mallory, the lead teacher for the grade, agreed that a variety of media would support more students in finding a range of pictures. Pam, the first parent to speak on the topic, asked what they should do for those students who do not have access to cameras or computers. She suggested that children could also draw their pictures. Reggie, another parent, then suggested that this time of year was perfect for students to draw pictures of “real-life” life cycles because it was springtime and the leaves and flowers were beginning to emerge. Pam readily supported Reggie’s point that these were “real-life” life cycles. She then suggested that with homemade play dough the children could also create life cycle models. The idea of a model caught the teachers’ attention again. Beth spoke up in favor of creating an extension that would push the students to create models, and she even offered to make the play dough at school so that each child could be sent home with some play dough to take that burden off of the parents. Mallory added that each kid could have his or her own life cycle “kit” with play dough and other useful scaffolds, such as an activity sheet. These ideas seemed to bridge the group’s ideas and concerns regarding the lesson adaptation. The conversation then turned to the specifics of making play dough kits.

R

We introduce our chapter with this short vignette because we believe that it illuminates how much teacher learning for constructing culturally relevant science teaching happens through authentic engagement with members of the community and is fostered through what we refer to as a “hybrid” community of practice. In this chapter we tell the story of how this hybrid community of practice formed among teachers and parents in Palmer School, a school that sits on the eastern side of Granite City, an old city beaten down by the downturn of the U.S. auto industry and the economic recession. We also discuss how this hybrid community emerged as a place of transformative engagement where teachers and parents shared resources, discourses, and power, allowing for a more authentic construction of culturally relevant teaching to emerge—one that values and relies upon the multiple linkages between school, community, and home. In other words, we believe that these hybrid communities of practice are places where “collective culturally relevant pedagogy” is performed by teach-

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ers and parents and then translated into classroom use through teacher and parent coauthored curriculum adaptations.

PARENTS AND TEACHERS CONSTRUCTING RELEVANCE TOGETHER National reform-oriented policy documents (see No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; National Research Council 1996) emphasize parental1 involvement in schooling, but traditional forms of involvement tend to consist of activities often peripheral to the teaching and learning of instructional content, such as helping out with lunch or recess. Important exceptions are those studies that have demonstrated the value of parental power in the organization of school mathematics knowledge (Anhalt, Allexsaht-Snider, and Civil 2002; Civil and Bernier 2006). Little has been done to establish how teachers might engage with parents in content-based instruction, particularly in ways that acknowledge the diversity of backgrounds and resources parents bring to the classroom. We, like others, have observed that while the rhetoric of reform—especially from multicultural perspectives—suggests that parents should be closely involved in the reform process, the reality is that parents and teachers alike struggle with how best to bring parents into reform-based instructional and discursive practices (Peressini 1998; Remillard and Jackson 2006). We believe that if teachers are to be successful in engaging parents in support of student learning, then it must happen within the framework of—not peripheral to—content-based instruction. In contrast to traditional understandings of parent involvement, which include parents volunteering in a range of school-defined ways, we define engagement as a dynamic, interactive process in which teachers and parents draw on multiple experiences and resources to define their interactions with one another. In prior research, we developed a model of parental engagement in urban elementary schools, specifically in relation to “what” parents engage in and “how” they do so (Calabrese Barton, Drake, Perez, St. Louis, and George 2004). Parents’ effectiveness in schools is related to where engagement in the curriculum occurs as well as to the resources parents activate to support their children’s schooling. This understanding of parental engagement differs from traditional models because it highlights the importance of space and capital as mediators of parental engagement and positions parents as authors and agents within schools. This last distinction is particularly

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Chapter One

important in low-income urban schools, where parents tend to feel more alienated and with little power. One area of capital exchange that has proven critical is the exchange of resources and understandings related to subject matter knowledge, pedagogy, and goals. Studies of learning in mathematics professional development indicate that teachers increased their communication skills and content understanding when engaged in content learning activities with parents (Civil and Quintos 2002). Likewise, parents who participated in their children’s elementary classrooms reported that talking about teaching, learning, and personal experiences, listening to different perspectives and opinions, and teaching other parents mathematics were rewarding aspects of working in schools (see Jackson and Remillard 2005). Finally, while there has been considerable attention given to teacher subject matter knowledge (see Ball 1993; Hill, Schilling, and Ball 2004), there has been little attention devoted to how teachers develop the particular kinds of knowledge necessary to engage with parents around instructional content. Lee and Bowen (2006) discuss how the link between parental involvement and increases in student achievement might be explained by the capital gained by parents through school involvement; however, little work has explored gains in teachers’ capital that might also contribute to this link, especially when parental engagement is deeply situated in instructional content. It makes sense then that we extend current research to include not just the nature of resources gained by parents but also those resources gained by teachers. Thus, an integral part of our investigation is understanding how teacher knowledge develops to include knowledge about the resources that parents and families offer for a particular content area, the curricular spaces for accessing and building on these resources, and the relationship between these resources and school-based knowledge. We argue that knowing how to relate school-based knowledge to parent “funds of knowledge” is an important component of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (González, Moll, and Amanti 2005).

COLLECTIVE CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY Involving teachers and parents together in discussions on the content of instruction can advance our understanding of what it means to understand and design culturally relevant pedagogy. Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) is “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally,

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and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings 1998, p. 18). From a CRP perspective, central to a teacher’s role in the classroom is creating bridges between students’ home and school lives, while still meeting the expectations of the district and state curricular requirements. CRP has focused on three related goals: to ensure that students have academic success in school subjects, to promote cultural competence, and to help students develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order (Ladson-Billings 1995). Much of the discourse in science education has focused on the role of CRP in providing a crucial bridge to help students “cross over” into the world of science. In other words, CRP plays an important role in providing students from cultural minority backgrounds with opportunities to become aware of the norms and practices of science (or school science) and to learn how they are expected to participate through discourses, ways of knowing, and practices (Fradd and Lee 1999). While there is widespread agreement within the science education community that culturally relevant approaches are important for providing access to the discourses and norms of science, there is less agreement on the role of cultural competence and its place in science learning or the importance or scope of critical consciousness, two of the three goals of critical pedagogy. Without these two goals, CRP becomes only about helping students from outside the mainstream cross over into science—without real consideration for how or why their lives, cultural knowledge, and experience might matter in how they take up science practices and their reasons for doing so. A singular focus on engaging students in CRP in science in order to “enculturate” them into science—even when thoughtfully and carefully conceived to call attention and value to students’ cultural knowledge and experience—is too narrowly trained on the discourses and practices of school science to bring about successful science learning with a critical consciousness and cultural competence. This is where teacher and parent engagement in the content of instruction offers a new lens for the design and enactment of CRP in science (and other school subjects). Moving away from parental involvement (where parents participate in schools on schools’ terms—that is, asking parents to “cross over” into the culture of traditional schooling) and toward parental engagement (where teachers and parents coconstruct new spaces for the voices and experiences of parents to matter in schools) offers new opportunities to understand how and what it means to incorporate cultural competence and critical awareness into CRP.

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In short, teacher and parent engagement offers an innovative framing construct for equity-driven pedagogical studies because it argues for hybrid spaces among teachers and parents. Gutiérrez (2008) suggests that such hybridity is accomplished by a range of “mediating tools” that “privileges and is contingent upon students’ sociohistorical lives, both proximally and distally” (p. 149). In describing hybrid—or third—spaces, Gutiérrez is able to resist the binary between home and school, formal and informal, and pay attention to the “cultural dimensions of learning and development that occur when people, ideas, practices of different communities meet, collide and merge” (2008, p. 150). Hybrid spaces allow one to not only examine how practices travel through contradictory contexts and activities, but also to understand how those practices at once are transformed by those communities and transform communities themselves.

DESIGNING ENGAGEMENT FOR CHANGE Granite City is known across the state for its high levels of unemployment (over 20 percent) and its underfunded and failing schools. Palmer is no exception. The school itself is fairly small, with about 420 students, K–6. Palmer is a Title 1 school and has struggled to meet the annual progress requirements. The tension in the school to be accountable is palpable. A district-appointed “curriculum police officer” can be seen roaming the halls, making unannounced visits to ensure teachers are on the correct subjects and topics. A recent district mandate prohibited interdisciplinary teaching in order to focus students on core (tested) content. Yet the teachers and parents speak fondly of the school and principal. We mention these contextual factors early on because it is precisely this cultural context that makes questions around teacher-parent engagement for cultural relevance particularly important. The teachers in the school are White and from middle class and stable economic backgrounds, while families in the Palmer community are by and large well below the poverty level and from predominantly African American backgrounds. In response to No Child Left Behind mandates regarding academic accountability and parental involvement, the Granite City district recently undertook science reform initiatives that involve the use of reform-based curricular materials along with opportunities to learn about new ways to engage parents in the content of reform.

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When new reform-based curricular materials are adopted, it is common for school districts to support teachers in learning to use these materials through a range of everyday school practices, such as providing common planning periods and coaches or mentor teachers. However, supporting teachers in engaging parents in reform-based curricular materials is not typically a part of everyday schooling (Remillard and Jackson 2006), even though we know that reform-based curricular materials offer potential opportunities for teachers to work with parents on improving student learning (Civil and Bernier 2006). District officials and teachers have been keenly aware of this gap between what schools have historically offered and what new policies demand, and they have sought new ways to support teachers and parents in engaging in the content of reform together. To this end, we have been working with school leaders, teachers, and parents to craft a professional development experience—the Teacher-Parent Collaborative Community (TE-PAC2), which supports teachers and parents in creating new spaces for engaging in reformbased curriculum together. TE-PAC2 brings parents and teachers together to learn about reformminded science instruction in ways that foreground the interplay among curricular spaces, parent/teacher resources, and instructional possibilities. TE-PAC2 involves teachers and parents in a professional development cycle in which they collaborate in school-based learning communities. The purpose for offering TE-PAC2 is to support the generative nature of teacher learning by bringing together teachers and parents to collaborate on addressing issues and barriers to parental engagement within local school contexts. Teacher-parent teams take on two tasks: (1) enhancing curricular knowledge through investigations, adaptations, and enactments of reform-based curricular materials and (2) documenting and reflecting upon their experiences through their own case building and sharing. TE-PAC2 provides teachers and parents with a 12-hour (approximately 15-week) after-school professional development sequence along with classroom support. In this 12-hour cycle, teachers and parents, working together in school-based teams, move through a series of experiences to develop new knowledge and skills. Ideally, for each participating teacher there are two to four participating parents. We view the cyclical process of content and curriculum enhancement, curricular adaptation and enactment, and case building and case sharing as the primary mode of teacher and parent learning and reflective practice. This process supports teachers and parents in deciding what kinds of evidence matter, in reflecting upon multiple interpretations of evidence, and

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Chapter One TE-PAC2 Sessions

Table 1.1. Session

Focus

1

Introductions Peak Science Learning Experiences In and Out of School Overview of Life Cycles Curriculum Unit Teacher/Parent Video Cases Experiencing Life Cycles in School and Home (lesson 1) Seed Dissection (lesson 2) Adapting Lessons Using Parental Expertise Interviewing Each Other Reviewing Adapted Seed Lesson The Life Cycle of Fruit Flies (lessons 3–5, 12) Adapting Fruit Flies Lessons with Parent Activities How Did the Lessons Go This Week?: Stories, Questions, Concerns Transplantation and Biotic Potential (lessons 6–7) Review the Lesson Adaptation Plans Discussed Last Week New Adaptation Ideas How Did the Lessons Go This Week?: Stories, Questions, Concerns Outcomes and Assessments —For Life Cycles Unit —For TE-PAC2 Sessions —MI Benchmarks Learning Goals for Self, Learning Goals for Students Synthesis: Life Cycles Revisited (lessons 8–10) Student and Teacher Products Student Products: Expanding the Digital Storytelling of Life Cycles Teacher Products (A set of parent involvement lessons that go along with the Life Cycles curriculum that can be used by other teachers) Portable Seed Museum Life Cycle Riddle Bag Life Cycle Autobiographies Digital Storytelling Posters

2

3

4

5

6

0

in exploring the nuances of classroom practice and parental engagement. A summary of the six TE-PAC2 sessions discussed in this chapter can be found in table 1.1.

LEARNING TOGETHER: HYBRID COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE Teachers and parents from low-income urban communities are connected through their students and children. However, parents and teachers in urban communities do not necessarily come from the same cultural backgrounds, have the same kinds of experiences in schools, or have the same content-

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related knowledge base. These differences create unique challenges for teachers and parents learning to work together in support of children’s learning. For example, when talking with teachers and parents about potentially becoming involved in TE-PAC2, the purpose for involvement and talk about the program differed among teachers and parents. In our recruiting meeting with the teachers, the conversations tended to focus on the kinds of curricular materials that might be made available for teachers to use in their classrooms and who would recruit the parents and decide what their classroom roles might be. With the parents, the talk tended to focus on whether they could get to the school at the appointed time and if their child’s teacher might value their participation. These concerns make sense for they align with the more traditionally defined teachers’ and parents’ roles within the school setting and with the challenges teachers and parents face in working within the school setting (i.e., gaining access to good curriculum materials, finding time to come to school). In planning TE-PAC2 sessions, we were acutely aware of these differences and wanted to acknowledge the diverse challenges that parents and teachers face in working with one another. At the same time, we desired to work toward building a shared sense of purpose in being together. The Life Cycle vignette presented at the beginning of the chapter, which shows teachers and parents thinking about how to adapt a life cycles unit to incorporate parent expertise and science study at home, took place at the end of the third of six teacher-parent study sessions during the spring term. We believe this vignette captures the complexities of what can happen when teachers and parents come together to study curriculum materials and to design instruction. While the project goal was to provide effective science instruction to teach the content of science, this was not the only goal that mattered to the parent-teacher teams. They were also concerned with the materials that families had access to, the role of life cycles in their families and communities, and how children might represent their understanding of life cycles to members of different communities of practice: teachers, peers, families. In this vignette, we see teachers and parents collaboratively building ideas about instruction, making home-school connections, and posing problems of practice, such as access to resources and the representation of ideas. Tracing the teacher-parent study group over time reveals that in spite of the constraints often felt by teachers and parents to act and talk in more traditionally defined ways, the study group, over time, became a powerful place where teachers and parents began to bridge their experiences and to strengthen their relationships and understandings of each other, to collaboratively define meaningful problems of practice that mattered to both teachers and parents,

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Chapter One

and to take risks with and for each other as they worked together to enact or to perform their own versions of CRP and build meaningful instruction for their children and students. In short, the opening vignette provides a glimpse into how teachers and parents coconstructed a hybrid community of practice for building more culturally relevant approaches to science teaching. What did this hybrid community of practice look like, and how did it promote the development of a culturally relevant approach to teaching life cycles? We begin to address these questions through two additional vignettes: Platform for Transformation and Working toward a Sense of the Possible. In the first vignette we turn back to a lesson planning session that took place before the teachers and parents planned the life cycle unit—when they were first engaging in the science of life cycles themselves by investigating fruit flies after school. We argue that the collective study of fruit flies in their hybrid community of practice was in itself a performance of culturally relevant pedagogy—providing them not only with the content to prepare lessons on life cycles but also with the cultural competence and social awareness to design lessons that were transformative. In the second vignette, we turn forward to what happened after the teachers enacted the life cycles lessons discussed in the opening vignette and how it built on their performances of CRP in the study group. We follow the vignettes with an analysis of how and why these hybrid spaces provided for the performance and design of collective culturally relevant pedagogy.

VIGNETTE 1: PLATFORM FOR TRANSFORMATION: TRYING ON NEW ROLES AND POSITIONS At 4:00 p.m. on a Wednesday in the middle of March, three parents and three teachers were sitting in a circle made up of third graders’ desks. This was their third 90-minute meeting together to explore a curricular unit on life cycles the teachers were implementing. The teachers and parents chose to study a section of the curriculum materials that covered the life cycle of the fruit flies that afternoon. They came to the meeting with the required curriculum in tow and seemed prepared to talk about the activities provided by the curricular materials that covered the different stages of the fruit fly life cycle. However, the group seemed surprised when the facilitators brought three quart-sized containers of the flies in all of their various stages to the meeting that day. The group decided to put the materials aside for the moment to

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explore the fruit flies. After several minutes of teacher-dominated conversation related primarily to classroom events earlier that day, Reggie, one of the parents, made an observation about the physical characteristics of the adult fly that captured the group’s attention: Reggie: I see the eyes! Mallory: Little tiny red eyes? Beth: You saw the eyes? Tina: They’re little bitty red. Kind of a reddish orange. Mallory: Oh my goodness! Reggie: They are orange. Mallory: Oh my goodness! Reggie: There are stripes on their back. I can see them. Beth: Yah. Reggie: Yah, I can see them. Pam: Ohhhhhhhhh! Tina: I wonder if they all have stripes? Beth: Gee whiz.

Reggie’s comment redirected the group conversation and for the next 20 minutes the group intently focused on the flies. Reggie’s comments also appeared to position him as a kind of fruit fly expert, even though he claimed he knew only as much “as the flies at home” have taught him. As expert, Reggie began to explain to Beth, his partner teacher, how to find the stripes: Beth: I don’t see the stripes, Reggie. Reggie: You don’t see the stripes? Beth: No. Reggie: Right up on the belly. See ‘em?

After Beth found them, Reggie then began to point out to her how some of the flies had more stripes than others. This led Reggie and Beth to build a conjecture about the sex of the flies and stripes: Reggie: One of them has the stripes and one don’t on the back there. Beth: [to Reggie] Is the female, is it the one?

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Beth, Reggie, and other group members laughed. Angie: The female is bigger. Beth: Oh, is that so? Reggie: This one must be a male. It looks so little. . . . The [bigger] females have stripes and the males don’t.

Pam, another parent who was rather talkative on all things but “school science” itself, entered into the conversation at this point with her own observations and conjectures. Her comments marked the first time in the three sessions that she had shown a willingness to talk school science. Prior to this conversation, Pam had plenty to say about children, teaching, and what she called “home science,” but she was largely quiet when the conversation took a school science turn. She did not appear uncomfortable during these times but often only interjected with comments that, while related to the science topic of conversation, were themselves not scientific. For example, earlier when the group was talking about where the flies fit in the food chain and their attention had been turned to frogs, she made comments like, “Did you ever see that on the Muppets where they have frogs on crutches?” Or she would interject with exclamations like “Ohhhh!” and “Ahhhh!” Yet she was the first one to find the fly larvae in the container and used this finding to enter into the dominant discourse in a way that carried significant meaning later during the session: Pam: These [larvae] look like lice! Beth: My kids have had those before and they are white aren’t they? Tina: Hmm hmmm. One of my kids has them. Pam: Look at the stripes [in the paper] and then if you don’t see them— maybe—positive—like right back through here.

Pam’s observations introduced a new topic that the teachers and parents began to discuss: where do the flies lay their eggs and how many eggs does a fly typically lay? It was from this conversation that Pam then made her own conjecture about why the fruit in her kitchen developed fruit flies. Her conjecture was supported and built on by the other members of the study group. Beth: How many eggs do they lay and how often? Angie: They only lay eggs once in their life cycle, but how many eggs? Beth: Oh, really?

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Angie: They live for just a short time after they lay the eggs. Pam: I saw that. Beth: They are down in the paper. Reggie: They go from this brown stage to this white stage? Beth: Yep, from the brown to the white. Angie: [looking at the teacher materials] Oh, okay, they will lay a total of 400–900 eggs. Tina: It’s no wonder they die after that! Pam: So when I get bananas from the store, they must be hiding little eggs. Beth: And one to three days [later], and then you think . . . on the fruit at the store. Pam: Oh, yah! All of the sudden within hours you have flies. Angie: Yah, you might be bringing in bananas with larvae or pupae in the nooks and crannies. Pam: No more bananas! Tina: But that could be any fruit!

At this point in the conversation, two of the three teachers began to talk about the substitute teacher who was coming in the next day. About 30 minutes had elapsed since the fruit fly activity was initiated, and Angie, the group facilitator, turned everyone’s attention toward talking more broadly about life cycles and the lesson extension activities begun the previous week. It was interesting to note, however, that Pam’s story about the fruit flies on her bananas at home came up several times over the next three weeks as the group discussed potential parent engagement activities. What is more, during her final individual parent interview Pam mentioned the fruit fly experience 14 times, none of which were directly solicited by the interviewer (i.e., “Yeah, when we were doing, when they brought the fruit flies in, you know. And set them on the desk. Whoa, you know, we read these things in books but it really kind of puts it out there when you do it that way”). This vignette reveals how during this 30-minute segment of time together both teachers and parents “let go” of their traditional roles as teachers and parents to become colearners about flies. The teachers and parents took on multiple roles, often distinct from their daily roles as teachers or parents. All three teachers repositioned themselves as science learners as one of the parents, Reggie, made a series of observations that pushed the participants to notice and look for new observations and state new ideas: “There are stripes

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on their back. I can see them” and “This one must be a male. It looks so little. . . . The [bigger] females have stripes and the males don’t.” During this brief segment, Reggie, who was normally a rather quiet participant, speaking only twice in the first session and four times in the second, spoke 22 times in the first 30 minutes alone, with all but two of these times intently focused on science or instruction. While not shy, he stated early on in TE-PAC2 that science was not his “cup of tea,” but he wanted his son to do well at school. Compared to the average 15 times spoken by the other two parents and 25 times by teachers, Reggie’s participation during this 30-minute segment was noteworthy. Reggie’s careful observations of the flies’ physical characteristics and his willingness to help the other study group members make similar observations positioned him as the impromptu fly expert and session leader, as evidenced by Beth stating, “I don’t see the stripes, Reggie!” Reggie and Beth also jointly acted as colearners as they built a theory related to female and male stripe patterns. Similarly, Pam, Beth, Tina, and Angie coconstructed a theory of how bananas in the home seem to generate their own flies. What is also interesting is how this particular experience with the flies was referenced by both teachers and parents in a variety of settings following the episode. When Beth was teaching the lesson on the stages of the life cycle of fruit flies, she told her class of third graders about how she and Mr. T. (Reggie) were down on the floor just like them examining the flies closely to figure out just what they looked like. Even in subsequent TE-PAC2 sessions, reference was made to this experience as parents and teachers discussed ideas for lesson adaptations. In his interview at the end of the school year, Reggie repeatedly referred to that session as what helped him figure out what his son was learning and stated that learning about the flies was really exciting: I guess kinda like giving us a head, heads up view of what the kids will be doing. And then we did, like I said, the fruit flies and stuff like that. We got to look at them which they was kinda hard to catch. . . . That fruit fly thing, that kinda really excited me. Cuz, you know, I always thought they were like little gnats and stuff like that. But then these ones jumped, but you’ve got the ones that fly. But I don’t know, just exciting cuz then you got to really study them, how one of them has like stripes on the back and one’s bigger and smaller than the other. And one’s supposed to be the female, one’s supposed to be the male. That excited me. To see the creatures.

In another end-of-year interview, Pam referenced not only this early conversation where we group members were laughing about their drawings and

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experiences with science, but also her excitement with learning about the fruit flies alongside the teachers: Pam: But I think all of them or, you know, as many as could, I think they would get a real perspective of, of the science and, you know, what, what, what motivates these kids and even to learn yourself as to things that you might’ve forgotten or didn’t learn or, and that was me, you know. I’d never examined a fruit fly but it was cool to do that. Researcher: Yeah. Pam: And, and then to be able to turn around and know that at some point, I’m going to probably help these other kids discover what I discovered, it was, it was great. And the girls were great that were in the class. You know, everyone was so enthusiastic and, and it made you feel, cuz like when you first went in, it was like okay, what are we gonna have to do? And she said, well, can you draw or write these things. It’s like we’re not being graded on drawing, right? She started to laugh because we’re all like none of us are very good drawers. But it was great. It was, it was really, I learned a lot. I don’t know about the teachers. I’m sure they learned, you know, other ways of presenting things than just out of the book but, like I said, looking at the fruit flies up close and personal, other than just trying to keep them away from my cupboards.

Parent and teacher participants began to try out each other’s roles in contexts outside the fruit fly investigations as well. Reggie and another parent, Kala, both described instances where they played out the role of the teacher at home. When Kala’s second grade daughter Kylie was given a home assignment to design a protective covering for a raw egg that would withstand free falling from a certain height, Kala and her husband helped Kylie explore different options for safe packing an egg. Kala expressed some reservation in her role as teacher to her daughter when, during this family activity, she declined to test the strength of the egg shell by squeezing in “from top to bottom, as hard as you can with all your might” because she was afraid she “might not squeeze it in the right spot.” However, in spite of not being completely confident, Kala was willing to explore the role of science teacher in her home with her children. Similarly, Reggie pushed his son’s thinking in a discussion about the conditions necessary for seed germination and plant growth when his son came home from science class with a lima bean that did not sprout: They did the plants, the lima beans, and stuff like that. Well, my son the other day, he had one brought home and he says something about like they got like little white stuff on the top of the dirt that means it die and I don’t remember. That was like a, maybe I don’t know, I’m not sure but I don’t think so. Then he

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was like I’m not a good gardener and all this stuff so he’s going through that thing, if things don’t work out . . . I was telling him, that’s still science because now you gotta figure out why it didn’t grow so.

In the TE-PAC2 sessions, in the classroom and in the home, the parents and teachers expressed a willingness to try on different roles by repositioning themselves and one another as experts or colearners. In this way, the hybrid community supported the parents and teachers in trying out critical aspects of CRP. They challenged assumptions around who is knowledgeable and what kind of knowledge matters. In a sense, performance grew beyond the shared experiences building new knowledge in science to taking on (or continuing to assume) new roles at home and in the classroom.

VIGNETTE #2: WORKING TOWARD A SENSE OF THE POSSIBLE The life cycle unit ended with the Digital Storytelling Project, a project that was not part of the regular curriculum used by the teachers in the school. The digital storytelling assignment was one of the major culturally relevant lesson adaptations that the teachers and parents created. Originally, the unit ended with a lesson that had students compare, through a journal reflection, the life cycles of fruit flies and corn. However, the teachers and parents desired to expand this final project so that the importance of life cycles in the home and community were the central focus, allowing the students to compare across life cycles that were meaningful to them. Additionally, both teachers and parents wanted to incorporate literacy and technology, standards they wanted to boost in their school, and they wanted parent knowledge to play a central role in how and why the life cycles stories were constructed. Pam felt strongly that if they could combine literacy and science, everyone would benefit, including the teachers who felt pressured for time. In fact, it was during the implementation of TE-PAC2 that the district instituted the “no interdisciplinary teaching” rule described earlier. The teachers found this rule absurd. The parents were surprised to learn of this rule and also of the teachers’ response to it. Reggie felt that using technology to bring in pictures from home would help his son make a more realistic connection between home and school. Therefore, the project was designed by the teachers and parents to include both home and school components, help the students pull together the big ideas of the life cycles of animals and plants, support them in using graphic

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organizers in their scientific thinking, and encourage them to make connections between the everyday world and what they were learning in science. The project went through several iterations but ultimately was implemented as a PowerPoint activity allowing the students to also gain some computer skills as well as to animate the life cycle. The project was designed to meet the state benchmarks for third to fifth grade science on life cycles, district standards for learning skills (i.e., graphic organizers), technology standards for PowerPoint, and literacy standards related to writing nonfiction (see appendix). After the life cycle unit was complete, we held a teacher reflection session to focus primarily upon the teachers’ experiences with TE-PAC2. Because we did not intend to focus directly on student learning or student work during this conversation we were pleasantly surprised to discover that what the teachers really wanted to talk about during this session was the work the students produced from the Digital Storytelling Project, which was the culminating project in the unit. It seemed clear that this project, as the culminating activity of the TE-PAC2 experience, provided teachers and parents with a sense of what was possible in school science—and a sense of how they might transgress the significant constraints imposed not only by policies and assessments, but also by their traditional roles and positions. The turn toward student work happened early on, as the teachers were talking more informally to us before we began taping the interview. Once all of the teachers were present, the conversation returned to the student work: Researcher: So Beth was just telling me that she has some good little storytelling going on. Beth: I did. Researcher: Would you mind telling us about, you said you had . . . Beth: Could I show you instead?

Beth then opened her computer and began to show the group the PowerPoint that one of her students created on the life cycle of horses. The PowerPoint contained several pictures that the student drew along with some pictures she had taken with her family at home and at her grandfather’s farm. Beth: This is a cute little horse that she drew. Tina: Holy Tamoly! Researcher: She has some pregnant horse pictures. Beth: Pregnant.

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Researcher: First drink mother’s milk, just standing. Mallory: That’s pretty nice. Researcher: Live shots here. Beth: Her grandpa has a farm, a ranch. Tina: Isn’t that cute?

Beth passed the computer around so that the two other teachers could take a closer look at the student’s work. She also explained how the student printed and bound her completed PowerPoint like a book. Tina then took out her computer and began to show an example of one of her student’s projects that focused on the life cycle of dogs. Tina: She said she had music but I couldn’t get the music to play. Researcher: Let me see so we can know whether or not. Okay, so let’s start it. Life cycle of a dog. Tina: Now, I couldn’t get it to move any farther than that so I had to, if I clicked on my dealy, it . . . Researcher: Birth, first stages. Okay. So she has some ideas about birth and when birth starts. Tina: And the fact that they’re still drinking milk from their mother. Researcher: Yeah. Puppies. Getting bigger and eating more. Then adult. Whoa! Start eating dog food and having kids of their own. And it’ll start all over again. Mallory: Oh, very good. Beth: I thought the “kids of their own” part was cute.

Both Beth and Tina were very proud of the digital storytelling life cycle projects their students had produced. They elected to showcase the student products instead of merely talking about them with the researcher. When the project was taking shape during the earlier TE-PAC2 discussions, one of the reservations Beth and Tina had was, in their opinion, their lack of technological savvy. However, as they played with the digital cameras we provided during TE-PAC2 sessions, as well as discussed in-depth how the project was to be implemented, both teachers were excited and pleased with the outcome of this new approach—an approach that broadened the possibilities of science teaching and learning in their classrooms. In the transcript above, we see a sense of pride in what the children could accomplish. The teachers, on their own initiative, focused conversation on student work and their talk moved between the students’ scientific ideas, their

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ability to make the home-school connection, and new insights into the students’ own cultural knowledge and resources they bring to learning science. The talk in this transcript differed from what was typical for these teachers in our earlier teacher-only meetings (administrator constraints, NCLB, poverty) in terms of the extended focus on student work and on showcasing what is possible, evidenced by significant expressions of care and excitement about the student work. Prior conversations tended to focus more on the teacher’s role or student behaviors. The conversation raises the question of what role the hybrid community of practice played in supporting teachers in taking risks to try out new activities with students that generated different forms of student work, offering them new forms of evidence to reflect upon. We believe that this movement toward hybridity made talk around the sense of the possible something both feasible and desirable, and it also fostered critical awareness among both teachers and parents. Initially, moving forward meant working through the uncertainty of talking about science and curriculum materials with teachers and parents together and, eventually, achieving a sense of togetherness, as Pam explained in an interview at the end of the school year: When I first went into it, I’m like, okay, what are we going. . . . What, what am I going to get out of this? You know, what’s going to, and from, I mean, almost from the get-go, I mean, it just kinda grabbed me and I was just, you know, I was very excited about the next week coming and seeing what, and you know. . . . But yeah, it’s, do I think it was, you know, was it worth what you guys put into it? Yeah. I think it really was. . . . And so yeah, overall, I, it was, like I said, I’d do it again in a heartbeat if they, if it came to it, it would be something that I would, you know.

This same sentiment was expressed by all of the participating parents, although Reggie was clearly stressed about finding the time as he was about to start a new job. As the hybrid community grew, the process of moving forward meant learning to use a collective expertise to ally with each other in order to offer high-quality instruction that could be construed as subversive as was the case with this Digital Storytelling Project. Yet the normative practices, rules, and roles of schooling often worked against collective efforts to move forward, and both teachers and parents found themselves wondering about how their participation, or their absences, could hurt their new and tentative positions within the group. When Kala missed a session because of a severe case of poison ivy, she worried that her teacher wouldn’t want her in the classroom that week, saying, “I mentioned several times, if you need me, let me know. I know my schedule’s busy but if you’re gonna do it on a day that I can be there then I’ll be there.”

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Parent and teacher talk about what is possible is important because of how it positions the children, the teachers, and the parents as colearners in this process. Throughout the development of TE-PAC2, the goals shifted from planning extension lessons to understanding new perspectives and gaining ownership over science among teachers, parents, and ultimately students. The science lessons that grew out of TE-PAC2 discussions further highlighted what is possible in classrooms in terms of student response and enthusiasm for the science activities. As Pam reflected: And how to go out and take pictures of this and then put it into a thing where the kids can put it up on their screens and, you know, do it digitally or a computerized picture thing. And that was, you know, very exciting to see how these kids can channel this into . . . not necessarily putting their fingers in the dirt but doing it in another way but still, you know, maybe bringing out that, letting them take this camera and take pictures and then showing them how to put it into the computer and, and, or whatever. Whether it was plants or birds or whatever, you know, like she, like they said. You could do it on just about anything. And that was, I liked that. That was very exciting to see, you know, how they could, and how quickly it could be done. I mean, basically, you know, in a day or so, you got the cameras, you got the computer available, that they could do this whole thing and that was really cool. I liked that.

The design and enactment of digital storytelling demonstrated the TE-PAC2 group’s shared desire to try out new ways of collectively being together, the teachers’ risk-taking, and the parents’ engagement in understanding what it might mean to think about literacy in the content areas. The community of teachers and parents opened up a sense of what is possible at the same time as it challenged the tensions of roles and expectations by fostering the legitimization of nontraditional resources, shifting the goals, disrupting roles and discourses, and repositioning participants. This community also allowed parents and teachers to identify potential spaces for engagement and learning within (or despite of) the constraints, making possible a critical awareness of science in their lives and the place of science in the school curriculum. The outcomes were tangible not only for students but for teachers and parents as well.

HYBRID COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE FOR PERFORMING COLLECTIVE CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY Wenger (1998) describes a community of practice as individuals coming together over mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire.

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While we think these ideas about what defines a community of practice are important to understanding the experiences of teachers and parents in our study, we use the phrase “hybrid community of practice” to emphasize that this community of practice is tentative and emerges or develops, in part, around the ways in which the various needs, experiences, knowledges, and discourses of teachers and parents are made to matter in making sense of school science together. In our use of hybridity, we refer to Moje, Tehani, Carillo, and Marx’s (2001) work, where they argue that moments of hybridity of knowledge or discourses, also referred to as moments of being “in-between,” can be understood as hybrid spaces where such multiple and oftentimes competing knowledges and discourses come together, inform the others, and are themselves challenged and reshaped (p. 44; also see Bhabha 1994). In casting the work of teachers and parents in this study as a hybrid community of practice, we noted that the community forged a sense of being together—of shared experience and responsibility—much in the same way that Wenger describes a sense of joint enterprise and mutual engagement. This sense of being together emerged from and contributed to the expression of inclusive discourses and collaborative activity. However, more germane to our chapter is that these moments of shared experience and responsibility seemed most important because of how they served as platforms for transformation. It was often during these tentative moments of being together that “a sense of the possible” became both the subject and the object of activity together. These developing visions of “what science education can be” were marked by participants trying on new roles or disrupting old roles, expanding community resources, and taking risks. We believe that these are all central elements to trying out or performing a pedagogy that raises critical awareness of the roles of schooling and science in the lives of children, families, and teachers, especially in a school system like Granite City where success in school science has been elusive. While activity within this hybrid community was often constrained by a set of tensions related to goals for teacher-parent engagement and school roles and expectations, such constraints were mitigated by the shared space/discourse offered by the hybrid community of practice. We also argue this hybrid community of practice is transformative because this space is not just a merging of the communities in which teachers and parents work but rather an active space of negotiation that mediates the school worlds of teachers and parents and allows for the transformation of education for their children and students. Focusing on the value of the hybrid dimension of this community of practice compels us to examine more critically the borders that are merged.

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To return for a moment to Bhabha’s (1994) work in hybridity theory, we point to the idea that hybrid spaces are both a vision and a construction. In foregrounding this idea, we begin to see this mediation made possible through those objects and encounters that put constructions and visions in an explicit and dialogic interplay with the other in ways that suspend normative roles and discourses. The hybrid communities of practice allowed the experiences of both teachers and parents to play a critical role in the narrative they created for their students’ and children’s education. For example, the hands-on science activities codeveloped by the teachers and parents around play dough modeling and digital storytelling not only served to reposition how we teach children and why that might matter, but also expanded both the roles the parents could play and the resources they gained from their engagement in the activities when they are made accessible to parents in such a manner. These communities also allowed parents and teachers to generate new narratives of critical awareness as they began to see how their roles traditionally defined by normative school structures were constraining. These critical narratives also impacted their lesson planning together. One recurrent conversation was the teachers’ frustrations with new mandates from the superintendent’s office. Such talk served to educate parents on school mandates at the same time as it built a powerful allegiance among teachers and parents to subvert less than desirable educational policies. Perhaps one of the more powerful negotiations that took place in the hybrid community was the discourse around questions of agency: who decides what and how science gets taught in schools? It is not surprising then that when reflecting with the teachers and parents on the digital storytelling activity, the conversation focused primarily upon how such an activity can advance teacher and parent knowledge of state science benchmarks in science learning and how the use of digital storytelling allows them to view benchmarks as a “starting point” for teaching other forms of highly valued knowledge in the district (i.e., literacy skills and graphic organizers) while not diminishing the knowledge that children bring from home. This is a powerful performance of CRP among teachers and parents in a study group, especially in relation to the district’s recent mandate that no interdisciplinary teaching would be allowed. The digital storytelling activity pushed teachers beyond this mandate to collectively question its validity and pursue an alternative. This was made possible by the group having built up a knowledge base from prior TE-PAC2 sessions surrounding issues of teaching, what excites students, and the parents’ unique insights into how they understand their children to engage in science activities, all of which were antithetical to the philosophy of this official mandate.

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The role of new knowledge was also essential. When the teachers and parents explored the fruit flies, a hybrid space of camaraderie grounded in the excitement of uncovering new knowledge was created. The group engaged with science through a relaxed and unthreatening approach, and they were able to take their exploration of the science in whichever direction they desired, facilitated by very loose guidelines. For the parents, playing with science in this manner could have acted as the catalyst for evoking their own prior (and positive) experiences with science and provided a safe and enjoyable way to reacquaint them with science again.2 As they gained expertise in the content and explored possible ways of engaging the children with what they themselves had investigated, the parents were imbued with a new sense of authority as legitimate stakeholders who had a voice in deciding what science their children should be learning and how they could learn it. The teachers could also make a more informed decision as co-stakeholders, drawing both from their own authentic play with science and the parents’ unique insights into how best to support their children.

CONCLUSION In this chapter we have argued for framing culturally responsive teaching not in terms of enculturation (or achieving in school science), but rather in terms of the hybrid spaces made possible through teacher-parent engagement. Conceptualizing CRP as a hybrid space foregrounds the idea that there is no singular way of being but privileges the many ways of being that come together and can transform ways of knowing and learning science. Further, the hybrid space became the medium of mastery and creation— parents and teachers mastered new science content and together collectively created artifacts (e.g., fruit fly observations, peak science experiences drawings) that reflected newly authored identities, and symbolized what is possible beyond this hybrid space. A hybrid space suspended specific roles, discourses, and activities of the everyday (for teachers and parents) and afforded an opportunity for trying out new identities, practices, and possibilities. Such performances made possible the coconstruction of the Digital Storytelling Project on life cycles that reflected all three of the goals of critical pedagogy: access to quality science teaching and opportunities to achieve success, cultural competence, and critical awareness. The implications of our study speak both to science education specifically and to parent-teacher collaboration more generally. Science education

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typically revolves around the science—a subject area that many elementary teachers and parents feel uncomfortable with. Creating a joint space for playing around with science demystifies its “power” and makes possible the kinds of social awareness (“I can do this too”) and the cultural connections (life cycles around the community) that are central to designing culturally relevant learning experiences that move beyond simple topical connections or enculturation. Further, teacher-parent engagement more generally can foster the kinds of meaningful sharing of resources and experiences that make possible a more authentic construction of culturally relevant teaching to emerge—one that values and relies upon the multiple linkages between school, community, and home. In short, we believe that these hybrid communities of practice are places where “collective culturally relevant pedagogy” is performed by teachers and parents and then translated into classroom use through teacher and parent coauthored curriculum adaptations.

NOTES We would like to gratefully acknowledge support from the Spencer Foundation Small Grants Program for support of this research. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation. 1. We use the word “parents” to include children’s caregivers, not all of whom are the biological parents of children. 2. All of the participating parents had at least one positive memory of doing science outside of school as children, although not all had positive memories of science in school. In our conversations with parents, the difference between these positive and negative memories tended to focus on—in their words—“hands-on and having fun” as opposed to just “reading and writing.” While we did not want to contrast these two—we believe that reading and writing are important skills in science—we also noted value in breaking down this boundary.

REFERENCES Anhalt, C., Allexsaht-Snider, M., and Civil, M. (2002). “Middle School Mathematics Classrooms: A Place for Latina Parents’ Involvement.” Journal of Latinos and Education, 1(4), 255–62. Ball, D. L. (1993). “With an Eye on the Mathematical Horizon: Dilemmas of Teaching Elementary School Mathematics.” The Elementary School Journal, 93(4), 373–97. Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

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Calabrese Barton, A., Drake, C., Perez, G., St. Louis, K., and George, M. (2004). “Ecologies of Parental Engagement in Urban Education.” Educational Researcher, 33(4), 3–12. Civil, M., and Bernier, E. (2006). “Exploring Images of Parental Participation in Mathematics Education: Challenges and Possibilities.” Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 8(3), 309–30. Civil, M., and Quintos, B. (2002). “Uncovering Mothers’ Perceptions about the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association. New Orleans, LA. Fradd, S. H., and Lee, O. (1999). “Teachers’ Roles in Promoting Science Inquiry with Students from Diverse Language Backgrounds.” Educational Researcher, 28(6), 4–20, 42. González, N., Moll, L., and C. Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gutiérrez, K. D. (2008). “Developing a Sociocritical Literacy in the Third Space.” Reading Research Quarterly, 43(2), 148–64. Harvard Family Research Project. (2002). Concepts and Models of Family Involvement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hill, H., Schilling, S., and Ball, D. (2004). “Developing Measures of Teachers’ Mathematics Knowledge for Teaching.” The Elementary School Journal, 105(1), 11–31. Jackson, K., and Remillard, J. T. (2005). “Rethinking Parent Involvement: African American Mothers Construct Their Roles in the Mathematics Education of Their Children.” The School Community Journal, 15(1), 51–74. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). “‘But That’s Just Good Teaching!’ The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” Theory into Practice, 34(3), 159–65. ———. (1998). “Just What Is Critical Race Theory and What’s It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education?” Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 7–24. Lee, J., and Bowen, N. K. (2006). “Parental Involvement, Cultural Capital, and the Achievement Gap among Elementary School Children.” American Educational Research Journal, 43(2), 193–215. Moje, E. B., Tehani, C., Carillo, R., and Marx, R. W. (2001). “‘Maestro, What Is Quality?’: Language, Literacy, and Discourse in Project-Based Science.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38(4), 469–98. National Research Council. (1996). National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: National Academy. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Retrieved June 1, 2006, from www.ed.gov/nclb/ landing.jhtml. Peressini, D. D. (1998). “The Portrayal of Parents in the School Mathematics Reform Literature: Locating the Context for Parental Involvement.” Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 29(5), 555–82. Remillard, J., and Jackson, K. (2006). “Old Math, New Math: Parent’s Experiences with Standards-Based Reform.” Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 8(3), 231–59. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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APPENDIX: DIGITAL STORYTELLING: LIFE CYCLES (MARCH 21, 2007) What is digital storytelling? Everyone has stories about the events, people, and places in their lives. There are many different definitions of “digital storytelling,” but in general, all of them revolve around the idea of combining the longstanding art of telling stories with any of a variety of available multimedia tools, including graphics, audio, video animation, and Web publishing. There are many different forms that digital storytelling and life cycles can take both inside and outside the classroom. Here are some examples: • Children can take pictures of the different stages of pea plants and with help from teachers and parents can import the pictures into QuickTime to create a time-lapse video. • Children and family members can take pictures of different living things in their community that reflect different stages of the life cycle. These pictures can then be printed on poster board with an accompanying story. They can also be imported into PowerPoint so that children can type up their stories. As in a previous example, they can be imported into QuickTime and a short, time-lapse video can be created. • If access to cameras is difficult, children can draw pictures of the fruit fly at its various life cycles or get pictures from other sources such as the Internet or magazines. They can then use these pictures to make a collage and write a story about the fruit fly on poster board. Digital Storytelling (Session 5, April 4) In science we have been learning about the life cycles of peas and fruit flies. Now we want to further explore life cycles creating stories about life cycles in our homes and communities. Your task: together with an adult in your family use the handout below to create a story about life cycles in your home or community. 1. Choose a topic for your story. Some examples: • It’s springtime and you might want to tell stories about the new plants that are growing in your neighborhood. • You have pictures of your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your parents and your siblings, and you want to tell a story about the life cycles in your family.

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• You’ve noticed a bird’s nest in the park near school and you want to tell the story about the life cycle in robins. My topic: _______________________ 2. Now you need to put together the elements for your story: Setting, Characters, Plot, and Conclusion. • Setting: Describe where your story takes place. In your home? Your backyard? Your neighborhood park?

• Character: Who are the main characters in your story? Your family? The birds that live in your yard?

• Plot: Show how life cycles happen to your characters. Use the format in figure 1.1 as a guide.

Figure 1.1.

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• Conclusions: How do life cycles contribute to your community?

• What pictures or things from home do you need to bring to class for your story?

Digital Storytelling (Session 6, April 18) • What is this a picture of? • What kinds of living, nonliving, and dead things do you observe in this picture? Make a table or chart like the one in table 1.2. • Predict and explain the life cycles of two of the living things you see. Table 1.2. Living

Nonliving

Dead

Ex: Grass

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Seeing Relevance Using Photography to Understand How School, Curricula, and Pedagogies Matter to Urban Youth Kristien Zenkov, George Mason University

“Eyes on the Future” My three-year-old sister, Kya, helps me succeed in school. I want to set a good example for her by staying in school and eventually going to college. Right now, I am working towards my cosmetology license. After I graduate next year, I plan on attending college to become a teacher. My sister watches me and emulates everything I do. Because of this, I have to make the right decisions on a daily basis so she will know how to make right decisions when she gets older. I do not want to see my sister not going to school or not making good grades. I do not want my sister hanging out with the wrong group of people, so I make sure my friends and I have the same constructive goals and optimistic attitudes about our future. I want to see her do something good with her life because she is my pride and joy. I have to be the one to lead her down the right path by staying focused on my education. —Carmisha

The reflection above was accompanied by a blurry close-up picture of the charming face of an African American toddler. Carmisha took this image and described it as a part of a photography and literacy project (“Through Students’ Eyes”) through which diverse middle and high school youth shared their perspectives on school. For Carmisha, school would be more relevant if it were a place where she could learn how to help her younger siblings focus on their education and make more constructive decisions in the years ahead that Carmisha knows will come too quickly. While I did not ask Carmisha and these dozens of other adolescents to describe what they understood about “cultural relevance” and “culturally 39

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relevant” curricula and pedagogies, I found numerous insights into the nature of this concept in their pictures and writings. “Cultural relevance” as a curricular concept has been in existence for nearly 20 years, but often remains an amorphous idea, particularly for many sensitive new and veteran teachers who are intrigued by the notion of utilizing explicitly and culturally applicable curricula with their increasingly diverse and often disenfranchised students (Gomez, Allen, and Clinton 2004; Lindsey, Roberts, and Campbell-Jones 2004; Obidah and Teel 2001). Lack of clarity around the concept of cultural relevance—and the way in which this notion is framed—often makes the materials teachers develop and select questionably responsive to their students’ needs and interests (Howard 2006; Seidl 2007). While numerous theorists, researchers, and educators have explored the concept of cultural relevance (sometimes using the related terms “culturally responsive,” “culturally competent,” and “culturally congruent”), the question of what are culturally relevant curricula remains open (Delpit 1997; Gay 2000; Howard 2001; Ladson-Billings 1995; Villegas and Lucas 2007). This chapter suggests that such a question might best be answered by diverse youth themselves, using media with which they are already proficient but which most educators typically do not incorporate within their curricula. The results of the project and study on which this chapter reports reveal that cultural relevance might best be understood as a process of reflection in which youth are called to engage in school.

RECENT RESEARCH The past decade has provided us with a growing body of literature on student voice and youths’ points of view on school, their teachers, and curricula (Cook-Sather 2008; Joselowsky 2005; Rodgers 2006; Yonezawa and Jones 2007); many of these examinations have been conducted by preservice and veteran teachers with the goal of identifying elements of what adolescents consider relevant school pedagogies and materials (Beuschel 2008). The most recent of these studies were published in a themed issue of the journal Theory into Practice (Zenkov and Dutro 2009). Key findings of this volume suggest that urban youth can be especially articulate about what they consider relevant to their school experience (Cook-Sather 2009; Cushman 2009; Dutro 2009; Zenkov 2009), as well as how school curricula and structures should be reformed to better suit their needs (Ayala and Galletta 2009; Corbett and Wilson 2009; Mitra 2007; Yonezawa and Jones 2009). The study from which the findings of this chapter are drawn also relates to examinations of “new” and multimodal literacy (Alvermann and Strickland 2004; Au 1993; Hull and Schultz 2002; Morrell 2007). “New” literacy theorists have

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reclassified the notion of “literacy,” expanding it to include numerous texts with which youth are familiar, including visual, electronic, and musical structures, as well as cultural media (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, and Cammack 2004; Street 2003). Current perspectives on literacy suggest that youths’ proficiency with visual texts might provide foundations for teaching methods that advance adolescents’ appreciation for literacy activities (Marquez-Zenkov and Harmon 2007; Zenkov and Harmon 2009), new angles on their connections to school, and notions of cultural relevance with which we should be operating. When these methods are applied to an examination of youth perspectives on concepts of curricular relevance, recent efforts made by visual sociologists and anthropologists using “photovoice” and “photo elicitation” techniques become particularly useful (Ewald 2001; Harper 2005; Karlsson 2001; Marquez-Zenkov 2007). Research suggests that visual tools are among the most accessible to today’s adolescents and provide insights about their points of view that traditional language-centered methods cannot (Janisch and Johnson 2003; Raggl and Schratz 2004; Schratz and Loffler-Anzbock 2004; Zenkov 2009). This visual studies literature reveals connections between image-based elicitation techniques and traditional literacy skills (Hibbing and Rankin-Erickson 2003). Relevant visual texts—particularly those produced by students—motivate youth to engage in reading and writing tasks, and adolescents’ proficiencies with these texts promotes their sense of writing and reading efficacy (Van Horn 2008). The photo evaluation approach has been employed to engage students in analyses of classroom realities, providing insights into youths’ perspectives on their life and schooling experiences, with particular relevance for current concepts of cultural relevance (Marquez-Zenkov 2007; Zenkov 2009).

METHODS AND FINDINGS Guided by the intersections of these three literature bases, my project codirectors and I devised the particular visual sociological method the “Through Students’ Eyes” project has utilized. Here I report on our study of approximately 200 diverse, urban middle and high school students’ perspectives on curricula, their teachers’ pedagogies, and school in general. Such perceptions are particularly important to recognize and explore when the dropout—or pushout—rate among diverse urban youth remains near 50 percent in many U.S. cities (e.g., Alexander, Entwisle, and Kabbani 2001; Balfantz and Legters 2004; Children’s Defense Fund 2008). A racially and ethnically diverse but economically homogenous group of youth worked with the “Through Students’ Eyes” (www.throughstudentseyes.org) project with me and the two other project directors, their high

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school English teachers, volunteer professional photographers, and preservice teachers—in both in-class and after-school settings—every other week for between four months and a year. The youth were asked to address three questions with images and related reflections: 1. What’s the purpose of school? 2. What helps you to be successful in school? 3. What gets in the way of your school success? The codirectors and I used content analysis and visual research methods to analyze nearly 400 images and complementary writings (drawn from a pool of 6,000 photographs) to identify themes and examples of what these youth considered relevant curricula, pedagogies, and school structures (Creswell 1998; Prosser and Schwartz 1998; Raggl and Schratz 2004; Walker 1993). Through the eyes of these urban adolescents, a notion of curricular relevance might be informed by the five following themes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The real “real world” Complicating the roles of role models Schedules, structures, and systems serving youth and families Relationships with teachers and community members Processes rooted in ongoing youth-directed visual inquiries

In the remainder of this chapter, I describe each of these themes, using these young adults’ images and writings to illustrate and describe each in considerable detail.

THE REAL “REAL WORLD” Two of the most common criticisms of the notion of cultural relevance and culturally relevant practices are inseparably connected. Cultural relevance is often disparaged because it operates in an ambiguous netherworld of academic theory, described only in vague detail and as a principle of curriculum development rather than sufficiently depicted in teachers’ daily concrete practices. At the same time, cultural relevance is criticized for its attention to contextdependent and almost reductionist detail, diminishing entire cultures to a few key descriptors that are relevant only to a particular population in a particular time and place. The visual data of this study suggests a notion of relevance that exists conceptually between these two extremes and provides examples of relevant curricula that illustrate—without essentializing—these youths’ cultures. These data reveal a range of real “real” issues with which notions and examples of cultural relevance must be concerned. These are more real because it is the youth themselves who identified, depicted, and described them.

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The real issues of these urban youths’ worlds with which they suggest teachers and schools must be proficient include incentives for school engagement and openness to the youths’ (and their families’) perceptions of the irrelevance of school, broader definitions of the role models in adolescents’ lives, the everyday but invisible challenges youth face when they take on traditional adult roles, the complexities of the financial concerns they and their families face, and the shortterm perspectives on life—and school—that the youth hold. I share illustrative examples, reflections, and images that speak to these issues below. The examples of culturally relevant practices to which adolescents in the project direct us would take into consideration the reality that many diverse and disenfranchised city young adults often face financial concerns that young women and men in other settings are rarely called on to address. But these urban youth are not merely aware of the economic challenges of their families; they are too often challenged to confront these worries, playing the role of provider while they are in high school and attempting to tackle the “traditional” issues of completing homework, attending school regularly, and engaging in extracurricular activities. These financial issues carry over from concerns about their family members’ excessive work schedules to their own sense of responsibility for helping to make ends meet. Andranic’s image (figure 2.1) and reflection below illustrate these realities powerfully:

Figure 2.1. “Make Things Better” by Andranic.

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“Make Things Better” This picture is of my grandmother that I took in front of her job. My grandmother is 71 years old and has worked in childcare for 23 years. She continues to work because she doesn’t have any money to retire and money is a constant problem in our house: I feel like if I go to school and work hard someday I can have a good paying job. I want to be able to make things better for her but also my mother. I’m going to school for me and my family. —Andranic

Lindsay echoes Andranic’s concern about the financial challenges her family was facing—a primary issue with which educators who are committed to culturally relevant practices should be aware. But Lindsay’s reality involves an added element to what Andranic merely describes as a worry facing her grandmother: rather than planning to work in the future to help support her family, Lindsay was already actively engaged in this responsibility. And, worse, she was doing so not just to help her father pay the rent or put food on the table, she was working a part-time job nine months of the year and a full-time one in the summer to help pay for her father’s health care and his battle with emphysema. With an image of a tree-lined path leading into the park where the county zoo is nestled and the reflection below, she depicted her situation: “Uphill All the Time” This is a photograph of the hill I walk up and down every day to get to and from work. I started working full time at the zoo to help out my family. I don’t make a lot, but what I do make helps pay for my dad’s prescription medications and allows me to take care of my own expenses so my family does not have to worry about me. Every day when I come home from work I walk uphill, and I feel like I’m walking uphill all the time. —Lindsay

But the real-world financial issues did not include just the challenges these adolescents and their families were facing nor the ways in which the young adults felt—and were—responsible for helping their families to pay the monthly bills or even to buy a parent’s essential prescriptions. The visual and written data of this project also revealed the youths’ awareness of the necessity of providing them with incentives—including financial ones—for engaging in both schoolwork and extracurricular projects in order to allow them to engage with school. Given the economic realities of these young adults’ lives, it is not surprising that they were challenged to balance school responsibilities and home financial ones; they were explicit about the fact that easing these money worries would

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allow them to participate in and reflect on more deeply their school and afterschool pursuits. Using her involvement in our project as an example, Neena’s image of film canisters and her written notes about some of her photographs— accompanied by the reflection below—illustrate this theme particularly well: “Realizations of . . .” I took this photograph of this writing and film because this project has made me realize the importance of school. Before I kind of just blew it off and I didn’t really care. I just couldn’t wait for each day to end. Now this project has really opened my eyes and my mind to how important my education really is. Ever since I started this project I feel as if I put more effort into schoolwork and now I look forward to coming to school every day. I enjoy it because now I realize that my education is the key to my future. I’m not going to get anywhere or be anybody in life if I don’t go to school. I’m proud of myself because I am doing really good in school. My current G.P.A. is a 4.17, which is the highest I have ever had. This means a lot to me. Because of my grades my family is really proud of me and that’s great to know that you can make your family proud. So I’m really glad that I have gotten the opportunity to be in this project. —Neena

Based on the evidence from this project, a culturally relevant curriculum and school structure would help youth—and their families—to make sense of the reality that the financial challenges city adults face are actually issues with which urban adolescents are concerned daily. The notion of cultural relevance that results from this study suggests that schools should be supporting families with employment counseling classes and access to training, educating youth about how school might help them attain a sort of financial stability in the future, and respectfully reminding adolescents that their primary concern should be engaging with school rather than worrying about—if not actively contributing to—the financial solvency of their families.

COMPLICATING THE ROLES OF ROLE MODELS One of the commonly accepted elements of a culturally relevant curriculum is an emphasis on the heightened functions that peers play as role models for youth and their relationships to school. Based on the evidence of the “Through Students’ Eyes” project, though, the nature of these models, the range of individuals who fill these roles, and schools’ involvement with young adults’ identification and interactions with role models are considerably more complicated than current notions of culturally relevant curriculum allow.

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The assumptions teachers and schools make about role models—even as they are trying to be sensitive and responsive to adolescents’ experiences and needs—highlight the fact that a culturally relevant curriculum must be rooted in ongoing inquiries into the identities and activities of youths’ role models and should be conducted by these young adults themselves. These urban young people shared often that their teachers seem to assume that every peer in their lives likely will have a negative influence on students’ abilities to engage with school. Even many of those dedicated and caring educators with whom these young adults were able to interact were prone to take for granted that youths’ peer and community influences were primarily harmful. While the young men in figure 2.2 are flashing gang signs, Derek’s reflection reveals that the positions they play in his life are largely positive: “Motivations” This is a picture of my boys “Young Dane” and “Johnny Bravo.” I chose this picture because it motivates me to go to school and want to graduate because we all want to go to college and live that “rockstar life.” You know, the life of being on your own, doing what you want to do. We don’t want to have to rely on our parents anymore. We all were in a rap group together called Fresh on Campus

Figure 2.2. “Motivations” by Derek.

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(FOC). We want to go to college and go to school for fashion and music to get the record label and clothing line off the ground. We already have some of it off the ground but there are some things that you can’t accomplish without school. For example, we know about fashion, we know how to dress, but we don’t know about copyright and patent laws. —Derek

Cultural relevance must make space for the complicated relationships our students have with their peers and the motivating roles these often-troubled individuals can play in each others’ lives. In a community where many might assume that older siblings who have not completed high school would be influencing their high school-aged family members in negative ways—leading them toward the same rejection of school that they’ve lived—the students in this project provided numerous examples of the seemingly contradictory and positive roles these individuals often play. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that these family members are aware of the complicated nature of the positions they occupy; they know that they cannot use their own lives as models of the type of school engagement toward which they are nudging their younger siblings, cousins, and neighbors. Perhaps this awareness makes them even more effective guides, as they’ve lived failure in school but they understand the responsibility they have to encourage—and even demand—that the young people whose lives they impact will not follow this same path. Principles of cultural relevance must afford room for these complex and apparently incongruous notions and examples of role models. Marcus’s reflection below, which accompanied an image of his brother relaxing at home, illustrates this complicated family role model theme powerfully: “Leader” This is a picture of my brother and he taught me everything I need to know about school and life. Most of all, my brother shows me how to be a leader, particularly in school. He is there to pick up the slack when my mom drops it and he is a great brother. But when it comes down to school and my books, he constantly stays on me and teaches me to do the same for my younger brother. He means everything to me because all of my life, he’s the only person that’s really been there for me. He got his GED, but he really wants to see me get my diploma. He is the most important factor in my life. I think kids need role models because they need someone to set the standard on what they could be doing. My brother sets the standard by providing for his girlfriend, my mom, my little brother and me. He is very smart and this shows me that it’s possible to put your mind to anything and accomplish it. —Marcus

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Naturally, parents and adult family members play primary roles in guiding youth toward particular relationships to school, modeling and discussing the widest range of experiences with and perspectives on school. This study suggests, though, that even some of those adults who guide young people toward an appreciation for school have followed a more circuitous path to their own academic and worldly achievement. Yet, perhaps because of the extra challenges parents and adult family members and friends have encountered, these individuals might be particularly effective role models, if our notion of culturally relevant curricula enabled them to share their stories. As Cortez’s writing below (which described a photograph of his smiling father) illustrates, adolescents and their perspectives on school are impacted by parents and family members in the most hopeful—some might suggest “traditional”—manner, with fathers who are college graduates and who establish an expectation for their teens that college is the only option: “My Father” This picture is my father holding up the sign for his college fraternity. My father plays a big part in my success. It reminds me that I can be successful, that I can go to college. I think fraternities will help with that too. My Dad has always told me that college will make me better than he was. My Dad had kids before he got out of high school and managed to still get his college degree. He said it was real hard, and still is. I know he doesn’t want me to go through the same struggles he went through. —Cortez

A culturally relevant curriculum that honors youths’ points of view on relevance would again acknowledge—without judging—the broad range of ways that family members serve as role models and influence young adults’ connections to school. Underlying these adolescents’ perspectives on role models, the varied collections of individuals who serve as such models, and the complex sets of interactions with these individuals that serve to influence youths’ relationships to school is these young adults’ clear sense that the teachers and other adults in their lives frequently make both daily and grand assumptions about the nature of the impact these role models are having on them. The evidence above speaks to two of the dangers of these assumptions: first, that teachers and adults will simply be wrong about who these role models are and, second, that these teachers and other adults will misjudge the nature of the impact of these ideals on youths’ perspectives on and experiences with school.

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Participants in the “Through Students’ Eyes” project addressed a vast range of assumptions that teachers, school administrators, and other adults make about their lives and their abilities to engage with school—including the impact of parents who work third shift jobs and seem to pay more attention to other people’s children than to their own, as described and illustrated by John in the reflection below, which accompanied a photograph of a laundry detergent bottle in front of a picture of his younger brother: “Being Clean” I took this picture because most of the time I really have to use the detergent to clean my clothes. I don’t care if my clothes get dirty. I’m the kind of guy that won’t use dirty clothes again until they’re clean. I do my own laundry; I don’t like how my mom does my laundry. I’ve been doing my own laundry since I was 12. My mom used to have a job where she had to stay overnight with kids, so I couldn’t wait for my mom, and I started to do my own laundry. She had to take care of these kids, help them shower, put them to bed. The kids would stay there while their parents were in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction and other problems. You don’t want to smell bad when you’re in school. Clean clothes are everything. When you have a stain on your shirt, you feel embarrassed all day. I felt like everybody was watching me all day. If I had a huge stain on my shirt, I’d say, “Mom, I can’t go to school.” I don’t know if other people feel this way. —John

In the eyes of the adolescents, what is damning about these assumptions is not their content, but the fact that adults make them and begin with suppositions and hypotheses that these young people feel that they have little power to contradict. This suggests that a culturally relevant curriculum and teachers committed to culturally relevant pedagogies might orient their instruction around youth-driven inquiries through which adolescents document—for themselves and their teachers—just who they and their role models are. Such an approach might become the very ethic of a new notion of culturally relevant pedagogy and curriculum. Finally, the young adults involved with the “Through Students’ Eyes” project consistently identified the challenges they, their peers, and their families faced, inside and outside of school, and the impact these difficulties had on their abilities to engage with and value school. Perhaps most surprising—and promising—was the fact that in their images and reflections so many of the youth expressed a desire to serve as role models for their peers and family members, even if they themselves were not finding great success in school or many reasons even to attend.

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SCHEDULES, STRUCTURES, AND SYSTEMS SERVING YOUTH AND FAMILIES Project participants described numerous examples of how school schedules, structures, and systems would need to be modified in order to become what I interpret as culturally relevant: to serve them and their families. A primary example of the structure—and related schedule—adjustment that would need to be made was related to the role of mentoring programs. Our students not only need the support provided by these programs (e.g., Big Brothers/Big Sisters), but their families need the modeling of how to mentor and support young adults that such programs provide. Again, cultural relevance would not concentrate just on the provision of services for adolescents (i.e., inviting Big Brothers/Big Sisters into schools to help identify adolescents who would benefit from such a program and even adjusting school schedules to allow them and their “brothers” or “sisters” to meet during the school day), but would begin with the assumption that schools must explicitly serve the needs of youths’ families. Among the numerous photo/reflection combinations that addressed this theme, Kayla’s was particularly poignant (see figure 2.3):

Figure 2.3. “My Adopted Inspiration” by Kayla.

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“My Adopted Inspiration” There is a program in Cleveland called “Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater Cleveland.” This is a program originally meant for single parents that do not have the luxury of taking their child out to do activities with them and to explore life with them as an actively involved mentor. The “bigs,” as we call them in the program, are meant to serve as mentors, like a big brother or big sister type. I had two “bigs” that ended up not having enough time to continue the program. I was paired with Jodi and my third and best match. Jodi is a big inspiration in my life. She has been the longest friendship I’ve had. She sets a good example for me, which helps me carry on my success in school. She has completely surpassed her duty as a “big sister.” I don’t even see her as a program match, but as a real life sister. Jodi has been in my life for about seven years. She has literally seen me grow up and go through opposite extremes in phases of my life. She has impacted my life by encouraging me to pursue my dreams—even as they have changed from an artist to a forensic pathologist and everything in between. She’s always there for me. Despite the fact that she now lives in Washington, DC, she has given me strength in letting me know that she is only a phone call away. I can always confide in Jodi no matter what it is. —Kayla

Perhaps the idea of cultural relevance that appears in these images and writings isn’t rooted so much in an either/or notion of mentoring—that is, that culturally relevant schools and curricula would address either the mentoring needs of adolescents or the mentoring needs of their adult family members. Rather, based on data from this project, it appears that these youth are calling for a principle of relevance that recognizes that these needs are inescapably interwoven and that any such mentoring option offered to one—young adults or their families—must simultaneously consider the mentoring needs of the other. The mentoring options youth desire must be tangible and have immediate and practical applications and benefits. The images and writings of this project suggest that in the mentoring programs culturally relevant schools provide support for adult family members who are seeking opportunities to make right their own, often painfully irrelevant high school experiences: both so that they might understand what went wrong for them and so, naturally, they might serve as better mentors for the adolescents in their lives. Accompanied by an image of her dad sitting in their living room, Kayla provided one of the richest examples of this complex relationship among the mentoring options offered to youth and their families: “What, Kay, What Do You Want?” My father is a hard working and respectful person. I can always talk to him about things that occur in school in general. He’s always telling us about how

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he wishes he would have graduated from high school. My father inspires me to succeed in school because he encourages me to do well in school, so my life will be easier than his was and still is. My dad quit school a year and a half before he would have graduated because of his experience in the Cleveland school district. Before that he attended schools in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and that showed him what it’s like to be in a better and more organized school district, so it was very hard for him in Cleveland. When he finally made friends, busing took them away from him. Both of his parents were taken by the time he was 12, so when his friends were taken too he had no one to turn to for advice or dependency. That’s why he dropped out. He had no common interests with the new group of people he was with and it was very hard to make new friends. My dad has struggled throughout his entire life. He has had to work multiple jobs for long hours to make ends meet. My dad is a strong person, but he is also tired and withered. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me. My relationship with him has made things a lot easier for me. —Kayla

Numerous examples of “full service” schools now exist around the United States. These schools are often the central institutions in their communities, providing health care assistance, government agency access, library resources, and adult education programs that benefit high school students’ families and the broader set of local community members. Based on the “Through Students’ Eyes” project, it is evident that urban youth consider the provision of such services not merely options in their schools but perhaps some of the most important examples of a culturally relevant institution and curriculum. Cultural relevance in this case would amount to a curricular and institutional orientation toward serving both young adults and their families, through alternative schedules, structures, and systems. Our city students would better engage with school if these institutions were oriented toward serving their adult family members’ educational needs and if they provided access to education counseling and training opportunities. When the realities of one’s community results in such a tenuous relationship to school, a notion of cultural relevance might attempt to respond with a more holistic set of services where youths’ families are recognized as one of the primary constituents of school. Finally, it’s perhaps not surprising that at the center of the notion of cultural relevance is the issue of economics. Over and over again, these young adults described how they had witnessed, survived, and suffered through financial challenges of every sort. This reality seems significant enough to mention both because it suggests the centrality of economic issues in our students’ and families’ lives and that these issues must be considered in any concept of cultural relevance with

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which our schools operate or by which our curricula are guided. It’s key, too, to note that youths’ focus on financial concerns impressed me as something much more significant than a simple desire for easier times or more ready access to material goods. Cynthia’s image of a wad of money on a coffee table and the accompanying reflection below addressed some of the complexities of this issue: “A Sense of Reality” Today is moving mighty fast and I tend to lose a sense of reality. When I feel like giving up I think towards the future. If I don’t stay in school and achieve the goals I’ve set for myself, where would I end up a couple of years from now, working a low-paying job maybe having two jobs trying to keep my family happy. Money doesn’t give me happiness but it sure helps. No money means stress living a life I prepared not to live. I look at my mother and father; they barely have any education and they work hard and sometimes things get taken away. You could see in their eyes their unhappiness. I refuse to live a lower class life. I made a big mistake by trusting somebody with a credit card. We both used the card, but it’s in my name, and now I owe $2500. I only work weekends at Kmart, but I’m looking for a second job. With the money problem, I just feel like working all day long—quitting school and just getting a job. I’m only 17 and I’m still in high school. I shouldn’t be worried about money problems. Last year I worked almost eight hours a day, five days a week. I would come home at 11:00 p.m. and do homework until about 12:30 a.m. When the sun rose and my alarm rang I would be so tired I would fall back to sleep. 30 minutes before I had to leave I would get up. In class listening to my teachers “blah blah,” my eyes got heavier, and I was fighting them. Sometimes I ended up falling asleep. —Cynthia

Cynthia’s writing reveals the extent to which the issues with which young adults are concerned—in this case, financial struggles—are ones that involve their family members. Her image and writing also indicate that the subjects that a culturally relevant curriculum in a culturally relevant school would address are inseparably tied to both adolescents and their adult family members and that providing support for one constituency without providing it for the other would result in a continuation of at least two destructive cycles. The first is the cycle of poverty and financial need that burdens these young adults and the family networks of which they are a part, and the second is the cycle of school disengagement and failure that these family members have known and toward which too many of these adolescents are headed. Thus, cultural relevance must involve services, systems, and structures that simultaneously address immediate and long-term needs of both young people and their families.

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RELATIONSHIPS WITH TEACHERS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS Across the images taken and the reflections drafted by the young adults involved in the project, relationships have been a constant theme. More accurately, the relationships between and among youth, their teachers and community members, and school have appeared regularly. It was the nature and complexity of these relationships that surprised me and that suggested a different and more complicated concept of cultural relevance. While research points to the importance of the rapport teachers build with students for promoting their interest in and abilities to engage with school, the qualities of these relationships are often presented in simplistic terms. Current concepts of cultural relevance would seem to indicate that teachers need only worry about building relationships with students in order for youth to appreciate school more and be engaged with the activities teachers present them. Such notions suggest that the quality of such a relationship is, by definition, good, and that the problem is that too many teachers fail to develop these relationships at all. This project reveals something quite different, complicating the notions of rapport and relationships with which teachers of diverse, urban students might need to function. These examples of teacher-student relationships are, perhaps naturally, some of the most difficult to analyze and portray. With her image and reflection (“Clogged”), Alycia depicted some of the challenges associated with teachers and students developing closer relationships (see figure 2.4):

Figure 2.4. “Clogged” by Alycia.

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“Clogged” This picture makes me think of all the struggles that get in the way of me succeeding. For example, bi-polar disorder runs in my biological father’s side of the family. This was a big concern for me, but I was tested and I know I don’t have it, but it’s always in the back of my mind. I had a Catholic schoolteacher for sixth grade who blamed me when she lost her baby. How can you tell a sixth grade student that it’s their fault for having a miscarriage? The drain is clogged and that could be representative of all the stuff that holds me down but the basketball is there to remind me that I still need to get up and do what I need to do in order to succeed. —Alycia

While Alycia’s reflection about the blame her sixth grade teacher assigned to her might seem extreme, images and writings from this project presented numerous examples of what I would consider more complicated—and even inappropriate or unprofessional—relationships between students and teachers. And while these young adults might often have relationships with their teachers, the relationships are not always supportive of these youths’ abilities to succeed in school. In many instances, the adolescents’ teachers were from the same communities and had developed what appeared to be too great a familiarity with the youth, their families, and their teaching colleagues. Perhaps worst of all, sometimes this familiarity seemed to have resulted in a lowering of the behavioral and academic expectations these teachers had for students. Based on the complex relationships that the youth revealed via photos and reflections, it is clear that cultural familiarity is not synonymous with cultural relevance and that such an awareness can, in fact, impede the achievement that is a hallmark goal of most concepts of cultural relevance. As the data and analysis above reveal, a primary and troubling element of the adolescents’ relationships with teachers and community members was the extent to which the adults in these youths’ lives unwittingly lowered their expectations for students. Alycia’s writing below (paired with an image of a basketball going through an alley hoop) depicts this reality, describing how she’d had to muster a resilience and persistence to counter these diminished prospects: “Opportunity” This picture makes me think of how you have one chance at life. You can’t miss your one shot. For most people if you mess up or miss your shot, you get a second chance. In my lifestyle it’s a hit or miss proposition. That’s why I go to school, education is something that I need to succeed in my life. Instead of horse playing I’d rather get it done and over with so I can move on to bigger and better things. I need to succeed in life to prove to everyone who has done me wrong, that I am independent and just fine without them. —Alycia

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What was most compelling in Alycia’s reflection, though, also appeared in numerous other examples of youths’ images and writings: the urgency of this cultural relevance endeavor, writ large as a broad, professional, responsive, and even blindly idealistic perspective on urban adolescents and their abilities to be successful in school and beyond. The young adults called on their teachers not only to not give in to the limited expectations that so many of their community members communicated to them, but to recognize that because of the insufficient number of positive models for school engagement/achievement and professional accomplishment by which these youth were surrounded they likely were not going to be as able to respond positively to these lowered hopes. For them, then, cultural relevance as a theoretical construct that aims to provide diverse young people with the best educational alternatives is not an idea that we can afford to get wrong. They know that their chances for academic, worldly, and relationship success are restricted, and they need schools, teachers, and curricula to operate with an urgency that appreciates this reality. Naturally, the relationships with teachers, other adults, and community members are related to how these individuals serve as role models for young adults. This project revealed, though, that just as these youth surprise us with the role models to whom they look and for whom they serve as examples, they startled us with the relationships they were willing to form and for which they called on schools and teachers to support in order to help them to be successful in school and beyond. Notions of cultural relevance that serve diverse urban adolescents must, then, appreciate the range of relationships these young adults form, even with individuals with whom they have no blood relations or with whom they would appear to have few connections. Relationships—and the qualities of them— cannot be assumed in such settings; instead, our concepts of curricula, teachers’ and schools’ roles, and the very places of schools should be living questions.

PROCESSES ROOTED IN ONGOING YOUTH-DIRECTED VISUAL INQUIRIES The notion of cultural relevance that has grown out of the “Through Students’ Eyes” project is most clearly rooted in the ongoing inquiries around which it is centered. It is natural for any theory of curriculum to provide examples or to share models so that individuals committed to its principles might understand how to implement these concepts. At the same time, most theories of cultural relevance have articulated a commitment to responsiveness—to considering the contexts in which diverse

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youth live, work, play, and pray on an ongoing basis so that those examples and models are not static but always represent the current realities, needs, interests, and communities of the young adults these curricula are intended to serve. But the evidence of this study suggests something beyond a near-constant search for the latest and most relevant curricular connections; rather, this project’s photos and reflections point to this search not as leading to the best example of cultural relevance, but as the best example of relevance. Rather than using evidence of this theme that I discovered in the data to illustrate this finding, I turn to some of the most startling and straightforward images these youth selected and described to depict its significance. It was clear through this project that we as teachers are not seeing the cultural relevance that these young adults need if our hope is to engage them deeply in our classes and in school. Allowing youth to engage in an ongoing visual process of inquiry reminds us that adolescents’ reluctance to engage with teachers’ practices, the given curriculum, and school itself often should not be perceived as resistance, but as reluctance based in a very reasonable fear of failure. This fear has grown from many years of frustration with irrelevant activities, an overall insensitivity to young adults’ perspectives and experiences, and a widely shared family and community perspective that school is an institution where diverse urban adolescents should not expect to be respected or to find meaning or success. Chiquitta’s image (figure 2.5) and reflection vividly address this reality:

Figure 2.5. “Shy” by Chiquitta.

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“Shy” I’m shy. So, when I look at this photo of a stage, I am reminded of when I was in fifth grade and we had to come up with a rap about the first amendment. I had to go first, went to the stage, freaked out, paused for a moment and then managed to perform. This stage also represents good things, like overcoming my fears of speaking in front of others and building self-esteem. This stage represents the times in school when we have to be put up in front of a crowd, when we don’t know the answer in class, or when we don’t feel comfortable in front of strangers. This photo represents both the challenges and the benefits of education. I know if I don’t stand up to this fear I would not be able to stand up to a crowd because I would shake so badly that I won’t even know what I am saying and end up saying something totally wrong and different. —Chiquitta

Cultural relevance and responsiveness, then, are rooted once again in that blind faith about youths’ abilities to engage with school, and culturally responsive teachers are those who remember to approach young adults every day with the intentionally and willfully naive perspective that today might finally be the day when a particular student finds a “way in” to a class, begins to perform academic tasks, begins to engage in the ways we all hope. As well, virtually all teachers of diverse youth—particularly those who are veteran educators and members of the very communities where these young adults live—are aware of the extreme conditions of these adolescents’ lives and communities. These realities may never become easier to accept, understand, or make sense of in comparison to the cultural norms and daily demands of school. Gordon’s writing (accompanying an image of a framed poem written in remembrance of a high school friend who committed suicide) powerfully and painfully illustrates this fact: “Eman” This is a photograph of my friend Eman’s poem from his obituary. Eman had a difficult life with many obstacles to overcome. Unfortunately he was not able to overcome them. I made this image to help motivate me by reminding me of things that he had to go through that I do not want to go through. It also helps to remind me of things to look out for. The death of family members, especially young family members, can get in the way of school. It is hard to concentrate on school when you are dealing with the death of someone you are close to. It makes it even more difficult to deal with when things like this keep happening. —Gordon

I count Gordon as fortunate for possessing such sensitivity; while by the age of 16 he’s witnessed more instances of violence and known more examples of

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emotional pain than will many adults across their entire lifetimes, he still suggests that such events should never be perceived as acceptable or reasonable. In fact, our students should be deeply unsettled by these events; it is a tragedy when they become inured to these events and realities—at any age, but certainly while they are still in high school. But a culturally responsive teacher would remain similarly sensitive, frustrated, and even distressed by these realities. And a culturally relevant curriculum would make space for the revelation of these events and their impact on youths’ lives and abilities to engage in school, as well as for thoughtful considerations of these events in our classes. Finally, the images and writings these adolescents produced as a part of the “Through Students’ Eyes” project explicitly addressed the very types of characteristics that they believe that a culturally responsive teacher should possess. If we ask young adults about the types of teachers, schools, and curricula that will help them be successful—and if we ask in ways that allow them to answer, through media with which they are comfortable—they will respond thoughtfully and with insights that can guide our efforts to create a new notion of culturally relevant teaching. Perhaps if we considered the process of seeing as a literal act of inquiry— at the center of our culturally relevant curriculum—we would understand and see the particular issues about which our students are concerned. And, perhaps even more importantly, these youth would recognize that we see these issues, and they would be provided with tangible evidence—even in the images they’ve taken—of their abilities to act on these issues. The photographs of this study suggest that the visual process of inquiry with which we engaged these young adults resulted not just in a concept of cultural relevance, but one of cultural responsiveness. Any such notion of cultural awareness and consideration that does not actively seek the input of youth themselves, giving them means to depict and describe the culture to which teachers and curriculum are intending to respond, may be doomed to repeat the mistakes of curricular irrelevance by which our diverse urban adolescents have been bombarded for generations. CONCLUSION This study suggests that adolescents’ notions of “relevance” focus on “realworld” issues including health care, financial concerns, career options, and lifestyle choices. They long to have their school curricula and teachers’ pedagogies honor their needs for information and structures that support their own and their families’ struggles with negotiating social support systems, transience and transportation, and child care. “Relevance” for these young adults

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would include modifications to school and class schedules that would allow these youth to better support their adult family members’ varied employment schedules and desires for education options. Teachers’ pedagogies would be rooted in ongoing efforts to build relationships with adolescents, and classroom activities would include the integration of community mentors who support students’ real-life needs—which are never left at the school door. As well, school structures would provide extensive counseling opportunities for high school youth, their younger siblings and extended family members, and the adults in their lives and neighborhoods. Such structures would appeal to the fact that neither these young adults nor the networks of family and community members with whom they engage daily have given up on the promise of education but merely require alternative—more relevant— systems and content to allow them to appreciate and access this opportunity. Finally, the visual and written data to which this study attended repeatedly suggest that inclusion of these relevant curricula, relationships, and pedagogies requires not just a focus on even an evolving set of topics. Rather, such relevance might be defined as processes of inquiry into youths’ lives—conducted by the students themselves—that become the major content of their classes. Making such ongoing student-centered and core curriculum development processes the focus of our pedagogies and curricula would ensure that no school subject matter would exist without explicit connections to young adults’ lives. If “cultural relevance” is to become a central tenet of teachers’, curriculum theorists’, specialists’, and policy makers’ notions of curricula, then seeing and showing through relevant processes of reflection might become part of our everyday classroom realities.

REFERENCES Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R., and Kabbani, N. (2001). “The Dropout Process in Life Course Perspective: Early Risk Factors at Home and School.” Teachers College Record, 103(5), 760–822. Alvermann, D. E., and Strickland, D. S. (2004). Bridging the Literacy Achievement Gap: Grades 4–12. New York: Teachers College Press. Au, K. (1993). “An Expanded Definition of Literacy.” In K. Au (ed.), Literacy Instruction in Multicultural Settings (pp. 20–34). New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Ayala, J., and Galletta, A. (2009). “Student Narratives on Relationship, Learning, and Change in Comprehensives Turned ‘Small.’” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 198–212. Balfantz, R., and Legters, N. (2004). Locating the Dropout Crisis: Which High Schools Produce the Nation’s Dropouts? Where Are They Located? Who Attends

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Them? Baltimore, MD: Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University. Beuschel, A. C. (2008). Listening to Students about Learning. A Report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Strengthening Pre-Collegiate Education in Community Colleges. Stanford: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Children’s Defense Fund. (2008). The State of America’s Children 2008. Retrieved August 11, 2009, from www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/state-of-americas-children-2008-report.html. Cook-Sather, A. (2008). “Students Preparing Teachers for Youth Engagement in School: What Teacher Education Programs and School Principals Can Do.” NASSP Bulletin, 91(4), 343–62. ———. (2009). “‘I Am Not Afraid to Listen’: Prospective Teachers Learning from Students.” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 176–83. Corbett, D., and Wilson, B. (2009). “Students’ Reactions to a ‘No Failure’ Grading System and How They Informed Teacher Practice.” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 191–97. Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Cushman, K. (2009). “SAT Bronx: A Collaborative Inquiry into the Insider Knowledge of Urban Youth.” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 184–90. Delpit, L. (1997). “What Should Teachers Do? Ebonics and Culturally Responsive Instructions.” Rethinking Schools, 12(1), 6–7. Dutro, E. (2009). “Children’s Testimony and the Necessity of Critical Witnessing in Urban Classrooms.” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 231–38. Ewald, W. (2001). I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children. Boston: Beacon Press. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Gomez, M. L., Allen, A., and Clinton, K. (2004). “Cultural Models of Care in Teaching: A Case Study of One Pre-Service Secondary Teacher.” Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(5), 473–88. Greene, J., and Winters, M. A. (2006). Leaving Boys Behind: Public High School Graduation Rates. New York: Manhattan Institute for Policy Research [Civic Report #48]. Harper, D. (2005). “What’s New Visually?” In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 747–62). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Hibbing, A. N., and Rankin-Erickson, J. L. (2003). “A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Using Visual Images to Improve Comprehension for Middle School Struggling Readers.” The Reading Teacher, 56(8), 758–70. Howard, G. R. (2006). We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Howard, T. C. (2001). “Powerful Pedagogy for African American Students: Conceptions of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” Urban Education, 36(2), 179–202.

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Hull, G., and Schultz, K. (2002). School’s Out: Bridging Out-of-School Literacies with Classroom Practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Janisch, C., and Johnson, M. (2003). “Effective Literacy Practices and Challenging Curriculum for At-Risk Learners: Great Expectations.” Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 8(3), 295–308. Joselowsky, F. (2005). “Students as Co-constructors of the Learning Experience and Environment: Youth Engagement and High School Reform.” Voices in Urban Education: High School Redesign (pp. 12–22). Providence, RI: Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Karlsson, J. (2001). “Doing Visual Research with School Learners in South Africa.” Visual Sociology, 16(2), 23–38. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 35, 465–91. Leu, D. J., Jr., Kinzer, C. K., Coiro, J., and Cammack, D. W. (2004). “Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging from the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies.” In R. B. Ruddell and N. Unrau (eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (pp. 1570–1613). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Lindsey, R. B., Roberts, L. M., and Campbell-Jones, F. (2004). The Culturally Proficient School: An Implementation Guide for School Leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Marquez-Zenkov, K. (2007). “Through City Students’ Eyes: Urban Students’ Beliefs about School’s Purposes, Supports and Impediments.” Visual Studies, 22(2), 138–54. Marquez-Zenkov, K., and Harmon, J. A. (2007). “‘Seeing’ English in the City: Using Photography to Understand Students’ Literacy Relationships.” English Journal, 96(6), 24–30. Mitra, D. (2007). “Student Voice in School Reform: From Listening to Leadership.” In D. Thiessen and Cook-Sather (eds.). International Handbook of Student Experience in Elementary and Secondary School (pp. 727–44). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Publishers. Morrell, E. (2007). Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation. New York: Routledge. Obidah, J., and Teel, K. M. (2001). Because of the Kids: Facing Racial and Cultural Differences in Schools. New York: Teachers College Press. Prosser, J., and Schwartz, D. (1998). “Photographs within the Sociological Research Process.” In J. Prosser (ed.), Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers (pp. 115–30). Bristol: Falmer Press. Raggl, A. and Schratz, M. (2004). “Using Visuals to Release Pupil’s Voices: Emotional Pathways to Enhancing Thinking and Reflecting on Learning.” In C. Pole (ed.), Seeing Is Believing? Approaches to Visual Research, vol. 7 (pp. 147–62). New York: Elsevier. Rodgers, C. (2006). “Attending to Student Voice: The Role of Descriptive Feedback in Learning and Teaching.” Curriculum Inquiry, 36(2), 209–37. Schratz, M., and Loffler-Anzbock, U. (2004). “The Darker Side of Democracy: A Visual Approach to Democratizing Teaching and Learning.” In J. Macbeath and L. Moos (eds.), Democratic Learning (pp. 132–50). London: Routledge Falmer.

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Seidl, B. (2007). “Working with Communities to Explore and Personalize Culturally Responsive Pedagogies: ‘Push, Double Images, and Raced Talk.’” Journal of Teacher Education, 58(2), 168–84. Street, B. (2003). “What’s New in New Literacy Studies?” Current Issues in Comparative Education, 5(2), 77–91. Van Horn, L. (2008). Reading Photographs to Write with Meaning and Purpose, Grades 4–12. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Villegas, A., and Lucas, T. (2007). “The Culturally Responsive Teacher.” Educational Leadership, 64(6), 28–33. Walker, R. (1993). “Finding Silent Voices for the Researcher: Using Photographs in Evaluation and Research.” In M. Schratz (ed.), Qualitative Voices in Educational Research (pp. 72–92). London: Falmer Press. Yonezawa, S., and Jones, M. (2007). “Using Student Voices to Inform and Evaluate Secondary School Reform.” In D. Thiessen and A. Cook-Sather (eds.), International Handbook of Student Experience in Elementary and Secondary School (pp. 681–710). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Publishers. ———. (2009). “Student Voices: Generating Reform from the Inside Out.” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 205–12. Zenkov, K. (2009). “Seeing the Pedagogies, Practices, and Programs Urban Students Want.” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 168–75. Zenkov, K., and Dutro, E. (2009). “This Issue: Urban Students’ Perspectives on School, Teachers, Pedagogy, and Curricula.” Theory into Practice, 48(3), 165–68. Zenkov, K., and Harmon, J. (2009). “Picturing a Writing Process: Photovoice and Teaching Writing to Urban Youth.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(7), 575–84.

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Expanding Notions of Culturally Responsive Education with Urban Native Youth Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for Equity and Social Justice Dorothy E. Aguilera-Black Bear, New Mexico State University JIMMY AND IRENE In 1998, Jimmy, a Native/Latino, was in eighth grade at an urban middle school where his younger sister (Irene) also attended. By the end of October, Jimmy and Irene were expelled because of extensive absences. The family was not stable. Their father had frequent bouts of alcohol abuse and committed acts of domestic violence against their mother. Jimmy and Irene had difficulty attending to their educational responsibilities while moving from one family crisis to another. They currently were staying with an uncle who was serving as their guardian. Jimmy, as the oldest male child, was particularly affected by his inability to protect his family— the responsibility of the oldest sibling in this family—from the instability and the emotional damage of this cycle of poverty and trauma. Irene, as the only girl in the family, was trying to survive while Jimmy was trying to figure out what he had done to create these problems. I understood that Jimmy and Irene would avoid discussing this situation with adults at school or social services because they would be sent to foster care, which to them would be a horrible consequence, perhaps resulting in their separation. One of the hardest parts of Irene and Jimmy’s story is that they had been expelled from the school district in September and had missed, respectively, their entire seventh and eighth grade school years because of a state policy expelling students after 10 absences. This policy is morally flawed because it requires administrators to ignore the fact that perhaps one of the safest places 65

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for these children is in the school. The state’s mandate does not serve children with unprotected lives who have no control over unstable family situations. I often wondered if any of the teachers in their regular school had an inkling of what was going on with these youth who lived unprotected lives and yet simultaneously learned to protect themselves/families with regard to social services or law enforcement—risking expulsion from school rather than removal from their home. Who had reached out to them in their hours of pain? What social emotional supports from within the educational systems were being provided to children in crises?

SHANTAE AND JENNIFER Shantae and Jennifer were being raised by a single mom who had learned to negotiate culture and power within mainstream institutions. These young Native sisters were accomplished academically and socially and were emotionally stable, all of which played a huge part in maneuvering their way through the K–12 system. They were honor roll students and had received numerous awards for community service and attendance throughout their school experiences. From a young age, these sisters had participated in youth leadership roles in urban Native events and back in their Tribal communities (i.e., pow wows, culture camps, and ceremonies). They were already talking about going to college while still in middle school, and it seemed likely that they would do so. Their family expected them to go to college and supported them in all the ways stable Native families typically do. Both the urban Native and Tribal Nation communities and families expect children to learn and maintain their Tribal cultural identity, to attend college, and give back to their community, and they collectively provide a range of academic and social-emotional supports for Native youth to accomplish these goals. It was through these culturally responsive education systems that Shantae and Jennifer were learning cultural traditions and knowledge and the skills to negotiate culture and power across mainstream institutions. In accessing these important supports within their Tribal Nation and urban Native communities the sisters were being prepared to be future leaders. In this chapter I present information critical to understanding the education of Native students, especially in relation to culturally relevant pedagogy. A critically framed culturally relevant pedagogy can shift educational experiences and outcomes for Native youth who are miseducated through assimilationist education systems. My premise begins with creating intellectual spaces to learn together with those who are most affected by change in schools and communities, recogniz-

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ing that they must be coequals in the work. My educator activist stance is conducted in the spirit of bringing front and center Native youth as key partners in collective social change for equity and social justice through a culturally relevant and critical pedagogy. Shining the spotlight on youth as actors and leaders is central to school and community change. In the sections that follow, I begin by describing how U.S. schools have historically seen Native students through a deficit lens. From there, I move to culturally relevant pedagogy and how educators can promote healthy youth development. I close the chapter with findings from my own work with Native youth in the hopes that it serves as a guide for others. I would like this chapter to serve educators of Native students in gaining insights about culturally responsive pedagogy and how to enhance their own teaching and learning practices in dynamic ways that resonate with Native youth.

CULTURAL GENOCIDE THROUGH EUROCENTRISM AND DEFICIT MODELS OF EDUCATION Historically in U.S. mainstream schools, relationships between non-Native teachers and Native students and families have been framed by Eurocentrism that regards diverse cultures and languages as problems rather than assets. Deficit models of education are prevalent in mainstream schools with diverse student populations: remedial education targeting students of color (including tracking into lower ability groups), overrepresentation of diverse students in special education, transitional models of English language programs (rather than bilingual/bicultural), and culturally incongruent and ineffective pedagogy. Structural theorists argue that deficit models of education are related to a phenomenon framed as the banking method of education, Freire’s (1970) concept that explains mainstream education as a social institution that maintains the working class and poor to benefit the elite class. Features of the banking method of education include active teachers/passive students and classroom talk dominated by the teacher. Teachers in the banking system may be oppressors, denying the student an active role in coconstructing knowledge. It is the banking method that continues to undermine the goals of equitable educational opportunities for low-income students and serve the status quo of power and privilege. These inequities at best result in the miseducation of diverse students and at worst perpetuate racial violence and cultural genocide. Negotiating culture and power occurs daily in the lives of Native students. In the context of schools, racism often permeates the hallways, classrooms, and playgrounds. For far too long, educators have ignored the extent to which

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incidents of racism affect everyone, and they have focused on disciplining and punishing the resulting behaviors, particularly the reactive responses to racism and the peer-on-peer violence that often escalate due to ignoring these racial conflicts. When educators observe acts of hate, exclusion, and disrespect stemming from racist beliefs but do nothing to stop these things, unsafe and culturally violent school communities flourish. Eurocentric schools are the breeding ground for racial and cultural violence. By solely serving the cultural and linguistic needs of middle and upper class Euro-American populations, educational systems fail Tribal Nation children (Deloria and Wildcat 2001; Grande 2003). Delpit’s (1995) analysis of power in the classroom represents her observations of the issues of power, how the codes and rules for participating in power translate into a culture of power, how those who hold the power also reflect the culture of power, and how those with less power are more aware of power than others. Delpit (1995) suggests schools should teach the codes and rules of power to marginalized students. She elaborates: Students must be taught the codes needed to participate fully in the mainstream of American life, not by being forced to attend to hollow, inane, decontextualized sub skills, but rather within the context of meaningful communicative endeavors; that they must be allowed the resource of the teacher’s expert knowledge, while being helped to acknowledge their own “expertness” as well; and that even while students are assisted in learning the culture of power, they must also be helped to learn about the arbitrariness of those codes and about the power relationships they represent. (p. 45)

Educators have the power to begin the change for building equitable schools. A fundamentally important step for White teachers and school leaders is for culturally responsive education to become the norm, for deficit models of Native students and their parents to be replaced by models that acknowledge their funds of knowledge. Acknowledging that culturally responsive education is a human right relating to equity and social justice will go a long way in building school systems in which non-Native educators become allies and partners with Native communities. For a non-Native teacher to recognize Native youth leadership, skills, and abilities, there needs to be the desire to transform one’s own teaching and learning practices to reflect a critically framed culturally relevant pedagogy.

PRINCIPLES OF CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE EDUCATION Improving educational models available to Native students requires a culturally relevant curriculum that is informed by the indigenous worldview.

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Research shows that in schools using culturally responsive education (CRE) models such as language immersion, Native children have greater academic success than their counterparts in non-CRE classrooms (Aguilera and LeCompte 2007; Demmert 2003; Demmert and Towner 2003). Indigenous knowledge systems inform CRE as the foundations for the teaching and learning of all content areas and are embedded in epistemologies, languages, cultural traditions, and ecologically sound and scientifically evidenced ways of living harmoniously with nature and human societies (Barnhardt and Kawagley 2005; Cajete 1999; Kawagley 1995). Alongside the learning and understanding of U.S. government, for example, Native children also need to learn about tribal governance, sovereignty, and the legal relationship between Tribal Nations and the U.S. government (federal and states). While there is no universal prescription for culturally responsive education for Native students, there are principles, indicators (Aguilera 2003), and cultural standards that have been widely utilized (adopted by some and adapted by others) such as those developed by the Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN). In its publication of cultural standards and guidelines, the ANKN (1998) states: The cultural standards are oriented more toward providing guidance on how to get [indigenous children] there in such a way that they become responsible, capable and whole human beings in the process. The emphasis is on fostering a strong connection between what students experience in school and their lives out of school by providing opportunities for students to engage in in-depth experiential learning in real world contexts. By shifting the focus in the curriculum from teaching/learning about cultural heritage as another subject to teaching/ learning through the local culture as a foundation for all education, it is intended that all forms of knowledge, ways of knowing and world views be recognized as equally valid, adaptable and complementary to one another in mutually beneficial ways. (p. 5)

In Tribal Nation communities, CRE typically is specific to that tribe; however, a tremendous amount of diversity exists even among families in these communities because of multiple tribal affiliations between parents that reflect distinct cultural traditions, languages, and knowledge sets. In urban Native communities a rich tapestry of Indigenous diversity and multitribalism exists that can provide invaluable resources to educational systems in developing culturally responsive programs.1 Elders are essential to developing culturally responsive education systems in schools serving Native students as they represent the primary source of Indigenous knowledge systems. There is no technology or book that can replace Elders; they are that knowledge; they represent the social, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional dimensions of that knowledge; those worldviews.

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They serve and protect these for future generations. They represent the survival of Indigenous ways of living, thinking, speaking, conceptualizing, rationalizing, observing, relating, interacting, experiencing, leading, serving, healing, and solving. While some Tribal Nation communities support culturally relevant curriculum in schools, there are others who maintain that cultural knowledge, traditions, and language belong outside the state and federally operated schools. These perspectives must be respected and honored by outsiders and by allies. With regard to the pedagogy of CRE, the Coolangatta Statement on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Education2 informs the interrelatedness of learning and teaching practices, environments, and approaches to education with Indigenous children. In 1999 at the World’s Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education, a collective voice of Indigenous peoples created the Coolangatta Statement, with the purpose of establishing “fundamental principles considered vital to achieving reform and transformation of Indigenous Education” (p. 3). They wrote, Pedagogical principles are shared by all Indigenous peoples, but there are also those that are characteristic to the specific cultures, languages, environment and circumstances of Indigenous peoples across the world. Indigenous peoples and cultures are not homogenous. Indigenous pedagogical principles are holistic, connected, valid, cultural, value-based, thematic and experiential. They promote and reward cooperative learning and the unified co-operation of learner and teacher in a single educational enterprise. They describe who teaches, as well as, how and when teaching occurs. Indigenous pedagogical principles, unlike western paradigms, recognize the important role of non-verbal communication in the learning-teaching process. (p. 17)

Additional principles highlight teachers as facilitators of learning “promoting achievement and success,” that learning environments are culturally relevant, “reaffirming the learner’s significant place in the world” through “personal development and intellectual empowerment” (p. 10). The next section provides the critical framework for the culturally relevant pedagogy I used with Native urban youth in the American Indian Literacy and Technology (AILT) program.

CRITICALLY FRAMING CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY Culturally relevant pedagogy framed as critical pedagogy becomes increasingly important in the push for self-determination and revitalization among

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Indigenous communities around the globe. In a critical theorist framework, culturally relevant pedagogy reflects Dewey’s and Freire’s concepts of education, which inform our understanding of the intersections between culture and power in mainstream schools and provide theories that counter hegemonic, postcolonizing education systems. Dewey (1916, 1938) advocated for experiential learning as social inquiry—where children can investigate social worlds and do so in natural settings. Influenced by Deweyian ideas about education and extending these to inform critical pedagogy, Giroux (2009) aligns Dewey’s notion of democratic education with his idea of “public schools as democratic public spheres dedicated to self and social empowerment” (p. 445). Shor (2009) writes, “To Dewey the goal of education was to advance students’ ability to understand, articulate and act democratically in their social experience” (p. 296). Oakes, Rogers, and Lipton (2006) expand Dewey’s ideas and address participatory social inquiry as four principles for creating equitable schools: engage those most affected by inequality, ensure access to knowledge and its construction, adopt a critical stance, and develop a transformative goal (pp. 39–41). Freire argued for an education involving dialogic and problem-posing pedagogy that challenged the real problems of oppressed groups in society. Freire’s (2009) problem-posing approach to education as it relates to culturally relevant critical pedagogy consists of the teacher engaging in dialogue with students, identifying and addressing experiences and conditions in society, striving for the emergence of knowledge, understanding the complexities involved, and creating and adapting critical interventions in response to these problems. This pedagogy empowers the students as they become increasingly skilled and comfortable in posing problems relating to their social worlds and increasingly challenged to respond in proactive and positive ways that lead to new understandings and commitments. They learn to be leaders in their own education; students have power as both teachers and learners, and power as a collective for social change. A manifestation of critical pedagogy in urban schools is the “positioning of youth as critical researchers and transformative intellectuals” (DuncanAndrade and Morrell 2008, p. 6). Inherent in this educational approach is youth expressing themselves in an effort to equalize educational opportunities through negotiated power relations in and out of schools and classrooms (Aguilera 2008). Recently, a teacher conducting critical pedagogy with urban high school youth described this work as the highlight of his teaching career because “students have learned about each other alongside each other by collectively working for social change” (Aguilera 2009).

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Collective action for social justice by youth from all backgrounds builds a common critical consciousness about past histories, making relevant the issues and resolutions in the present day and for future action. Understanding each others’ perspectives, histories, and interests also lends to the process of youth growing to know others’ social worlds. Gaining skills to transform their realities in mainstream schools and shift their academic outcomes is the rationale for the utility of culturally relevant critical pedagogy with diverse youth. Critical pedagogy is an approach that generates questions like “whose knowledge is valuable” and “who determines what knowledge is important?” Ira Shor (1996) wrote about experiential classes he taught in college that gave authority to students and where he observed the power of knowledge and the knowledge of power among students. He explored the issue of students experiencing each other as “knowledge-makers” through a negotiated process among themselves and their teacher in contrast to the conventional “authoritative teacher as the sole source of subject matter” (p. 202). When the knowledge maker is no longer solely the teacher, student voice is intertwined in learning environments, reflecting an educational process that is shaped, changed, and molded by students. Further, it is predicated on what students feel is critical to their own learning and in their collective process for learning together with their teacher. The pedagogy is embedded with dialogues expressing perspectives/voices, engagement, reflections, and others’ realities. Critical pedagogy is a compelling approach to education and innovative reform with the potential to engage Native youth students in social action in their schools and communities. Duncan-Andrade and Morrell (2008) advocate a critical pedagogy that consists of academic competencies, navigational strategies, critical sensibilities, and collaborative action toward social change . . . [which] can lead to academic achievements, economic empowerment, and self and social transformation among populations currently being alienated in public schools. (p. 104)

Critical pedagogy includes the following: embeddedness within the experiences of marginalized populations; grounding in critical race theory—utilizing a critique of structural, economic, and racial oppression; dialogue at its center; empowerment for social change within communities and individuals (Freire 1970; Giroux 2001; hooks 1994; McLaren 1994; Shor 1992). Collective action builds a common critical consciousness about past histories, making relevant the issues and resolutions in present day and for future action. Culturally relevant pedagogy should enhance academic, social, and emotional development among Native youth. The next section examines how a culturally embedded critical pedagogy is important for healthy youth development.

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SUPPORTING HEALTHY YOUTH DEVELOPMENT The research literature notes the potential of culturally relevant and critical pedagogy for embracing the sociocultural and intellectual assets youth bring to schools. Utilizing these assets in schools, teachers can enhance and support intellectual, social, and psychological/emotional development (Cammarota and Fine 2008; Duncan-Andrade and Morrell 2008; Shor 1996; Tuck, Allen, Bacha, Morales, Quinter, Thompson, and Tuck 2008). Especially important to adequate human development for youth is the ability to safely acknowledge their emotions and express these in positive and mutually beneficial ways within the context of school, family, work, and social life environments. Youth development is an area of scholarship and practice devoted to understanding and supporting the developmental process between adolescence and adulthood. According to a report by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine in 2002, positive youth development requires healthy growth across numerous areas, including Physical Development (good health habits and risk management skills); Intellectual Development (knowledge of essential life and vocational skills, school success, critical thinking, reasoning and decision-making skills, ability to navigate through multiple cultural contexts); Psychological and Emotional Development (good mental health, positive self-regard, social identity, coping and conflict resolution skills; planning skills, autonomy, prosocial values, strong moral character); and Social Development (connectedness, sense of social place/integration, attachment to conventional institutions, ability to navigate in multiple contexts, civic engagement) (p. 55). There is a growing consensus among researchers, teachers, parents, and community members that schools should support these developmental assets. Several of the key assets listed above inform this research with regard to the utility of culturally relevant critical pedagogy, including Intellectual, Psychological and Emotional, and Social development. The interdisciplinary, experiential, and organic nature of a critically framed culturally relevant pedagogy aligns well with a youth development approach because it exemplifies learning in the context of problem-posing about issues relevant to real-life situations and collectively taking action to resolve these issues. This pedagogy can influence positive outcomes for young people and provide support for young people’s growth and transitions into healthy, stable adults. Teaching and learning through individual and collective acts of social responsibility can stimulate the emotion of empathy and influence the physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual acts of caring for others, enhancing the reciprocal nature of giving-receiving all of which are important to the belonging of youth in schools and communities.

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Belonging in schools has been identified in the research as a significant social developmental norm, one that is often overlooked particularly regarding diverse youth who have little to no power in schools and whose cultures are not embraced as compared to their same-age, White peers and who often encounter alienation and isolation to the point of leaving secondary education (Deyhle 1992; Fine, Weis, and Pruitt 2004; LeCompte and Dworkin 1991). How people react in everyday situations is informed by their power relations across social, political, economic, and cultural contexts. Many of the belonging attributes in human relationships, and especially cross-cultural relationships, require social capital and the knowledge and skills that enable youth to navigate power among student groups as well as with teachers and staff in schools.

THE AMERICAN INDIAN LITERACY AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM (AILT) My research examines how Native youth maintain their values, cultural traditions, and identity by negotiating culture and power systems with other Native youth in ways that non-Native educators often don’t recognize, understand, or celebrate. The setting for this study was a large urban school district where approximately 1,200 Native children attended all 125 of the district’s schools where they experienced remedial education, alienation, and isolation, resulting in very few completing their education. As an initiative by Native activists to provide culturally responsive academic programs that contrasted the deficit models of education for Native children, the Title VII program administrator, two teachers, and I created four summer literacy programs for Native students in grades 1–12. Shantae, Jennifer, Jimmy, and Irene were four of over a hundred Native middle school students who took part in programs. In the sections that follow I focus on four key lessons learned from my work with the students and teachers that have implications not only for educators working with Native students, but for all students. Youth-Directed Transformational Learning The pedagogy I used in the AILT program involved two primary types of learning: youth-directed and transformational learning, both of which involved self and collective processes for learning. Action and engagement naturally occur when students control their own learning, identify learning goals, select learning methods, and evaluate their progress. Students’

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actions were shaped by shared vision, experiences, learning goals, the political environment, and issues of power and control, requiring them to address these issues and the underlying dynamics of culture, race, class, and gender. Transformational learning occurred when the youth examined the assumptions on which their local community operates as compared to other communities and developed new practices based on new assumptions. They learned how to access funding to make changes in their community. They used their cooperative learning skills to make decisions and design and implement an education and technology center in their community. It is within that process that they were able to recognize and reframe the roles and relationships dictated by different cultures. Culturally relevant pedagogy in AILT consisted of a series of collaborative activities—dialogues, reflections, research—from which emerged multiple perspectives, relevant information (historical and contextual), and carefully crafted ideas that turned into action plans, resulting in social change. Addressing issues of inequities in their school community established a pathway to create a collaborative process to identify problems intellectually, to share epistemological assumptions, and to coconstruct action plans to resolve complex problems of concrete relevance to Native communities. Culturally relevant pedagogy was a vehicle to combine research, academics, and social action based on the engagement and participation of a variety of individuals, communities, and organizations. It was a dynamic process that involved intellectual sharing, development of a critical consciousness about social worlds (AILT youths’ and others’), and collaboration for collective action to create positive social change. Youth Negotiating Culture and Power The AILT youth contributed to developing a culturally relevant curriculum; together we created a series of academic environments and action research activities that required us to utilize our skills for negotiating culture and power and to practice these in a variety of ways. These activities included journaling and creating dialogues about social issues impacting their families, schools, and communities; coordinating group efforts to access technology for conducting Internet research; developing mentoring skills; conducting research about Native agencies and organizations in the metro area; creating interview scripts; designing and implementing a community-based technology and education center; writing a grant proposal for funding the technology and education center; and self-evaluating program participation and personal learning goals.

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For example, I observed Jimmy as he negotiated his group work with AILT peers and teacher. He discussed the daily objectives and plans of action with the group. He recorded the plans and negotiated roles with the other youth in their group and then as a group member with the teacher. He fully participated in the program, the assignments, and assumed different group roles. He also navigated through other social worlds along with his peers—going to a university campus and a corporate office, meeting professionals and business owners (Native and non-Native), writing scripts for interviews with professionals, conducting formal mentoring with older youth, creating webpages, and designing an education and technology center for the community. Jimmy never failed to accomplish an objective or demonstrate skill in achieving the daily assignments and program goals. This consistency in Jimmy’s participation and accomplishments in the AILT program made me wonder about his classroom experiences. What were his teachers’ expectations and did these shape his educational experiences? Did any teacher or principal advocate on behalf of him or Irene during the expulsion process? Or were these youth simply (because of their “at risk” status) moved along with the paperwork as it went from one administrator to the next through the district expulsion gate and out onto the city streets? Shantae and Jennifer had benefited by the social, emotional, and intellectual support from Native family and community that were not as evident in Jimmy and Irene’s situation. I examined how the vastly different life experiences of these youth impacted their relationships with one another and with their teacher. I observed how Shantae and Jennifer assumed leadership roles in the group, which meant they also shared leadership with the other youth, mentoring them to discard their nonactive classroom behavior, to assume active learner behaviors, and to get involved in the AILT activities and assignments with enthusiasm. What resulted was that all students assumed leadership roles without being assigned by the teacher. In this organic learning and teaching environment, students were both learner and teacher. The pedagogy provided opportunities for AILT youth to practice leadership skills through voicing new perspectives and creative solutions about school and community issues and problem solving in their personal lives. I think of a quotation by Cesar Chavez: “Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students” (Chavez 2010) and how the youth naturally responded to the culturally relevant pedagogy: a pedagogy that embraced their cultural traditions and values and caring attitudes and interests toward their families and community; a pedagogy that reflected their social, intellectual, and psychological/emotional development needs and interests.

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Native Youth Activism in the AILT Program In the AILT program, the students chose to focus their efforts on creating more equitable access to educational and technology services for their community and were excited about developing their own youth-run community education program in their neighborhood. We decided to apply for a community service grant being sponsored by a local foundation to fund their community-based education program. The grant guidelines aligned quite well with the students’ social action interests and their research findings about the lack of access to educational and technology resources for children and families in their community. The teaching and learning experiences associated with this grant writing process were compelling. First, the grant writing process itself involved leadership skills such as designing a community-based, youth-led educational program. Additionally, the youth conducted a series of decisions laying out the details of the program, such as the budget, roles they would assume for managing the program, and where they would locate their educational and technology center in the community. Reflections, observations, and self-assessments of the AILT youth in the decision-making processes and accomplishing all the tasks associated to the grant proposal revealed several interesting findings. Their rationale for the community service project was the lack of access to educational services and technology for adults to find employment and to gain computer skills such as word processing and spreadsheet software knowledge. Additionally, the AILT youth hoped to create a space in the center for children and families to have access to educational games and software (spelling, math, reading skills). Another issue that led these youth to create this community-based computer lab and educational program was the fact they did not have easy access to computers to conduct their research for the AILT program. This was their own solution to the problem of equitable access to computers (even public tax funded facilities) and they saw the relevance of their collective action with regard to giving back to their community. As a result of their organizing for equity and collectively presenting an action plan and grant proposal to fund their project, the youth were awarded approximately $50,000 in computers, printers, educational software, and technology training by experts in the industry. Shantae and Jennifer agreed to lead the community service program and attend the technology training events if the other students would help out by teaching adults and children how to use computers based on an agreed upon weekly schedule. They chose to locate their educational program in the local community center. It took almost four months to open the Education and Technology Center—the name they chose for their community program. Once the center was

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set up, Shantae and Jennifer created a schedule for providing educational support (tutoring, homework, research) to children and youth who used the facility. Jimmy and Irene worked two afternoons a week at the center helping adults learn computer skills, such as Internet research and job hunting, taking online classes, and learning word processing skills. Additional resources were provided by the local neighborhood community center staff who developed a technology center manual that provided clear instructions for the youth for providing technical support to center guests. The AILT youth ran the program throughout high school and until the center closed. As shown in this case, when CRE is embedded in critical pedagogy, youth activism for social justice can be a key component of the teaching and learning process, with collective social change as an outcome. For Native youth, the collective action for social change and participating in leadership roles by having decision-making power concerning their educative activities was their contribution to the culturally relevant pedagogy, to AILT, and supported a prevalent Indigenous value of giving back to their community. Academic Identity and Indigenous Values Evidence of academic identity was taking shape with regards to the AILT youth gaining efficacy through CRE and critical pedagogy. In mainstream schools, the efficacy of Native youth is often compromised by the negative messages they hear and experience in classrooms: that they are failures because of low test scores, that they are academically challenged (perceptions and stereotyping by others), that neither they nor their families/communities value education, all of which influence the message that they are failures in schools simply because they are Indigenous. One of the most harmful notions goes something like this: if Indian children would just assimilate into the White mainstream they would be successful in school. For generations, Native children have been perceived as not learning at the same rates as White students, and with every grade they enter they face low expectations from White educators in mainstream schools. They continue to be compared to White middle and upper class standards without the privilege and social capital benefits afforded to the dominant population. One learning goal is learning about the social capital of both the Indigenous and European-American social worlds. This is increasingly important to the education, health, and well-being of Native youth. The AILT program provided many opportunities for students to participate in a variety of sociocultural and intellectual activities that they would

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not have been afforded outside this program. These experiences included visits to a local university campus, multicultural student services offices, technology centers, and a science museum/Indigenous cultural archive not on public display; presentations by cultural anthropologists; mentoring by Native professionals in a corporate office; a variety of technology and research training workshops (webpage design, social science research methods, library and Internet research, community liaison/activism); grant writing; networking and mentoring with peers and older youth; and outings to local recreational parks. All of these experiences enhanced the acquisition of social capital. The AILT youth’s academic identity was positively enhanced through their active participation in sociocultural and intellectual activities. Additionally, based on experiences in the AILT program, students were now equipped with a broader sociocultural toolkit (social capital) with which they could navigate other social worlds (middle and upper class systems); they learned that attaining more information and services through their own research and networking skills was possible and how they could use these skills to obtain resources to serve their community. This made the educative value of AILT even more relevant. The AILT program integrated the value of giving back to improve the quality of lives in the students’ community, reflecting those values of family and community, and creating social change for their community rather than centering the work on the individual/self. Acquiring a positive academic identity by actively learning, intellectualizing through voice, in dialogue, reflection, and collectively taking action to navigate and negotiate social systems across communities is the essence of the AILT youth’s experiences. Many of them went on to later attend universities and colleges to gain additional expertise and skills to serve their families and communities.

CONCLUSION AND EDUCATOR’S LEARNING NOTES As a Native activist and educator, I celebrated the youth’s accomplishments. Perhaps most importantly, I believed in their intellectual abilities, in their sincere desire to learn and be young Native leaders taking positive risks teaching others and collectively creating social action that represented giving back to their community. Several lessons were breathtakingly clear. Youth can relate to educational relevance when it’s situated in a naturalistic context and setting. Neither discipline nor motivation, as often mentioned in research, were challenges I saw with these youth. They participated in the mentoring with regard to

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writing the interview protocols and role-playing interviews with the older youth in their summer program. I was inspired as I experienced, firsthand, the resiliency of marginalized youth to continue to want to learn and experience education actively and in relevant ways, particularly through communitybased social action. Their attitudes and behaviors about access to educational services and technology tools were important to participating fully in the larger community and influenced my theorizing about what it means for youth to have an academic identity that results in academic success as defined by these students—a success framed by their goals. Through the culturally relevant pedagogy, students were able to cocreate knowledge based on their cultural traditions and enhance their learning process of social and academic skills important to negotiating across social worlds. As indicated in the earlier Jimmy and Irene story, these students faced daily challenges (hidden curriculum3 and cultural incompatibility) in mainstream schools not easily negotiated by children; however, they were able to fully participate in the AILT program. Jimmy, Irene, Shantae, and Jennifer, along with four other middle school youth, had perfect attendance during the program; they arrived in the morning before I got to the school and stayed long into the afternoon. What became clear about them is they supported and trusted each other and their teacher. Their level of participation, enthusiasm, skill, and knowledge for conducting action research went well beyond what I had experienced as an educator/ researcher in conventional classrooms and schools. I had expectations for excellence as a teacher; however, I was surprised by the high rates of attendance across all the four summer programs. I also observed the mutual benefits for teachers, students, families, and school communities that were long lasting. Friendships and partnerships manifest through this process continue in the present day. Many of the Native youth who attended those summer programs finished high school and entered colleges (Aguilera 2008). Culturally relevant pedagogy brings youth front and center in problemposing and action to resolve the equity gap in education, and it builds relationships among Native students, families, communities, and educators as they collectively work to dismantle inequities. While CRE has been embraced by many educators, we struggle with how to do it better so that underrepresented students have access to an equitable education. It’s timely to examine the sociocultural context of a critically framed CRE particularly in light of Native youth negotiating culture and power in educational systems and mainstream society. As educators, it is imperative that we recognize, understand, and celebrate Native youth who work to maintain

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their values, cultural traditions, and identity by negotiating culture and power systems with other Native youth.

NOTES 1. See Aguilera, Lipka, Demmert, and Tippeconnic’s (2007) special issue about culturally responsive education. 2. The Coolangatta Statement can be found on the Journal of American Indian Education website at jaie.asu.edu/v39/V39I1A4.pdf. 3. See Vogt, Jordan, and Tharp (1987).

REFERENCES Aguilera, D. E. (2003). Who Defines Success: An Analysis of Competing Models of Education for American Indian and Alaskan Native Students. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Colorado, Boulder. ———. (2008, November). Beating to the Urban Drum: Participatory Action Research with Native Youth. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Conference, San Francisco, CA. ———. (2009). Participatory Action Research as Pedagogy for Equity and Social Justice in Education: Intersections of Youth Voice, Reflection, Action in a Public High School. Unpublished report. Aguilera, D. E., and LeCompte, M. D. (2007). “Resiliency in Native Languages: The Tale of Three Indigenous Communities’ Successes with Language Revitalization and Preservation.” In Aguilera, D. E., Lipka, J., Demmert,W., Tippeconnic, J. III. (eds.), Journal of American Indian Education, 46(3), 11–37. ———. (2008). “Restore My Language and Treat Me Justly: Indigenous Students’ Rights to Their Tribal Languages.” In Scott, J., Straker, D., and Katz, L. (eds.), Affirming Students’ Right to Their Own Language: Bridging Educational Policies to Language/Language Arts Teaching Practices (pp. 130–72). London: Routledge and Taylor and Francis Group. Aguilera, D. E., Lipka, J., Demmert, W., and Tippeconnic, J. III. (eds.). (2007). “Culturally Responsive Schools Serving American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Students.” [Special Issue] Journal of American Indian Education, 46(3), 4–10. Alaska Native Knowledge Network. (1998). Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Education. (September 1, 2009). Retrieved from ankn.uaf.edu/publications/ index.html#standards. Barnhardt, R., and Kawagley, A. O. (2005). “Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Alaska Native Ways of Knowing.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(1), 8–23.

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Cajete, G. (1999). Igniting the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Education Model. Asheville, NC: Kivaki Press. Cammarota, J., and Fine, M., (eds.). (2008). Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research in Motion. New York: Routledge. Chevaz, Cesar E. (2010). The United Farm Workers of America. Retrieved October 22, 2010 from http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=research&inc=history/09.html. Deloria, V., Jr., and Wildcat, D. R. (2001). Power and Place: Indian Education in America. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. Delpit, L. D. (1995). Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New Press. Demmert, W. J. (2003). Improving Academic Performance among Native American Students: A Review of the Research Literature. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural and Small Schools. Demmert, W. J., and Towner, J. C. (2003). A Review of the Research Literature on the Influences of Culturally Based Education on the Academic Performances of Native American Students. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Deyhle, D. (1992). “Constructing Failure and Maintaining Cultural Identity: Navajo and Ute School Leavers.” Journal of American Indian Education, 3, 46–54. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan. ———. (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Touchstone. Duncan-Andrade, J. M. R., and Morrell, E. (2008). The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools. New York: Peter Lang. Fine, M., Weis, L., and Pruitt, L. (2004). Off White: Readings in Power and Resistance. New York: Routledge. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. ———. (2009). “From Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” In A. Darder, M. Baltodano, and R. Torres, (eds.), The Critical Pedagogy Reader (pp. 52–60). New York: Routledge. Giroux, H. A. (2001). “Culture, Power, and Transformation in the Work of Paulo Freire.” In F. Schultz (ed.), SOURCES: Notable Selections in Education, 3rd ed. (pp. 77–86). New York: McGraw-Hill. ———. (2009). “Teacher Education and Democratic Schooling.” In Darder, A., Baltodano, M.P., and Torres, R.D. (eds.), The Critical Pedagogy Reader (pp. 438–59). New York: Routledge. Grande, S. (2003). Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge. Kawagley, A. O. (1995). A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. LeCompte, M. D., and Dworkin, A. G. (1991). Giving Up on School: Teacher Burnout and Student Dropout. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press. McLaren, P. (1994). Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education. New York: Longman.

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National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2002). Community Programs to Promote Youth Development. Committee on Community-Level Programs for Youth. Jacquelynne Eccles and Jennifer Appleton Gootman (eds.). Retrieved from www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309072751. Oakes, J., Rogers, J., and Lipton, M. (2006). Learning Power: Organizing for Education and Justice. New York: Teachers College Press. Shor, I. (1992). Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. (1996). When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. (2009). “What Is Critical Literacy?” In Darder, A., Baltodano, M. P., and Torres, R. D. (eds.), The Critical Pedagogy Reader (pp. 282–304). New York: Routledge. Tuck, E., Allen, J., Bacha, M., Morales, A., Quinter, S., Thompson, J., and Tuck, M. (2008). “PAR Praxes for Now and Future Change: The Collective of Researchers on Educational Disappointment and Desire.” In J. Cammarota and M. Fine (eds.), Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research in Motion (pp. 49–83). New York: Routledge. Vogt, L. A., Jordan, C., and Tharp, R. G. (1987). “Explaining School Failure, Producing School Success: Two Cases.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18(4), pp. 276–86. World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education. (1999). “The Coolangatta Statement on Indigenous Rights in Education.” Journal of American Indian Education, 39(1), 52–64. Retrieved from the JAIE website, jaie.asu.edu/v39/v39i1a4. pdf (pp. 1–20).

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Weaving Spiritualities into Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Nadjwa E. L. Norton, City College of New York

Take this simple educator quiz: 1. Are you a spiritual being? 2. Do you believe that children are spiritual beings? 3. Have you ever drawn on your spiritualities in order to strengthen a student-teacher relationship? 4. Have you ever contemplated what it would look like to bring more of your spiritual self into the classroom? 5. Have you ever wondered about the connections between spiritualities and student success in school? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this chapter was written with you in mind. It does not matter what grade level you teach or how old your students are. This chapter offers some springboards for you to make spirituality—an aspect of culture—more visible in culturally responsive pedagogies. While you are reading, try to envision your students connected to some (un)seen force, attending religious institutions, praying, meditating, communicating with ancestors, chanting, or trying to center themselves. Focus on the possible potential of spiritualities to serve as strength, supports, resources, and tools for both teachers and students. While focusing on this potential, remember that although everyone does not identify himself or herself as a spiritual person, a significant number of people do. It is this subset of students that I spotlight as I provide insight regarding 85

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how teachers may make spiritualities more visible within culturally responsive pedagogies. For many years now, a cadre of educators have been urging others to develop and implement culturally responsive pedagogies—pedagogies that use cultures and lived experiences to enhance, support, and further learning processes (Gay 2000; Weinstein, Curran, and Tomlinson-Clarke 2003). Researchers such as Ladson-Billings (1994) and Brown (2007) contend that when culturally responsive pedagogies are systematically and pervasively implemented, they will promote academic success for all students. In their initial and most widespread conceptualizations, culturally responsive pedagogies were viewed in light of culture as virtually synonymous with ethnicity and race (Agbo 2004; Gay and Kirkland 2003; Ladson-Billings 1995). However, as time passes and more educators and scholars take up these pedagogies, the original understandings and visions of culturally responsive pedagogies are revised to encompass a broader and more inclusive notion of culture. In so doing, scholars including Norton and Bentley (2006) argue against solely theorizing and implementing culturally responsive pedagogies to create more equity around race and ethnicity. Instead, they define culture in a more expansive way that includes, but is not limited to, ways of being around sexuality, dress, race, class, age, ethnicity, citizenship, ability, and spirituality (De Gaetano, Williams, and Volk, 1998). Therefore, it is now possible to explore culturally responsive pedagogies in relation to abilities (Harris-Murri, King, and Rostenberg 2006), pregnant and parenting youth (Roxas 2008), as well as age and class (Norton 2005). Yet, within the corpus of work concerning culturally responsive pedagogies, spirituality as an aspect of culture is an area that has gone largely untapped. Overlooking, underestimating, or marginalizing spirituality as an aspect of culture is problematic because spiritualities are shaped by worldviews, which in turn shape masses of people, their understandings, and their actions. For many people, spiritual culture provides communicative practices whereby members can converse about daily happenings, environmental conditions, and ways of interacting with others (Bridges 2001; Stewart, 1997). Like any other aspect of culture, spiritualities create opportunities for people to form community specific dialogic practices and discourses (Brant 1994). Further, as the country’s demographics continue to change, and globalization continues to spread, our school systems are hosting a plethora of children with numerous and varying spiritualities. An educational system that once was marked by Judeo-Christian spiritualities now also identifies with environmental, yoga, ancestral, Buddhist, Yoruba, and Islamic spiritualities (National Center for Education Statistics 2004).

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Given these current trends, this chapter extends the conversation of culturally responsive pedagogies by naming spirituality as an aspect of culture. One basic point of departure for the remainder of this chapter is the premise that religion/spirituality can be practiced in schools as long as people are not proselytizing (Halford 1998/1999; Palmer 2003). Another point of departure is the assertion that religion and spirituality are not synonymous, interchangeable concepts; instead, religion is a subset of spirituality (Norton 2006). In accordance with these anchorings, readers may attend to how certain spiritualities are valued and others are devalued. In order to counter these prevailing notions and to begin to develop the most effective and inclusive culturally responsive pedagogies that weave in spiritualities, we need to think outside of our comfort zones and broadly include constructs of familiar and unfamiliar spiritualities. Specifically, I explore: 1. An inclusive definition of spirituality that may be used within public school contexts; 2. Children’s constitution of themselves and others as spiritual; 3. Children’s abilities to read everyday texts and images that can be located within school contexts, with spiritual lenses; 4. Ideas for how educators can focus on children’s spiritualities when planning curriculum. I begin with a literature review that focuses on the spiritualities of children and sheds insight on the ways spiritualities have been connected with schools and teaching and learning processes. Next, I establish the narrative contexts of the research presented. Then, I operationalize the definition of spiritualities with data from Gabe, a participant in my study (2006). Thereafter, I share two examples of spiritual cards that illustrate how spiritual children read everyday images that often appear within school contexts. This discussion highlights children’s diverse spiritualities and practices and links these understandings to implications for the school environment. Finally, I conclude by discussing actions that educators might take to make spiritualities more visible within their culturally responsive pedagogies.

BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN’S SPIRITUALITIES Coles (1990) is well known for his groundbreaking narrative research on spiritualities with boys and girls ranging from 6 to 13 years of age in the United States and other countries. His work contributed to heightening

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people’s consciousness concerning the ways in which children were able to identify themselves as spiritual, to articulate how they utilized their spiritualities to understand what was happening to them and why, and to question their spiritual understandings. Coles uncovered children’s awareness that some spiritualities were separated by home and school and their complex spiritual practices such as talking with God, praying, dreaming about God, and communicating with God through visions. This commitment to exploring children’s spiritualities was later taken up by Adato (1998) who conducted research with fifty-six children ages 8 to 13. Giving the children cameras, she asked them to answer questions around spiritualities such as, “Who is God? What would you ask God if you could? And how would you show that in a photograph?” (p. 68). Adato’s work illustrated how children’s multiple identities influenced how they theorized about God, questioned religious faiths, and constructed the gods that were relevant to their experiences. For example, some children queried popular media images of God, which often represented a White, male being. Adato’s work offered a more complex understanding of children as spiritual beings that do not just reiterate the spirituality imposed on them by family culture. Numerous children produced photographs that represented their competing tensions and wavering beliefs about God. Given the open-ended nature of the question, children unearthed spiritual beliefs in devils, evil spirits, gods, and heavens. Both Adato’s (1998) and Coles’s (1990) work highlighted that spiritual children often named spiritual practices including referencing and drawing upon stories and sanctioned spiritual texts in order to gather advice, searching for role models, and uncovering problem-solving strategies. In many ways, the range of spiritual texts that they encountered—including spiritual figures, moral tales, iconic print texts, and testimonies—shaped children’s spiritual identities. Zinsser’s (1986) research added to these understandings illustrating how Christian children frequently drew upon the Bible as a text within their lives. In researching two Vacation Bible School and Sunday School contexts with Christian fundamentalist, White, four- and five-year-old children whose families were of working and business class backgrounds, Zinsser illustrated how children, who were unable to read and write print text, used spiritual practices that included listening, singing, memorizing, and repeating— drawing on the Bible as the focal text. Zinsser contended that the children’s spiritual practices, which included referencing the Bible as a text, provided strength, knowledge, and lessons that they applied to their daily lives. Given children’s abilities to draw on spiritual texts on a daily basis across numerous situations, it is necessary that educators begin to con-

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template what this might look like in a school environment. Blain and Eady (2002) offer insights into how 20 six- and seven-year-olds negotiated school-sanctioned science texts through spiritual lenses. For example, children made links in science and spirituality when discussing life cycles of animals. Their study revealed that children engaged these conversations with each other in ways that both confirmed and opposed other children’s spiritualities. Further, Blain and Eady found that children were not only capable of producing spiritual meaning-making without the help of adults, but that they also constructed and reconstructed their spiritual understandings in the presence of each other. This revelation of children evidencing their spiritualities without the support or encouragement of adults is important as, more often than not, this is the context in which children find themselves. Many educators are not ready to embrace the spiritualities that children bring into the classroom. Even when educators witness and name children’s spiritualities, they may not be ready or capable of integrating these spiritualities into the curriculum. For instance, British researchers Sokanovic and Muller (1999) studied six teachers and six school inspectors who worked with students, primarily ages six and seven. Their research explored both groups’ definitions of spirituality, awareness of children’s spiritualities, preparation for creating spiritual teaching and learning environments, and examples of implementing spiritual teaching and learning practices. The teachers reported not having the support or training to create such spiritual environments. Most were vehement that the demands of the National Curriculum constrained their abilities to engage such practices. Sokanovic and Muller contend that teacher training needs to include time for teachers to discuss their spiritualities, the development of strategies for creating opportunities for children to discover their spiritualities, and the provision of resources for teachers to create lessons that link mandated content and spiritual experiences. The issues raised in the research are representative of the concerns of educators in the United States. For many, it seems impossible and unfair to require that they engage children’s spiritualities. Some are resistant because they have not yet explored their own spiritualities. Others are hesitant because of the mandated curriculum, lack of time, or inexperience working with children’s spiritualities. In an effort to surmount these hindrances, researchers are beginning to contribute scholarship that details spiritualities being manifested through art, music, dance, and literature in public schools (Broadbent 2004; Winston 2002). The research presented here adds insight into other ways of thinking

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about how educators may make spiritualities visible within culturally responsive pedagogies to support their students’ spiritualities.

RESEARCH CONTEXT The data used in this chapter arise from a one-year multicultural feminist critical narrative study (Norton 2004). This methodology grounds the research in shared tenets that attend to (1) creating more equitable teaching; (2) listening to voices that are often marginalized in schools; (3) acquiring more culturally responsive resources; and (4) focusing on the intersecting positionalities that influence teaching and learning contexts. I was particularly interested in learning: 1. What are the spiritual practices of each participant? 2. How does each participant’s spiritual practices create and perpetuate (in) equities within the classroom? 3. How are participants engaging as a collective to utilize their spiritual practices to inform classroom pedagogies? My co-researchers in this work were a classroom teacher, Mr. Williams, a Black male who was willing to create a more culturally responsive curriculum in his classroom, and three of his students: (1) Gabe, a Puerto Rican/ Black male, (2) Kevin, a Black male, and (3) Pam, a Dominican female. Together with Mr. Williams they examined their literacies and spiritual practices and how these practices created (in)equities within the classroom. They were joined by Ray, Gabe’s second grade Puerto Rican brother, and Joseph, Kevin’s first grade Black cousin/brother. Data were collected through focus groups, artifact discoveries, narrative interviews, collaborative conversations, observations, and children/ co-researcher interviews (Norton 2006). Collaborative conversations lasted approximately two hours and provided ongoing opportunities for curricular discussions, reflection, analysis, and planning (Hollingsworth 1994). This chapter specifically focuses on the utilization of spiritual cards within narrative interviews and collaborative conversations as a specific type of artifact discovery. Collecting, producing, examining, and reflecting upon the spiritual cards helped co-researchers analyze and consider some of their literacies, including their spiritual practices (Jalongo and Isenberg 1995). Tapes were transcribed verbatim. Data were initially coded for each participant and across data sources to identify emerging themes and patterns about literacies practices, namely spiritual practices, family involvement,

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and school inequities. Some themes included the importance of helping others, thinking about God throughout one’s day, playing music to entertain and make others feel better, and having purpose in life. THE SPIRITUAL CARD ARTIFACTS AND THE TASK During the interviews and collaborative conversations I brought in a deck of spiritual cards entitled Black Angel Cards. They were created by a Jungian and Buddhist teacher for the purpose of supporting African American women in strengthening and reviving their spiritual powers. There are thirty-six 5 x 7 cards in the deck. The cards are framed in black with a color palette that includes green, yellow, magenta, orange, and turquoise figures on a fading blue purple background. The title of each card, such as poet, healer, earthmother, spiritual guide, and changer, was written in black. I spread the cards on the table or floor and gave participants time to read them. I also spread out blank index cards, pencils, and markers. I then asked participants to pick three cards that represented themselves, their spiritualities, and spiritual practices. I said, “If you cannot find any cards that you relate to, please draw your images on the blank index cards. Once people have picked their cards and thought about them, we will share. People can talk first and other people can ask questions if they wish.” The participants chose cards that included drummer, dancer, queen, dreamer, builder, teacher, wanderer, and helper. OPERATIONALIZING SPIRITUALITIES The first excerpt comes from a collaborative conversation among Gabe, Mr. Williams (the teacher), and me. When it was time to share, Gabe volunteered to begin. I provide this data so the reader may see how the children talked about their choices. I also elaborate on the data to operationalize the inclusive definition of spiritualities that grounds this chapter. Gabe: I picked the wonderer [wanderer] because I wonder if God takes care of the people who have died in my family. Nadjwa: Who has died besides your brother and your father?1 Gabe: My mother’s grandma, my mother’s grandfather. Nadjwa: If God was taking care of those people, what would that mean? Gabe: I would be nice to God.

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Nadjwa: What do you think they are doing now that they are dead? Gabe: They are watching.

Although this was Gabe’s first collaborative conversation with Mr. Williams and me, it was not his first experience in the research. By the time we engaged in the picking of the spiritual cards, I had been a volunteer in his classroom twice a week for five months. Gabe and I had engaged in three informal research-based conversations. I had met his mother, stepfather, and brothers and sisters. I had visited Gabe at his house and played games with him and his siblings. His mother and I had spoken in two informal conversations. Our time together had provided me some of the background information that I used when asking him questions about his response to the card. What was most striking to me at the time, and still remains ingrained in my mind, is Gabe’s willingness to select the cards to represent his spiritualities and to cast himself as a spiritual being who was willing to share aspects of his spiritualities in the presence of his teacher and a researcher. Gabe picked four cards (not three) and eagerly volunteered to share first. Most importantly, I was struck by Gabe’s sense of his spiritualities. Despite being a beginning print-reader, he articulated a powerful rationale for the conceptualization of the card. Moreover, Gabe’s rationale for his selection illustrates the three-pronged definition of spiritualities that anchors this text. Although the word spiritualities has a plethora of constructions, for the purposes of this chapter they shall be defined as: 1. Connecting people’s minds-spirits-bodies to (un)seen forces; 2. Connecting people’s minds-spirits-bodies to the other entities created by or related to those (un)seen forces; 3. Including spiritual practices that consist of the ways that people manifest, sustain, and develop their spiritualities, such as meditating, exercising, reading, and writing (Brant 1994; Sams 1994). When Gabe states, “I wonder if God takes care of the people who have died in my family” and “They are watching,” he illustrates the first component of spirituality. He has connected his mind-spirit-body to the (un)seen force of God as well as to the (un)seen forces of family members who have died and become part of the (non)living. (Non)living beings include those beings who are physically deceased in their human form but still alive as spirits or mind-spirits. In Gabe’s case, a six-year-old who is not part of any institutionalized religion, he articulates a belief system that connects him to two (un)seen forces.

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Gabe’s data also illustrate the second prong of the spiritualities definition that emphasizes the relationships between (un)seen forces and entities beyond one’s individual self. For Gabe, the articulation that God should be “taking care” of his family members and that the family members are “watching” entails that God has the ability to take care of the (non)living and that the (non) living have the abilities to watch over those who are still physically alive on this earth. Finally, in selecting the above spiritual card, Gabe also demonstrates that the spiritual practices he maintains include wondering about life and interacting with God. When Gabe states he “would be nice to God,” it is clear that he has conceptualized a god with whom he has contact and can interact and a relationship with a god where he can choose how he wants to treat God.

THE DREAMER Acknowledging children’s ability to identify their spiritualities permits educators to understand that there are spiritual people within our midst. In this way, making spiritualities an aspect of culture increases the opportunities for educators to see that they may or may not be tapping into this aspect of culture when teaching. Consider seven-year-old Joseph. When asked to pick three spiritual cards, he picked the builder, the dreamer, and the reader. Explaining why he chose these images, he asserted: Joseph: I want the dreamer because I dream about everything. Because it makes me think of everything. I dream about God. Nadjwa: What about God do you dream? Joseph: I dream about God always gives me nice dreams and not bad dreams. I love God because he created all of the world and makes everybody have dreams. Not everyone has good dreams, not the people who curse God but people who say the word of God.

Outside of school, church is the place where Joseph spends most of his time, attending on average three times a week. Joseph’s social time is primarily spent with his family, the pastor, and members of the church. Consequently, Joseph’s spirituality is significantly based upon his Christian religion and his reality as a churchgoer. In talking about the dreamer image Joseph illustrates knowledge that includes meaning-making about himself, the (un)seen force of God, and God’s abilities. He demonstrates that as a young child he has a concept of himself as a dreamer, is able to reflect on his behaviors, and is willing to share these

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behaviors and reflections with others. Moreover, his words represent a spiritual knowledge that identifies his belief in and love for a singular concept of God, which in his case is a Christian God (Jesus). He conceptualizes God as a powerful force that not only gives everyone dreams but also has the power to determine whether one has good or bad dreams. He also makes a distinction between people who say the word of God and the people who curse God. Joseph’s statements invoke references to the Bible and to multiple Christian texts, including sermons and family conversations, which identify God as the omnipotent and omniscient Creator of the world and all things. In discussing the dreamer card, he indicates spiritual practices that include dreaming of God and communicating with God. Like Joseph, Gabe also picked the dreamer card and identified dreaming as a spiritual practice. However, their different spiritualities permitted them to analyze the card in dissimilar ways. When asked to respond Gabe stated: Gabe: The dreamer. I picked this card because I dream about God and when I am sleeping I talk to him. . . . Sometimes when I am sleeping I pretend I am with him. Nadjwa: When you dream about God, what do you dream about? Gabe: Him helping me to behave, be nice, to share, to learn. . . . I tell him thank you for making me. Thank you for making the sky. Nadjwa: Do you ever dream about your father and your little brother? Gabe: I dream about that they are actually with me.

In talking about the dreamer image, Gabe illustrates an awareness that includes meaning-making about himself, (un)seen forces, and his relationship with (un)seen forces. His words represent spiritual knowledge that identifies his belief in and love for the (un)seen force of God who communicates with people while they are sleeping. For Gabe, dreams enable communication practices that allow him to say thank you to God and to learn from God. Through his dreams he is also able to connect to the (un)seen forces of his (non)living father and little brother. Dreams become a vehicle for him to maintain communication and physical presence with all of these (un)seen forces. Both Joseph’s and Gabe’s spiritualities that enabled them to select the dreamer card make it possible for educators to reconsider how spiritual children may make sense of school-based texts and images with spiritual lenses. In response to these understandings, culturally responsive pedagogies that visibly weave in spiritualities as aspects of culture might make it a priority to acknowledge that the constructs of dreams and dreaming are

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prevalent in many spiritualities and are also pervasive images that appear repeatedly in classrooms. Whereas many educators are more likely to treat the image of a dreamer as a neutral, friendly, and surface-level construct, a culturally responsive educator who interweaves spirituality will articulate the dreamer as a pivotal, complex, and multidimensional construct. Not surprisingly, it is extremely common for teachers to build classroom community and to implement curriculum by requiring that children write/talk/think about their dreams or future dreams. Common conversations may consist of physical dreams that one has during sleep as well as the type of dreams that people have for themselves and the future. Quite often teachers read stories in which characters have dreams, share poems about dreams, and utilize the concept of dreams for writing prompts. For example, many educators have used texts such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and books such as Van Allsburg’s (1990) Just a Dream, Yolen’s (1996) Encounter, and Dickens’s (2004) A Christmas Carol where the dreams teach moral lessons. Teachers might implement a partner share and a turn and talk strategy so children share their dream(s). Incorporating dream constructs within a culturally responsive pedagogy/ curriculum that makes spiritualities visible necessitates focusing on children’s abilities to bring spiritual lenses and knowledge to classroom activities. Reading, speaking, and producing dreamer images from spiritual lenses provides different points of analysis than if they were read with no spiritual perspective. For example, Christian children might immediately invoke the image of Joseph, the biblical figure, who has numerous significant dreams. Others who live with Native American spiritual beliefs might relate to the concept of dreams within vision quests and the communication of one’s future purpose. Those whose spiritualities are informed by nature may have a dream of a pollution free environment. While still others might link dreams to communication with (non)living family members, evil spirits, prayers being answered by God, or prophesies. Educators who anticipate the range of discussions will be better prepared to negotiate differences that arise when some children share unfamiliar dreams, scary dreams, traumatic dreams, and taboo dreams. Working to build classroom community around the shared texts of dreams entails making differences visible, exploring differences, and creating spaces where spiritual children would be willing to share their dreams. Much of this foregrounding work will need to be accomplished as educators create classroom community by unearthing information about the range of their children’s spiritualities. Educators also have to initiate overt pedagogies that signal to children that spiritual dreams are welcomed, encouraged, and honored. Without this, school might not be seen as a place to share dreams.

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THE HELPER In addition to selecting the dreamer as a common representation of their spiritualities, the children also chose the helper and repeatedly identified themselves as helpers and helping as a spiritual practice. Gabe: The helper. I picked this one because I like to help people. I helped a lot of people. I helped Pam, Stacy, and Laura with their work in class. I helped Kevin when Evan tried to hit him. Both of us were brave because I helped him and I made sure Evan didn’t hit him. . . . I help people with their manners. I just told Kevin, “Say ‘please.’ Don’t say, ‘give me red.’ Then they think your mother doesn’t raise you right.” Nadjwa: Why do you help people? Gabe: To help make them feel good. God wants us to help people.

In talking about the helper image, Gabe illustrates spiritualities that connect him to the (un)seen forces of God and to the entities of other children in his class whom he believes are created by God. His spiritualities include seeing himself as a helper who helps his classmates in order to make them feel better. In so doing, he names the spiritual practice of helping that maintains his connection to the (un)seen force of God, people, and one’s own mother who has taken the time to “raise you right.” In Gabe’s case, his helping as a spiritual practice includes assisting people with academic work, protecting classmates from being physically assaulted by others, and reminding people of their manners. Kevin also chose the helper card. Kevin: This! I want this! . . . God blessed me because he helps me to take care of my family. . . . God doesn’t want us fighting and treating people bad. God wants us to help other people. Nadjwa: Who have you ever helped in your classroom? Joseph: I know who you have helped. Kevin: Ms. Dillard. Joseph: You helped my teacher, Kevin. Kevin: I do. Joseph: I help everybody. Kevin: I help Mr. Williams [his teacher]. Nadjwa: How do you help Mr. Williams, Kevin?

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Kevin: I help him help other people with their homework. With cleaning. I sweep and take care of the room. God wants us to take care of the places where we live and stay. God wants us to help other people. When I am in school I help my classmates. I helped Ryan. I helped him follow rules in school. I helped Jennifer with her work. God helped me to do all that when I was in school. Joseph: God is not going to bless you walking past people who need help. God helps us remember if we help each other we’ll be rewarded.

During self-analysis, Kevin constitutes himself as a helper and connects his mind-body-spirit to the (un)seen force of God. Kevin is Joseph’s six-year-old cousin and, in turn, shares a spirituality that is based in the Christian religion. He evokes spiritual lenses that help him make meaning of the spiritual card and himself as a text that is connected to God’s desires for people. Not only does he conceptualize himself as a helper, he is able to reflect on his helping behaviors as a spiritual practice. Helping others maintains a relationship to the (un)seen force of God as well as to the people you help who are also God’s people. Both Kevin’s and Joseph’s spiritual practices of helping are informed by the texts that they acquire attending church several times a week. When Kevin explains that he cleans the classroom he contends, “God wants us to take care of the places where we live and stay.” His spiritualities are shaped by Christian texts and sermons that encourage Christians to take care of their homes and other places where they reside. Joseph further illustrates some of these Christian references when he states, “God is not going to bless you walking past people who need help.” Identifying language such as “bless you,” “we’ll be rewarded,” and “God blessed me” evidences spiritual Christian texts produced by those who have conceptualized God as an (un)seen force that wants people to help each other, instead of hurting each other. Kevin names himself as a spiritual person—who demonstrates specific spiritual helping practices that consist of sweeping, cleaning, and assisting children with homework—and is supported in this naming by Joseph. Like Joseph, Kevin’s statements invoke references to multiple Christian texts, including the Bible, sermons, and family conversations that identify being a helper and a servant of God as important ways of living as a Christian. It is important to note that the helper is also a pervasive image that appears repeatedly in classrooms. Educators overtly and covertly invoke the helper, at a far more substantial rate than the dreamer, to maintain the academic, social, emotional, and behavioral ethos of classrooms. For many educators school-sanctioned texts such as Silverstein’s (1986) The Giving

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Tree, Galdone’s (1991) Little Red Hen, and Aesop’s (1997) The Lion and the Mouse are often presented as neutral texts but with political values where children are indoctrinated into the joy and duty of being helpful citizens. Children attend classrooms where management systems are founded on the value of a helper. They receive rewards for being helpful, miss free time for not helping, get excited when they see their names on job charts, and obtain certificates for helping. Children participate in classrooms where countless “minilectures” and “teachable moments” focus on helping. Children are prompted to see help on a personal, classroom, community, and global level. Teachers say, “Help your neighbors when they are having difficulty with an assignment.” School contests ask students to create posters that demonstrate how we can help the environment while requests for aid ask, “How can we help the victims of Natural Disaster X?” Yet an educator seeking to implement culturally responsive pedagogies that make spiritualities visible as an aspect of culture must traverse this terrain by also valuing the ways in which spiritualities influence how children understand and enact the construct of helper. Those seeking to develop such pedagogies might support spiritual children by recognizing that within some spiritualities helping is a practice that maintains people’s connection to (un) seen forces and the entities related to those (un)seen forces. Depending on people’s spiritual worldviews, they may situate helping not as an option but rather a call and a necessity. Situating the helper within a spiritual context will enable educators to further examine understandings about how children are reading, analyzing, and creating texts around the helper from their spiritualities. This type of teaching and learning can be accomplished by creating spaces for children to share freely why they help people and how they conceptualize themselves as a helper. A culturally responsive pedagogy that makes spiritualities visible might make texts available or encourage students to compare texts where spiritual figures help others. Rather than hurrying along or naming as inappropriate conversations that arise about how gods help people, how angels help the living, and how evil spirits help at great costs, educators will extend time for these complex layered musings and spark their initiations. With an eager and open mind, culturally responsive educators might invite students to share experiences about when they called upon (un)seen forces to help others or when (un)seen forces prevented them or others from enacting their helping practices. Opportunities may be presented for people to share helping strategies and to problem solve for future helping endeavors.

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PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS To this point, I have utilized data from first graders to illustrate the ways in which children name themselves as spiritual beings and read everyday texts through spiritual lenses. I have also demonstrated curricular options for educators who are seeking to become more culturally responsive by making spiritualities a visible aspect of their pedagogies. In accordance with these articulations, I remind educators that Gabe, Joseph, and Kevin are not anomalies; rather, many children draw on their spiritualities and use them as they make meaning of texts that they encounter in school environments. Therefore, it is incumbent upon educators seeking to develop culturally responsive pedagogies that make spiritualities visible to recognize that there will be students in your class who are spiritual, whether or not you are spiritual yourself. Thus, enacting culturally responsive pedagogies must entail creating classroom contexts that permit children to bring their spiritualities and spiritual practices into learning experiences, whether or not they are aligned with the educators’ spiritualities or lack of spiritualities. Seeking to cast this chapter as a tool for educators to call upon when they are reenvisioning the possibilities of creating learning environments, this section focuses on the complex nature of constructing culturally responsive pedagogies. Specifically, I focus on two distinct but overlapping elements of pedagogy: (1) how educators think about notions of teaching and learning and (2) the resources, strategies, and activities utilized within learning environments (Nieto 2004). Without intense reflexive practice across both dimensions, educators run the risk of conducting surface level or fleeting activities rather than a systematic pervasive curricular overhaul. To begin this work educators will need to consider the spiritualities that are present in their classrooms. Take time to work with the definition of spiritualities presented in this article. Talk with your students and observe them more. Recognize who identifies as spiritual beings and try to learn more about their spiritual practices. Remember that many students have learned that schools are not the place to bring their spiritual selves and that they must disconnect this part of themselves and leave it outside the school door. In light of this, you will have to work harder by extending invitations to welcome spiritual beings, listen in on unofficial student conversations, and share more spiritual content. Once you have unearthed these spiritualities, read more about them, converse with others to deepen your understandings, and have more informal conversations with your students to see how their spiritualities are manifested in their lives. After you have accomplished these tasks, you will need to employ these same observation skills to ascertain the current state of social and political contexts in your school.

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Talk to administrators and family members to gauge the reactions of how people feel about spiritual content. Practice different ways to explain to people they are misinformed about it being “illegal” to bring spiritualities into public school contexts. Collect examples of the ways that other educators are bringing spiritualities into school contexts. Communicate with different stakeholders about why you think making spiritualities visible in the classroom is important in terms of supporting students. Next, make time to plan and to integrate spiritualities within the established curriculum and mandated standards. Find someone else to plan with. Grasp a broad understanding of what is being asked of you as a teacher and of your students. See where there are spaces to contemplate a spiritual slant, to make invitations for spiritual lenses to analyze texts, or to create spiritual texts. Figure out how to offer spiritual topics for people to investigate and cover in content areas including math, social studies, writing, reading, and humanities. Dissect the content, find entry points for your students to take up the content, disagree with it, and make it their own. Remain detailed and careful when making lesson plans. Have a clear pedagogical rationale that you can articulate to yourself, students, administrators, and family members. If at all possible, tap into your own spiritualities and manifest practices that will provide you with more support, energy, creative ideas, and access to resources. Make connections with your students that will allow you to tap into their individual and collective minds-spirits-bodies. Take time to experiment with ways that you can expand how you understand your role as an educator. Try to envision as many possible situations where you tap into your students’ spiritualities in order to teach content, motivate students, and create stronger teacher-student relationships and student-student relationships. Etch into your language and praxis, spirituality as an aspect of culture which is necessary for implementing culturally responsible pedagogies.

NOTE 1. Through informal conversations with Gabe and his mother I found out that Gabe’s biological father and one of his younger brothers were dead. This was an important aspect of the research and played a significant role in Gabe’s spiritualities. His younger brother who had died was a twin to Gabe’s sister who had not yet turned one. During the opportunity to take pictures of his spiritualities, Gabe took pictures of his sister and spoke about her deceased twin, his brother.

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REFERENCES Adato, A. (1998). “Kids’ Pictures to God.” Life, 21(3), 68–80. Agbo, S. A. (2004). “First Nations Perspectives on Transforming the Status of Culture and Language in Schooling.” Journal of American Indian Education, 43(1), 1–31. Aesop. (1997). The Lion and the Mouse. New York: Walter Lorraine Books. Blain, M., and Eady, S. (2002). “The Wow Factor: Spiritual Development through Science.” Westminster Studies in Education, 25(2), 125–35. Brant, B. (1994) Writing as Witness: Essay and Talk. Toronto: Women’s Press. Bridges, F. W. (2001). Resurrection Song: African American Spirituality. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Broadbent, J. (2004). “Embodying the Abstract: Enhancing Children’s Spirituality through Creative Dance.” International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 9(1), 97–104. Brown, M. (2007). “Educating All Students: Creating Culturally Responsive Teachers, Classrooms, and Schools.” Intervention in School and Clinic, 43(1), 57–62. Coles, R. (1990). The Spiritual Life of Children. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. De Gaetano, Y., Williams, L. R., and Volk, D. (1998). Kaleidoscope: A Multicultural Approach for the Primary Classroom. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice-Hall. Dickens, C. (2004). A Christmas Carol. London: Usborne Publishing. Galdone, P. (1991). Little Red Hen. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Gay, G., and Kirkland, K. (2003). “Developing Cultural Critical Consciousness and SelfReflection in Preservice Teacher Education.” Theory into Practice, 42(3), 181–87. Halford, J. (1998/1999). “Longing for the Sacred in Schools: A Conversation with Nel Noddings.” Educational Leadership, 56(4), 28–32. Harris-Murri, N., King, K., and Rostenberg, D. (2006). “Reducing Disproportionate Minority Representation in Special Education Programs for Students with Emotional Disturbances: Toward a Culturally Responsive Response to Intervention Model.” Education and Treatment of Children, 29(4), 779–99. Hollingsworth, S. (1994). Teacher Research and Urban Literacy Education: Lessons and Conversations in a Feminist Key. New York: Teachers College Press. Jalongo, M., and Isenberg, J. (1995). Teachers’ Stories: From Personal Narrative to Professional Insight. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. ———. (1995). “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–91. National Center for Education Statistics. (2004). National Center for Education Statistics: Education Statistics at a Glance [Online]. Retrieved from nces.ed.gov/ surveys/sass/tables/affil_2004_01.asp. Nieto, S. (2004). Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (4th ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

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Norton, N. (2004). (Un)Seen Forces: The Literacies and Spiritual Practices of Black and Latina/o Children and Their Black Male Teacher. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. ———. (2005). “Permitanme Hablar: Allow Me to Speak.” Language Arts, 83(2), 118–27. ———. (2006). “Talking Spirituality with Family Members: Black and Latina/o Children Co-Researcher Methodologies.” Urban Review, 38(4), 313–34. Norton, N., and Bentley, C. (2006). “Making the Connection: Extending Culturally Responsive Teaching through Home(Land) Pedagogies.” The Feminist Teacher, 17(1), 52–10. Palmer, P. (2003). “Teaching with Heart and Soul: Reflections on Spirituality and Teacher Education.” Journal of Teacher Education, 54(5), 376–85. Roxas, K. (2008). “Keepin’ It Real and Relevant: Providing a Culturally Responsive Education to Pregnant and Parenting Teens.” Multicultural Education, 15(3), 2–9. Sams, J. (1994). The 13 Original Clan Mothers: Your Sacred Path to Discovering the Gifts, Talents, and Abilities of the Feminine through the Ancient Teachings of the Sisterhood. San Francisco: Harper. Silverstein, S. (1986). The Giving Tree. New York: HarperCollins Children’s Books. Sokanovic, M., and Muller, D. (1999). “Professional and Educational Perspectives on Spirituality in Young Children.” Pastoral Care in Education, 17(1), 9–16. Stewart, III, C. F. (1997). Soul Survivors: An African American Spirituality: Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Van Allsburg, C. (1990). Just a Dream. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Weinstein, C., Curran, M., and Tomlinson-Clarke, S. (2003). “Culturally Responsive Classroom Management: Awareness into Action.” Theory into Practice, 42(3), 269–76. Winston, J. (2002). “Drama, Spirituality, and the Curriculum.” International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 7(3), 241–55. Yolen, J. (1996). Encounter. New York: Harcourt Children’s Books. Zinsser, C. (1986). “For the Bible Tells Me So: Teaching Children in a Fundamentalist Church.” In B. B. Schieffelin and P. Gimore (eds.), The Acquisition of Literacy: Ethnographic Perspectives (pp. 55–71). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

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Staying Fat Moving Past the Exercise-Industrial-Complex Joshua I. Newman, University of Otago; Carolyn Albright, Immaculata University; Ryan King-White, Towson University

This chapter seeks to critically reflect on pedagogies constructed through, and around, the “healthy” body. More specifically, we examine the shift in secondary and tertiary education away from the active human body as a thriving part of the biophysical curriculum to the sedentary, obese human body as an object of research in pedagogical matters.1 To do this, we briefly map the transition in many Western schooling systems from a pedagogically focused physical education (PE) to a research-intensive kinesiology paradigm—one that, in the broadest sense, is focused on the science of human movement or human kinetics.2 We argue that shift has been influenced by, and influential of, broader institutional and market forces. Once considered a pseudoacademic discipline, kinesiology is now a politically important, institutionally relevant, and economically lucrative field of study. As such, scientists doing work under the kinesiology banner have hatched important new fields of specialized inquiry: areas of study dedicated to understanding the increasingly sedentary and obese body (e.g., epidemiology, exercise physiology, kinesiogenomics), athletic performance, sport psychology, motor behavior, and motor control. Here we ask: has kinesiology’s ascent within the academy come at a price? In traditional PE settings, the body was a site for pedagogical encounter, cultural embodiment, and knowledge exchange. In the age of bioscientific kinesiology, the body has become a site of abstracted information and institutional profitability. As obesity rates climb, so too have the research funding programs and popularity of academic departments meant to curb eating- and exercise-related problems in America. 103

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Some within the field will no doubt ask: why is this a problem? Through an analysis of obesity-related research interventions and body-specific educational programs, we attempt to provide a few answers by explicating kinesiology’s self-referential impasse and problematize the biopolitics that haunt contemporary pedagogical practices within the discipline—practices that normalize, valorize, and marginalize active (and nonactive) human bodies. Borrowing from Henry Giroux (1992), we develop this chapter as a call for a more culturally relevant, “border” kinesiology. We argue that such a border pedagogy should make use of and refine current scientific techniques but also be “attentive to developing a democratic public philosophy that respects the notion of difference as part of a common struggle to extend the quality of public life” (Giroux 1992, p. 28). Thus, we propose a pedagogical terrain that seeks to (1) illuminate the epistemological, political, cultural, and social margins that structure (and constrain) the pedagogical limits of the intertwined physical education and kinesiology project; (2) make visible the historically and socially constructed strengths and limitations of those places and borders we as kinesiologists inherit; and (3) propose a more critically inclined, socially aware, and culturally relevant pedagogical space in which students might become “border crossers”—and in so doing fashion new formations of knowledge that bring about socially relevant change (Giroux 1992). In sum, we advocate for a kinesiological science that no longer colonizes the body into socially constructed, scientifically lucrative categories and imposes homogenously conceived “interventions” but rather works within cultures of the body for the (pluralistically defined) betterment of those bodies.

THE RISE OF THE EXERCISE-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX THROUGH NEOLIBERAL EDUCATION As we aim to make clear in this section, the knowledge formations of the contemporary bioscientific disciplines are dialectically influenced by, and influential of, broader cultural, political, and economic formations. Following a burgeoning enclave of critical pedagogues seeking to problematize how capitalist economic relations have increasingly infiltrated, if not sought to overdetermine, the social and cultural dimensions of schooling (Apple 1995; Giroux 2005; Giroux and McLaren 1992; Kincheloe 2008; McLaren 1991, 1992, 2007), we pay specific attention to what could be referred to as kinesiology’s neoliberal logics. In oversimplified terms, our use of the term neoliberalism here is in reference to the political economic movement within most developed nation-states

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(as well as the nationally transcendental brought about by intensified circuits of global interconnectivity) that assumes that only through the freeing of markets and market-based relations can the individual achieve autonomy. According to many globalization and economic theorists, the end of the Cold War brought about a new macroeconomic world order—one marshaled by leaders of developed capitalist nation-states (namely, Chile under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the regimes of Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, Roger Douglas in New Zealand, Joao Goulart in Brazil, General Suharto in Indonesia, Deng Xiaoping in Communist China, and Ronald Reagan in the United States of America) who, in the years prior, had supplanted social welfare systems with the laissez faire imperatives of profit first, corporate capitalist free market. In the schooling systems of these nation-states, social and educational relations have become capital relations, whereby “corporations work closely with the neoliberal state to construct the new economy. The neoliberal state focuses not on social welfare for the citizenry as a whole but on enabling individuals as economic actors. To that end, neoliberal states move resources away from social welfare functions toward production functions” (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004, p. 20). The public good became a site of investment. To maximize efficiency and productivity, schools were radically reformed under the logics of the capitalist factory. Higher education specifically, as Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) argue, has succumbed to the logics of “privatization, commercialization, deregulation, and reregulation” and those programs and institutions “that pursue an academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime have benefitted from these processes” (p. 21). To a much greater extent than in years past, in these educational settings, knowledge is treated like a commodity generated for the purposes of capital accumulation; students are marketed to and socially engaged as “consumers”; pedagogues are managed to be more productive, and less expensive, laborers (whose labor is increasingly de-skilled, rationalized, and made more efficient); and the institutional spaces themselves have become more commercialized and spectacularized (e.g., a North American college athletic complex or a Starbucks coffeehouse inside a campus library). Those laissez faire economic formations have brought about a shift in the academy more generally, and in the biophysical realms specifically, whereby the school has become a significant apparatus for (re)producing that economically deterministic turn. The pedagogical and empirical realms of physical education and kinesiology are increasingly subjected to the logics of what we might—by way of a slight detour through the work of Joseph Maguire (2004)—refer to as

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the exercise-industrial-complex. Maguire’s work on the “sports-industrial complex” is largely grounded in his critique of performance efficiency, commodification, and rationalization of the sports science discipline. Rephrasing Maguire (2004), here we take up a similar argument in suggesting that a particular style of academic practice has gained institutional traction in order to operationalize the neoliberal model of education. The intellectual becomes a technocrat. This technocratic intellectual thinks and speaks in market terms and reflects the market concerns of the exerciseindustrial-complex (pp. 309–10). We argue that this culture of automaton-technocracy has tended to (but certainly not always) create a culturally homogenizing, rather than culturally rich, pedagogical context under which the kinesiological sciences now do business. First, within such a context, the urgency for reliability, replication, and “evidence” of bodily patterns has created a condition of tautology—whereby the research act constitutes building upon, “proving,” or “disproving prior work, answering the call for more research in the area,” and so on. It has resulted in a self-referential science of the body, one where the complexities of the active (and inactive) human body and the cultural, social, and economic forces that produce and are productive of those bodies are footnotes in the broader quest for reproducible “findings” that might further prop up the abstracted science of the body. Second, under such a modus operandi, scientists within the exerciseindustrial-complex become merchants of McKnowledge (Finklestein 2002). The focus of research design falls not on the epistemological soundness of the project, or even the possible benefits for society it might yield, but rather on the researcher’s ability to expand on existing findings toward some tangible end. That end has most often been discursively situated within the confines of “applied research.” Reading for the best “applied research,” we will find a transcontinental body of committed scientists seeking to make a difference by applying their skills, knowledges, and training to real-world problems. A more cynical, or perhaps pragmatic, reading of the emergent realm of “applied science” might suggest a turn toward the re-sourcing of university assets (equipment, human labor, information technology, etc.) to generate new marketable commodity-knowledge—one that may or may not solve real-world problems but will most certainly have value in the marketplace based on tautological revelation. In either case, kinesiological inquiry is now overrepresented by “a closed system where meaning becomes a cliché and the epistemological horizon is reduced to unobtrusive banalities” (Finklestein 2002, p. 183). To escape from this tautology, “meaning must be discoverable in the juxtapositions of improbabilities. . . . As we encounter differences and im-

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probables, we are directed toward fresh ways of thinking and understanding; new ideas and forms emerge” (Finklestein 2002, p. 183). In this context, we have seen the emergence of the “self-funded researcher”—the proverbial “Million Dollar Club” member. Neoliberalism has brought about the age of intellectual excavation—whereby legions of prospectors scour the realms of natural resources, public service, and medicine in hopes of identifying, and capitalizing upon, those natural, cultural, or humanistic fields previously un[der]commodified.3 These are researchers—both the well-intentioned health advocate or entrepreneurial careerist—who scour the public domain for research “opportunities” that could generate new forms of external research funding, personal accolade, or institutional legitimacy. For the current generation of kinesiologists, the most traveled roads (at least in neoliberal times) seem to lead to the same place: the obese body.

PEDAGOGY OF THE OBESE We should start this section with a few modest declarations: 1. We believe human beings in developed nations, on average, weigh more than in generations prior. 2. We also believe that additional weight brings with it negative health implications (heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood cholesterol, hypertension, and high blood pressure) that increase the risk of coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes later in life (Nestle 2002). 3. We further concede that for most individuals, well-conceived exercise regimens can help bring about better health. That being said, here we want to focus on how the “obesity epidemic” or “obesity crisis” is discursively mobilized as an institutional and public pedagogy that further empowers the sciences and scientists associated with fields seeking to find “the cure”—and more problematically, disempowers the very individuals and groups they seek to “cure.” Most scholars within the North American biophysical sciences domain have undoubtedly seen graphic sequences that color-code obesity rates in the United States and Canada. These graphics dramatically depict a state-by-state upsurge in obese populations over the past two decades. Experts have gone so far as to suggest that by 2050, one hundred percent of the population will be overweight or obese (Duncan 2008).

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Further, public intellectuals around the world have linked the economic consequences of the “epidemic” to the global financial meltdown—often positing that fatness could create “devastating” health-related expenditures (Centers for Disease Control 2009). While political and economic disasters du jour have come and gone, the “obesity crisis” has remained a fixture within the public discourse for more than two decades. Needless to say, once the punch line to “jock-jokes” within the academy and society more generally, through the moral panic of fatness the body sciences now have everyone’s attention. Amid such desperate circumstances, international health funding agencies have poured millions of dollars into obesity-related research. In turn, scientists have spent thousands of research hours and millions of taxpayer dollars attempting to find patterns or correlations between human genes and rates of obesity (Chagnon et al. 2003; Rankinen et al. 2002; Snyder et al. 2004). From the outset of these studies, the researchers operated under the basic assumption that the individual’s genomic makeup would reveal a set of double-helixed answers to the “fatness problem.” And while they have been able to draw loose conclusions that there may be a relation, these kinesiogenomicists and geneticists have yet to pinpoint the “problem gene.” The more frequently cited research on obesity offers an even shallower connection.4 There is, of course, a terminological distinction that needs to be made related to this point: while often conflated within the bioscientific discourse, “obesity refers to the excess of fat, while overweight refers to body weight in excess of a fixed standard” (Kirk 2006, p. 123). The most widely used instrument for determining overweight or obesity is the body mass index (BMI). However, BMI-based analyses of fatness have proved to be unreliable in predicting the homogeneity of specific populations, particularly among its most studied populations (namely, young people) (Harris, Cale, and Bromell 2004; Marshall, Biddle, Gorely, Cameron, and Murdy 2004). As one critic explains, “Scientists in the field of health, physical activity and body fatness appear regularly and consistently to draw conclusions that are not warranted by their evidence” (Kirk 2006, p. 125). As such, healthy bodies that fall outside the norm are classified as at risk or obese and thus woven into the grandiose declarations of kinesiology’s most public(ized) practitioners. More importantly, that “fixed standard” is a socially constructed sensibility grafted to the cultural politics of the “right body,” one less rooted in scientific nuance than in cultural norms shared by mostly White, upper middle class, (mostly) masculine, (almost exclusively) Western scientists (Atkinson 2006). We follow Gard and Wright (2001) in their critique of recent public and classroom pedagogies emanating out of these body scientific epistemes: “Their

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effects on students and the public are detrimental rather than productive of health; and that it serves our purposes as a profession, to accept these discourses uncritically because of the resources and recognition we accrue” (p. 537). Hence, while obesity-related health issues present the field of kinesiology with an opportunity to refine its theretofore disengaged empirical methods and bring about positive changes in the human condition, it has instead become a site for accruing political capital within the corporatized university. In short, the “obesity epidemic” has rendered kinesiology a field of “epistemological hierarchy, empirical ambiguity, and political impotency” (Andrews 2008, p. 46). What has become exact science, in (methodo)logicality’s stead, is how fatness has been made into a culturally, politically, and economically powerful pedagogical formation within the neoliberal condition.

“HEALTHISM” AND THE BIOPOLITICS OF KINESIOLOGY’S INFLEXIBLE BODY LITERACIES In cultural terms, the public pedagogies constructed out of the exerciseindustrial-complex morass have cultivated a unique and contextually specific “body literacy” (Murray 2008). Under a barrage of slender-bodied “cover girls” and “cover boys,” pie charts, trend maps, news telecasts, and government bylaws, citizens of the Western world have become cultural students to the pedagogies of “fatness.” We have learned to read fat, to write and speak about fat, to act fat (and unfat). We have become, as many scholars have suggested, proficiently “lipoliterate” (see Graham 2005; Murray 2008). In these fat-obsessed cultures, we have become lipoliterates who “read fat for what we believe it tells us about a person. This includes not only their moral character but also their health” (Graham 2005, pp. 178–79). As lipoliterates, we have in turn been taught to assign value to bodily shape and size—most often formulated around modernity’s “cult of slenderness” (Rigsby, Townsend, and Dugdale 1986; Tinning 1985). Importantly, our achievements in body literacy have been regressive, if not divisive, in shaping our collective imaginings of the pluralistic embodiment. These body literacies have served to valorize “right bodies,” legitimize the “medico-moral discourses” (Murray 2008) from which the “wrong body” is colonized or marginalized, and discipline the structures of embodiment from which our corporeal identities are formulated. In other words, “our popular and medical lipoliteracies are productive of obesity rather than descriptive of it. The medicalization of fatness via the establishment of the disease of obesity has entailed a collapsing of medical narratives/imperatives and

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historiocultural discursive formations of fatness as a moral failing and as an aesthetic affront” (Murray 2008, p. 8). So what have we learned from the pedagogical formations and body literacies of obesity? First and foremost, and a survey of the prevailing body literatures and classroom stylings will suggest, we have learned that obesity is an individual’s problem that continues to burden society (e.g., “irresponsible behavior” as a threat to the “good society”). Through a multiplatform campaign (on AM radio programs, academy journals, classroom settings, newsmedia interviews, etc.), kinesiology’s public pedagogues have “portrayed health-related work on the body as an individual responsibility and, indeed, as a duty that had a moral basis” (Kirk 2006, pp. 128–29). For example, in their widely referenced dictum titled “Helping Individuals to Help Themselves,” Lyndel Costain and Helen Croker (2005) outline, in patronizing parlance, what practitioners can do to nurture a climate of selfmonitoring (to get the individual “back on track”): Self-monitoring, typically with a food and activity diary, is a key part of successful behaviour change. It helps individuals become more aware of their eating and exercise habits, which in turn helps with goal setting. . . . Selfmonitoring also helps individuals to track progress with their goals, stay more conscious of what they eat and how active they are, and check their progress over periods of time. Many individuals find self-monitoring challenging, but it is a key indicator of motivation and engagement in a programme, and can keep up motivation in the longer term. (p. 93)

This is but one example of the reductive pedagogies emanating from emergent applied research within the exercise-industrial-complex. Echoing a broader neoliberal hegemony, the premise is simple: social structures or consumer cultures have nothing to do with the current “obesity crisis”—nor do one’s location within those structures; rather, the “epidemic” is both a consequence of, and can thusly only be “solved by,” individual choice and the management thereof.5 According to this logic, researchers should seek to create generalized theories and interventions that can be adopted by the body-negligent individual. “To combat the spread of disease that characterizes an epidemic, citizens are called to action; in the instance of obesity,” Murray (2008) sardonically suggests, “this action necessarily entails one’s participation in strict exercise and diet regimes (which are measures not only of one’s physiological health, but also of one’s moral and ethical commitment to one’s community), whereby the individual must be proactive about public health edicts in mastering one’s body and bodily responses to protect oneself from the disease of obesity” (p. 10).

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In this way, biophysical science pedagogically imposes a moral imperative of self control (Gard and Wright 2001), whereby the body “has become a crucial means by which the individual can express publicly such virtues as self-control, self-discipline and will power” (Petersen and Lupton 1996, p. 25). In The “Obesity Epidemic”: Science, Morality, and Ideology, Michael Gard and Jan Wright (2005) describe this pedagogy of control in more detail: Health promotion strategies locate the responsibility with all individuals to monitor their behaviours and those of others in keeping with desired health outcomes. In doing so, the specific social, cultural and material conditions of people’s lives are ignored. . . . The strategies that are often employed in these programmes assume that individuals are free to make decisions and choices in relation to health. . . . This means that people who do not exercise their “freedom” to choose in ways that are productive to health, can be categorized and stigmatized as lazy, undisciplined, lacking in will-power or just downright “bad.” (p. 183)

Hence, the moral platitudes of the exercise-industrial-complex matter “because the knowledges and practices associated with these discourses exert technologies of power that serve to classify individuals (and populations) as normal or abnormal, as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ citizens, as at risk and therefore requiring intervention of the state, in the form of the medico-health system and education” (Gard and Wright 2001, p. 546). In the context of neoliberalism, however, we might also suggest that it is not only the monolithic state that imposes its power upon these bodies, but (also) the forces of commodification native to neoliberalism that seek to transform the body into a site of hyperconsumption (Apple 2001). In this way, the body is both object and subject—objectified by the processes of the exercise-industrial-complex while at the same time subjected to the normalizing judgments, medicalized techniques, and knowledge-based economic power relations. What we might further surmise is that the prevailing medicalized discourses of obesity have promoted a culture of what sociologist Robert Crawford often referred to as “healthism.” Under such a “medico-moral discourse,” the body becomes a site of power relations upon which socially constructed body sciences are legitimated, but also upon which the body is subjected to cultural, political, and economic stigmatization: A model of health is to be promulgated by medical authorities via a range of public health campaigns that offer subjects the option of living a healthy, happy life. In this way, in a liberal democracy, health is presented to subjects as a commodity that can be purchased, which in turn bestows on the adherents to the medical dictates of a healthy lifestyle (diet and exercise) a form of cultural

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capital, with the supposedly resultant slender body markers being visible indicators of health. In and through this disciplinary medicine model, health becomes central to a project of normalization. (Murray 2008, p. 18)

This type of “healthism” authorizes neoliberal literacies and pedagogies of the consumable fit and “fat” human body, and in so doing decontextualizes that body from the circuits of culture and capital upon which it is anchored. Under such a pedagogical context, “health can be taken as ‘healthism,’ leadership can turn into dictatorship, knowing one’s body can become a selfish or addictive obsession, and co-operation can lead to uniting forces to deny the civil rights of others” (Camacho and Fernandez-Balboa 2006, pp. 12–13). As Tinning and Glasby (2002) have argued, “the physical education profession remains deeply implicated in the reproduction of healthism values through its active and uncritical construction of obesity as a problem to be attacked through the school curriculum. Health and Physical Education is still doing the ideological work of healthism” (pp. 110–11). Under such a pedagogical formation, we come to understand our bodies through the dual lenses of anxiety and guilt. The obese or overweight (or potentially overweight!) body is thus pathologized—rendered as a social pollutant and economic burden to the good society. In pedagogical terms, this moral panic bestirs normalizing moral judgments (Foucault 1977), whereby the individual body is constantly subjected to disciplinary forces of the normalizing gaze. To be “fat” is to exist outside “acceptable” social norms, and therefore the body becomes imprisoned by the value systems acting upon it. In neoliberal times, that body is depicted as the flesh consequences of a set of negative choice-based paradoxes (to consume too much food, to overconsume inactive experiences, to underconsume treatments, to nonconsume dietary and exercise regimes, etc.). And thus in neoliberal times, “the greatest frustration to medicine’s project to ‘cure obesity’ is the individual; the obese individual has failed to heed medical advice to reduce one’s weight via regulating one’s food intake and engaging in regular physical activity” (Murray 2008, p. 10). Under these conditions, the nonnormal body is often stigmatized or made out to be something of the grotesque (see Duncan 2008). In this way, obesity is but the latest turn in a long history of medicoscientific bodily regulation. As Michel Foucault (1975, 1978, 1984) went to great lengths to point out through his critical theoretical analyses, history has unveiled a sequence of public panics (the spread of disease, outbreak, pandemic, plague, “sexual deviance,” etc.), which in turn gave rise to the contextually specific exercise of “biopower.” Biopower, in overly simplified terms, is the regulation or control of a population as justified by biomedical discourse in order to suit the interests of the state.

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The emergent pedagogical discourses of obesity, much like in times of pandemic, call for strict regulation and predict potential consequences that could affect the entirety of the populace: “Bodies are colonized under. . . . The discipline of individuals to maintain a normal body size, practice safe sex, avoid harmful drugs, maintain active lifestyles and the like” (Markula and Pringle 2006, p. 45). Regarding the former, it has been suggested that “in public health discourse, the management of uncertainty is accomplished by the quantification of risk through population studies that calculate the likelihood of a phenomenon” (Gard and Wright 2001, p. 538). While the hyperintensification of risk management discourses and obesity research have done little to remedy the epidemic that each was so consequentially crafted to fix, each has been very successful in promoting a culture of fear and managerial healthism among the next generation of exercise scientists. “It is in this contemporary social context,” write Tinning and Glasby (2002), “that the student of Health and Physical Education must learn to manage their lifestyle such that risks are avoided or reduced. Indeed, risk identification and management is a key tenet in the conception of the ‘new public health’ as a dominant discourse” (p. 112). In this way, obesity literacies become techniques of control (and thus the exercise of power) that reduces cultural complexity to recolonizing generalities. To maintain its relevance and biopolitical significance within the academy, the field of kinesiological sciences has produced economically significant and culturally disengaged discursive formations. This economy of risk has produced more consequential narratives upon which to rest kinesiology’s war on obesity but, as scholars have pointed out, has often done little in predicting ill health for individuals (Atrens 2000; Lupton 1995; Tinning and Glasby 2002). Herein lies the exercise-industrial-complex paradox: the more money invested into fixing the problem of obesity, the more convinced we as a consuming public become of the stakes and consequences—and yet, those investments and moral imperatives have only resulted in higher rates of obesity. The most critical of observers might thereby suggest that some researcherpedagogues within the exercise-industrial-complex have developed a selfperpetuating body scientific business plan. Within that frame, the field has been able to optimize the commercial conditions in which the business of science can be done, and more “fat bodies” have created more revenue opportunities—and more biopolitical credence—upon which to capitalize. Public and private funding for obesity research has expanded, but so too have the waistlines of the populations this research has sought to reduce. Thus, the body has become a site of knowledge-based capital, and the pedagogies of that body now act to promulgate, rather than reconcile, its expanding dimensions.

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More problematically, it could be argued that by not solving—or even making progress toward solving—the epidemic, these research-teacherentrepreneurs of the health science informational marketplace have been able to sustain and prolong their commercial and pedagogical relevance therein. What has resulted is a symbiosis of commerce and pedagogy, whereby we have continued to perpetuate the problem by narrowing our pedagogical methods to entertain those private entities prospering from this epidemic. In short, the science created to fix the crisis has prospered because of a lack of successful intervention. Again, it should be noted that we are not suggesting here that health and exercise are not corollary, nor that an imbalance of caloric intake and energy expenditure is a good thing. Rather, we are arguing that the institutional success of the exercise-industrial-complex must be measured against its pedagogical failings of an ever more subjected (to the discourse of healthism), increasingly obese population. If anything, our concern here is that there are valuable contributions to individual health being lost because of bad pedagogical methods. If the end goal of the burgeoning fields of body science is to promulgate disciplinary status within the institution, secure external funding, or reproduce methodological tautology, then they will surely fall short of their “interventionist” potential. TOWARD A CULTURALLY RELEVANT KINESIOLOGY I find myself frequently falling back on a distinction John Dewey made over forty years ago between “education as a function of society” and “society as a function of education.” In other words, are schools to uncritically serve and reproduce the existing society or challenge the social order to develop and advance its democratic imperatives? Obviously, I opt for the latter. (Giroux 1992, p. 18)

We might surmise, based on pedagogical and scholarly tendencies in the kinesiological sciences since the discipline’s late 1970s crossroads, that the forces of neoliberalism and the corporatized university have influenced, and been influenced by, the emergent rationalized, tautological, and medicalized pedagogies (such as those of the “obesity epidemic”) of the exercise-industrial-complex. The field of kinesiology now makes use of the body as a “biopolitical” organism (Foucault 1978)—at once an object of analyses and a human corpus subjected to the politics of the corporatized university. The body is thus at once disciplined by the laws of neoliberalism and productive of educational order by which those free-market ideologies are normalized.

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The field has problematically perpetuated a repetitive, narrow knowledge base, one in which students and scholars alike produce market-friendly knowledge with little consideration for the cultural forces that directly influence the obesity problem and how students and the public receive usable information about obesity. The one common, prevalent assumption within the discipline is that bodies are produced in similar ways across diverse populations. Many students that fall under the degree area of kinesiology are not physical education majors; however, it will be their job when they graduate to teach others about physical activity: the benefits and risks, how to perform it, as well as how to incorporate it into their lives. The government, health care providers, as well as the general population are relying on these individuals who have been awarded a degree in the area of kinesiology to perform these tasks and currently take on the most pressing task falling under this scope— fixing the obesity epidemic. However, because of the structure of higher education we are not teaching these students how to nurture culturally aware pedagogical practices or how to apply the information in order to make a change at the most nuanced levels of the human condition.6 Rather, students are depositories of scientific facts: current policies or position stands, scientific facts, prevalence statistics, and research statistics on what works best for a standard well-controlled population. In her meta-analysis of international obesity levels, Flegal (1999) raises concerns for this pedagogical method in this way: while solid data are lacking with regard to many of the correlations being formulated by scientists, it has become increasingly clear that broader socioeconomic forces are acting upon the classified body. She suggests that “research could benefit from going beyond a narrowly mechanistic focus on energy intake and physical activity” (p. S514). This is a departure from most lines of thinking within the kinesiological sciences, whereby the assumption is that obesity can be understood, and thus curbed, through the management of two variables: energy intake and expenditure (see Bouchard and Blair 1999; Hill and Melanson 1999). Here we argue that the discipline must abandon the “body as machine” technologies (Wright 2000) and oversimplified input-output rations and instead develop and nurture (pardon the wording) more culturally relevant body sensibilities. Otherwise, we face a potential state of pedagogical paralysis: whereby reducing the complexities of the human body and how it is produced—and thus ignoring the cultural, economic, and political factors that complicate it—to sites of categorical management and data pattern extraction makes for more easily managed regimes for the state and more lucrative enterprise for

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the market, but fails to empower those human agents seeking healthier bodily conditions. As Horkheimer (1972) reminds us, “The facts of science and science itself are but segments of the life process of society, and in order to understand the significance of facts or of science, generally one must possess the key to the historical situation, the right social theory” (p. 118). Perhaps for kinesiology, it is not only “social theory” that might guide scientific analysis and exercise prescription, but a broader awareness of, and willingness to engage, cultural complexities and cultural plurality. For example, “there is relatively little research or theorising around race, ethnicity, cultural diversity and physical activity in our field” (MacDonald, Abbott, Knez, and Nelson 2009, p. 1). All bodies are not the same. They are not produced in generic contexts. They are not consuming in similar ways. Bodies, “individually or clustered as populations, are not free of socio-political construction, management or interpretation” (MacDonald et al. 2009, p. 15). In contemporary bioscientific discourse, the human body is envisaged as an incomplete, or unfinished, project. This does not, however, suggest the corporeal is either independent or apolitical. The direction that project takes is a contestable and highly contested terrain (Zanker and Gard 2008). What becomes important is the extent to which the cultural being has some input in constructing the conditions by which we make use of the knowledges constructed around our bodies. We borrow from McCarthy, Giardina, Harewood, and Park (2005) in arguing that “we cannot afford a continual blissful ignorance of groups that are different from ours,” for to do so would be to whitewash “the proliferation of difference in contemporary educational settings and society” (p. 164). As pedagogues and influential figures in ushering in the next generation of body scientists and teachers, we must recognize that the obese (and normal) body is incontrovertibly linked to the broader social, political, and economic formations of which it is a part. We must create what Freire (1970/2006) refers to as “cultural circles” of the human body—dialogic pedagogical contexts that bring together diverse bodies and cultural experiences, and nurture the emancipatory, integrative, and constructivist potentialities that are made possible by the coalition. Rather than apply prescriptions to at risk populations, we must acknowledge that such a type of “education, as a process that prepares people for appropriate action in society, is never neutral; it always entails ethics and politics. . . . Hence, physical educators at all levels must examine the traditional stories and versions of ‘truth’ about PE pedagogy. . . . But this is more easily said than done in a ‘profession’ that, by and large, is ruled by a technocratic ideology” (Camacho and Fernandez-Balboa 2006, p. 12). We must eradicate

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those commercial and institutional forces of the exercise-industrial-complex that subjugate the body to cultures of fear, anxiety, and marginality. We advocate for a culturally rich, radically contextual, reflexive, consciousness-raising, culturally relevant, “bio-pedagogical” turn in the kinesiological sciences. Such a “bio-pedagogy . . . can help us find meaning to our pedagogy by grounding and asserting it in ethical and political terms while bringing meaning to what we do inside and outside our classroom” (Camacho and Fernandez-Balboa 2006, p. 15). We need to refocus our time and energy toward the empowerment of students (Johnson 2008) in ways that will allow for their and “other” realities and truths to spread through the classroom. At the same time we must be careful to not limit the empowerment of students to just those in the university classroom, for they often represent the most privileged factions of society. To rephrase Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995), what we are arguing for here is a culturally relevant kinesiology committed to collective, not merely individual, empowerment. We seek a pedagogy that integrates and respects the historical multiplicities and perspectival complexities that come from the common, and diverse, practices, shapes, corporealities, and identities constructed on, and through, the body. We encourage students to “develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the social order” (Ladson-Billings 1995, p. 160), and perhaps more importantly, dialectically generate pedagogical encounters that oppose, or stand down, the uses of “biopower” (both institutionally and individually wielded) to culturally, economically, or politically marginalize or oppress “nonnormative” individuals or groups. In the tradition of dissenters to the positivistic, market-colonized (and colonizing), and dehumanizing trajectories of higher education around the world (Feyerabend 1978; Jameson 1991; Kuhn 1962/1996; Lyotard 1984), we are calling for a broadening of both awareness and action in our students and ourselves. Borrowing from Freire’s (1970/2006) term “conscientization,”7 it is the responsibility of those in (higher) education to encourage students by example to find ways to get involved, to make a difference, to think in global terms, and to act from specific contexts. The notion of teachers as transformative intellectuals is marked by a moral courage and criticism that does not require them to step back from society but only to distance themselves from being implicated in those power relations that subjugate, corrupt, exploit, or infantilize. (Giroux 1992, p. 106)

Put simply, we need to stop creating studies and teaching classes on obesity and fatness that merely count how many “fat” Black people there are in urban

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areas (Whitaker and Orzol 2006) and “fat” White people in rural areas (Patterson, Moore, Probst and Shinogle 2004) then suggest that it may be based on socioeconomic conditions and move on, instead of undoing the inequalities that have created this situation. Specifically there is a real need to do the hard work of righting the wrongs of neoliberalism—whose very condition of profit over morality is a catalyst for this obesity epidemic in the first place (cf. Nestle 2002). Through this process of disentangling our students and ourselves from the social norms presented to us by those who benefit the most from the contemporary hegemonic body (research) logic (CEOs and presidents of virtually every industry one can think of), we need “a critical pedagogy in physical education that works on and critiques the embedding of social values on and in the body” (Kirk 2006, p. 130). This type of pedagogy will make explicit connections between the profitabove-all directive ushered in by neoliberalism and the discursive regimes by which “fatness” has become the fodder of scientific doxa (Nestle 2002). When making these initial connections this type of reflexive education will allow for our students and ourselves to see how individualizing the problem through acontextual research projects on obesity does little to reverse its onset. In its place we need to do work that undermines historically fallacious pseudoscientific constructions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality yet simultaneously attempts to understand the a/effects of its existence. In other words, “physical educators should recognize that their classes are comprised of diverse individuals who are constantly maneuvering their identities within the constraints of cultural, racial and ethnic hierarchies as well as those associated with gender, ability, body shape, etc.” (MacDonald et al. 2009, pp. 15–16). By becoming critically conscious of differences in ways of being, thinking, knowing, and consuming—and how it is related to the sociopolitical regimes currently holding sway in the contemporary moment—perhaps we can start to actually do something about fatness and obesity. Thus, through this reassertion of a radically contextual kinesiology, we call for more culturally relevant pedagogical lenses for teaching and understanding how certain populations are more susceptible to health-related problems (people of color, the working poor, etc.). We argue not for the abandonment of the (traditional) quantitative-scientific study of the corporeal but for the articulation of a stagnating science to the broader pedagogies of the body and the political and cultural economies that have transformed it into a highly commodified, overly sedentary product and producer of consumer capital and political disciplinarity. In such a context, students in the area of kinesiology will enter into a very active, applied, social field, and we as educators need to be able to prepare

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our students to excel in all three of these areas. This means preparing them for human interaction, preparing them for using different strategies for teaching others about human movement and understanding that there is not one size that fits all. NOTES 1. Our analysis here is not limited to classroom pedagogies, although most of our discussion implicates teaching in a classroom setting. Similarly, our argument here holds pertinence outside of higher education (and to a lesser extent secondary education), but we anchor most of the chapter’s main points within that domain. 2. Kinesiology, by dictionary definition, refers to the study of principles of mechanics and physiology related to human movement. With regards to higher education, the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education describes kinesiology as “a multifaceted field of study in which movement or physical activity is the intellectual focus. Physical activity includes exercise for improvement of health and physical fitness, activities of daily living, work, sport, dance, and play, and involves special population groups such as, children and the elderly; persons with disability, injury, or disease; and athletes. Kineskinesiology is a common name for college and university academic departments that include many specialized areas of study in which the causes and consequences of physical activity are examined from different perspectives. The specialized areas of study apply knowledge, methods of inquiry, and principles from traditional areas of study in the arts, humanities, and sciences. These areas include exercise and sport biomechanics, history, philosophy, physiology, biochemistry and molecular/cellular physiology, psychology, and sociology; motor behavior; measurement; physical fitness; and sports medicine.” 3. David Harvey (2007) often refers to this process as “accumulation by dispossession”; a process by no means unique to education (think oil fields in the Middle East, copper mines in South America, or the privatization of primary and secondary education in post-Katrina New Orleans) in which stagnating regimes of capital accumulation pursue, and commandeer, those materials, services, and relations that were once property of the public (or part of the public good). 4. The most widely referenced research articles concerning the prevalence of obesity have taken a different tack; these studies, generated by the collaborations of Cynthia Ogden, Margaret Carroll, Lester Curtin, Margaret McDowell, Carolyn Tabak, and Katherine Flegal (Flegal, Carroll, Ogden, and Johnson 2002; Flegal, Ogden, Wei, Kuczmarski, and Johnson 2001; Flegal, Tabak, and Ogden 2006; Hedley et al. 2004; Ogden, et al. 2006; Ogden, Flegal, Carroll, and Johnson 2002), offer meta-analysis that statistically map the increased rates of obesity among various populations. In those studies, the authors never claim to engage the human body in any interactive but rather only intend to demonstrate rigor in how they “accessed the data,” “analyzed” the patterns, “observed” the human beings under investigation. Such is the order of things within most domains of the obesity sciences: “Despite an absence of scientific

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certainty about the causes, incidence, consequences and treatment of over-weight and obesity, the field . . . continues to operate as if certainty existed” (Gard and Wright 2001, p. 539). Instead of studying bodies in situ, many body scientists often defer to numbers that represent and categorized those human bodies, and seek not to challenge the ongoing and deeply political definitional efforts of “obesity” and “overweight” but rather conclude that their numeric constructs illustrates significant “evidence” of the social constructs they were meant to legitimize. 5. As another example, in those places that purport to be more “progressive” in how the “war on obesity” is to be won, academics have advocated that governments subsidize gym memberships, surgeries, and the purchase of dietary supplements—a set of practices still rooted in the logic of new forms of consumption (whereby the only way to “fix” the problem of “fatness” is through more, not less, consumption). Only in this case, making the “choice” to consume more realistic for those populations who lack the necessary levels to do so. Of course, there has been considerable detritus among pedagogues and public alike, each pointing to the notion that “society” should not bear the burden of poor choices made by a select group of individuals. 6. A second way in which these goals have been compromised is with regard to certifications. Larger class sizes, online classes, and having less-well-prepared instructors have in many instances forced departments into doing away with the goal of preparing their students to sit for certification exams. In addition, and equally important, is the evolution of the dumbing down of the certification process to “meet the needs of those taking the tests” and not the needs of those who will be relying on the individual with the certification. Originally, certifications were earned by students by undergoing a written and practical examination proctored by professionals in the kinesiology field. Now a student can go to a testing center, take a multiple choice exam, and be awarded the same certification. 7. Critical consciousness, or what Paulo Freire (1970/2006) referred to as conscientização (loosely translated as “conscientization”), is the process by which individuals develop an epistemological awareness of the ways dialogic, political, and economic structures act upon their everyday lives. That awareness is nurtured through constant dialogue with and consideration of the oppressive elements of one’s life and actively imagining and working to make real alternative, egalitarian social formations.

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Slaughter, S., and Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Snyder, E. E., Walts, B., Perusse, L., Chagnon, Y. C., Weisnagel, S. J., Rankinen, T., et al. (2004). “The Human Obesity Gene Map: The 2003 Update.” Obesity Research, 12(3), 369–439. Steinberg, S. R. (1992). “Critical Multiculturalism and Democratic Schooling: An Interview with Peter McLaren and Joe Kincheloe.” International Journal of Educational Reform, 1(4), 392–405. Tinning, R. (1985). “Physical Education and the Cult of Slenderness.” ACHPER National Journal, (107), 10–13. Tinning, R., and Glasby, T. (2002). “Pedagogical Work and the ‘Cult of the Body’: Considering the Role of HPE in the Context of the ‘New Public Health.’” Sport, Education, and Society, 7(2), 109–19. Wexler, P. (1989). “Curriculum in the Closed Society.” In H. A. Giroux and P. McLaren (eds.), Critical Pedagogy, The State, and Cultural Struggle (pp. 92–104). New York: State University of New York Press. Whitaker, R. C., and Orzol, S. M. (2006). “Obesity among US Urban Preschool Children: Relationships to Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status.” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 160, 578–84. Wright, J. (2000). “Bodies, Meanings and Movement: A Comparison of the Language of a Physical Education Lesson and a Feldenkrais Movement Class.” Sport, Education and Society, 5(1), 35–51. Zanker, C., and Gard, M. (2008). “Fatness, Fitness, and the Moral Universe of Sport and Physical Activity.” Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(1), 48–65.

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Putting “Culturally Relevant” into Professional Development Charnita V. West, DeKalb County School System

[Through participating in the study group] I’ve learned that you have to tell yourself it’s okay. . . . Not putting [other teachers] down, but [the teacher study group] helps me to understand as a teacher where my expectations need to be. I guess from this study I’ve learned that I need high expectations, but they need to be a little more individualized. —Amber, a third grade teacher

Amber (pseudonyms will be used for all participants) was one of nine African American elementary school teachers who voluntarily participated in a literacy research project with me (West 2007), understanding that the curriculum they were responsible for teaching was not aligned with the needs of the majority of their predominantly African American students. As an assistant principal, instructional leader, and African American educator, I sought ways to support the teachers as they collaborated to improve their teaching of our students. Over the course of five months we read The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (Ladson-Billings 1994), engaging in a professional study group to discuss critical issues related to the literacy education of African American students within the context of state standards and No Child Left Behind (NCLB). What emerged from our project was the conceptualization of professional development that is culturally relevant. This chapter describes the components of culturally relevant professional development (CRPD), an alternative to traditional staff development. This term was coined when the nine teachers and I transformed a traditional teacher study group designed to discuss literacy into audacious, candid conversations about race and education. 125

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Having courageous conversations is an important component of CRPD because in order for it to be effective, administrators and teachers must engage in dialogue that may at first be uncomfortable and challenging to the status quo but may eventually lead to the disruption of discriminatory educational structures (Willis 2000). Before CRPD can be an effective model conducive to adult learning and student achievement, it is important for educators to understand why and how it should be implemented.

TEACHER STUDY GROUPS AS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Fleischer and Fox (2003) argue that “not all professional development is created equal . . . we can identify pretty easily the kind of professional development that doesn’t seem to work: one shot, fix ‘em up experiences, often with talking heads in front of the room who have no deep contextual understanding of the teachers and the place they call school” (p. 259). What we need, Fox and Fleischer (2004) suggest, is meaningful, worthwhile, context-specific professional development that regards teachers as intellectual problem solvers and is organized around the needs of teachers, students, and the local school community. Likewise, Cochran-Smith (2003) suggests that we should “conceptualize teacher development across the lifespan as a learning problem rather than a training problem” and should help teachers learn how “to pose and solve the new problems that continuously emerge in classrooms and schools” (p. 373): When teaching is rightly regarded as an intellectual activity and when it is acknowledged that teachers are motivated, at least in part, by a love of learning, then it becomes clear that what is needed are more opportunities for teachers to work with others in learning communities; raise new questions about students, subject matter, assessments, equity, and access; and generate local knowledge through collaborative analysis and interpretation. (p. 373)

Teacher study groups (TSGs) are one form of professional development that can help teachers forge strong relationships with their colleagues through engaging in discourse that will strengthen instructional practice and address other topics of interest to the group (Lefever-Davis, Wilson, Moore, Kent, and Hopkins 2003). In a teacher study group, a small group of teachers work collaboratively for a period of weeks, months, or years in order to develop a strategic plan for addressing an issue of concern (Garry and Graham 2004). These groups may take the form of book clubs, learning communities, professional learning teams, and so forth. Teacher study groups have focused

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exclusively on reading (Hollins, McIntyre, DeBose, Hollins, and Towner 2004); readings and topics of interest to the participants (Birchak et al. 1998); mathematics (Arbaugh 2003); and technology (Garry and Graham 2004). Teacher study groups bring teachers together as intellectuals and collaborative inquirers to explore and examine existing literature to ameliorate problems in their school setting.

THE EMERGENCE OF CULTURALLY RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT After an academic year filled with discipline referrals and discouraged teachers, I was introduced to Delpit and Dowdy’s (2002) The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom during a summer graduate course. The text struck a chord within me. When we focus solely on correcting students’ home language without allowing opportunities for that home language to be used in the classroom, we are implicitly telling students that they are deficient. This may have accounted for the resistance (Solórzano and Bernal 2001) that some of our students exhibited. I decided to organize a voluntary teacher study group and invite teachers to explore theory and pedagogy related to language variation and to renew teachers’ belief in themselves and their students. We felt at the time that our students’ academic lives depended on our conversations about culturally relevant pedagogy. Our African American students understood the language of power or Standard American English—what Geneva Smitherman (2003) refers to as the “language of wider communication” —and were already able to expertly navigate between their home language and the more formal codes required at school. These students were not the source of frustration for the study group teachers. Instead, the study group teachers constantly sought support from administrators and counselors for their work with students who had a history of low performance in school, lacked motivation, or displayed an aversion to learning. Students who seemed disgruntled with classroom practices (all African American and the majority of them male) continually caused classroom disturbances, eventually earning them a visit to my office for discipline. I found, like some research suggests, that many of the students who were referred to my office for disciplinary infractions were unable to read or solve math problems on their respective grade levels (McIntosh, Horner, Chard, Dickey, and Braun 2008). These students became the focus of conversations and inquiry within our teacher study group.

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Teachers asked for my support because they either did not possess techniques for assisting struggling students or their ability to differentiate instruction was very limited. A majority of the participants shared that their teacher education programs assumed that reading and math specialists would be available to provide remedial instruction to their students who needed that type of support. In other words, teachers were competent in teaching students who performed on grade level but were unsure how to proceed when low-performing students were assigned to their classes. Candid conversations revealed that instructional challenges were not necessarily school based but indicative of more pervasive problems beyond their locus of control—race and poverty. The African American teachers became cognizant of the traditional hegemonic practices (e.g., top-down standards, accountability) that have the potential to overshadow their moral purpose of educating African American students (Delpit 1988; Foster 1997; hooks 1994; Ladson-Billings 1994, 1995, 2000; Lynn 1999). The teacher study group attempted to encourage teachers to be responsible for identifying inconsistencies between the taught curriculum and students’ cultures, capitalizing on and developing their students’ strengths, and finding methods for bridging the two through analysis of student work and discussion of practical learning and teaching strategies. Participating in a study group that permitted teachers to become responsible for their own learning encouraged them to transfer this type of ownership to their students. In an age of accountability and high-stakes testing, educators are held responsible for student performance and proficiency, no matter what other factors might be influential (e.g., low literacy and numeracy ability, level of parental support, apathy). Teachers may not have the experiences or strategies that are critical to address the myriad academic and emotional problems of their students; therefore, they need to participate in interactive, culturally relevant professional development activities that encourage the type of collaboration that aligns the diverse needs of their students with high-quality instruction.

CULTURALLY RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Ladson-Billings (1994) studied the teaching practices of five African American and three European American teachers who were recommended to her by parents and administrators as being effective teachers of African American students. Based on her research, Ladson-Billings coined the term culturally relevant pedagogy, which foundationally is “committed to collective, not merely individual, empowerment” (1995, p. 160).

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Aspects of culturally relevant pedagogy include teachers’ high teaching efficacy, a belief that connections must be made between school and the students’ communities, and a personal awareness of global issues in order to prepare students for the future. Teachers who embrace culturally relevant methods also recognize that lack of parental participation is not indicative of parents’ desire for children to fail academically. Students and parents are not considered deficient; everyone is regarded as knowledgeable, bringing with them “funds of knowledge” that are valued in the classroom (Moll and Gonzalez 2001, p. 158). The implementation of teacher study groups is not foreign to the field of education as a form of improving teaching and learning in America’s schools. Existing literature (e.g., Arbaugh 2003; Garry and Graham 2004; Hollins et al. 2004; Lefever-Davis et al. 2003) on teacher study groups reveals a focus on improving instruction in a particular academic area (e.g., technology, mathematics, reading); however, the nine teachers in my study used The Dreamkeepers (Ladson-Billings 1994) to critically examine themselves and myriad educational practices to aid in their professional growth. Using the teacher study group as a reflective tool is one of the salient features of what I have termed culturally relevant professional development (CRPD). Culturally relevant professional development (CRPD) is sensitive to educators’ needs as adult learners and concurrently respects them as professionals. A five-prong model represents the key tenets of CRPD: (1) the organization and structure of the professional development activity should address the needs of the participants, (2) trust should be established from the onset, (3) the use of informal language and dialect should be viewed as acceptable forms of communication, (4) the topics discussed by the group should be inclusive of various cultural groups that may or may not differ from one’s own, and (5) participants should be committed to the goals of the professional learning activities. Each tenet is explained in the sections that follow. Organization and Structure CRPD activities should be organized in a manner that encourages the participants to return for subsequent sessions. The teacher study group was voluntary, but I stressed the potential impact of this study on the educational community and the opportunities for personal growth. For example, arrangements were made for the participants to receive one Professional Learning Unit (PLU; teachers must complete ten PLUs every five years to renew their teaching certificates), but other aspects of the group had to be enticing. Snacks were available for each meeting and when meeting dates coincided with conference night or PTA meetings, dinner was provided for the participants and their child(ren).

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Participants should be actively involved in as much of the planning and organizing as possible. For example, I asked one of the participants if we could use her room for the first teacher study group meeting because of its large size; participants asked her to host the remainder of the meetings because the room was located in the back of the school and had less traffic than other areas of the building. This room provided privacy and even when the teacher was not present for meetings, she gave us permission to use the room. Another important aspect of planning CRPD involves group planning of the meeting schedule. The first teacher study group meeting was used for us to coordinate meeting dates with our personal calendars and the school calendar. Next, we decided how we would read The Dreamkeepers (LadsonBillings 1994). Although I selected and purchased the books for them, I asked them to make suggestions for reading the entire text over the next five months. The participants decided that reading the chapters in chronological order was most logical. Each teacher committed to facilitating the discussion for at least one of the chapters. After that first meeting, I typed the schedule and sent this information in an e-mail to the participants and our principal. Even though we all shared the role of group facilitator, the teachers seemed to view me as the main leader and facilitator of each session. When the teachers asked questions of me that I felt could be better answered by the other group members, I replied, “I don’t know, ask the experts.” Allowing the participants to share in the ownership in the initial stages of planning gave them the shared responsibility of deciding what was to be discussed, creating bonds that allowed us to trust one another. Trust CRPD requires the creation of a safe space where the participants can speak freely, critique educational practices, and ask questions without being belittled by the actions or words of group members or others outside of the group. Members must be assured that their innermost thoughts and feelings (especially personal accounts and critiques of policy) will remain within the confines of the group unless consent is given to speak about these issues to nonparticipants. A facilitator should expect that the participants will be reluctant to share their true feelings until they feel comfortable with other members of the group. Principals and assistant principals are often perceived as superiors to faculty and staff members. I believe that I am a teacher at heart, and I wanted

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the participants to become comfortable in the teacher study group setting in order to reveal their candid thoughts in my presence. Eventually, the teachers were able to trust me and see that I valued their opinions. Conversations in our group were guarded during the first meeting, but as the participants became more comfortable with me and one another, personal and professional issues were addressed with the assurance that information would not be shared with others outside of the group, such as colleagues or administrators: I can say that in the beginning everyone was kinda closed-lipped [laughs] . . . didn’t want to express themselves, but as the time went by and the more often we met, people felt more at ease and felt comfortable with discussing things and when we realized that it was going to stay in the group, among each other, we were more apt to get deeply involved and we did get deeply involved. (Tina) I think with our study group, everything we discussed stayed in there. And I think that with some of the teachers (I’m just speaking from our school) . . . it would have been spread around the school and it would have been taken out of context too. You know, they would have been saying other things, you know, that really wasn’t really said. (Mandy)

We established a relationship that included honesty and trust, and I was also forthcoming about my feelings about them as professionals. Cheryl did not let me know that she was initially apprehensive about my role in the group until her last interview, but she had an opportunity to learn about me and her perception(s) shifted: Cheryl: I think it was good that you were there because it wasn’t like you were coming at us as an administrator or anything. You came [at] us like a “keep it real” person, and how you came at me is how I come at my students. You let me see a different side of the AP Ms. West. . . . Ms. West came in it was like, “I’m stripped of all of this, my name is . . .” Charnita: Charnita. Cheryl: Charnita [we both laughed]. At first I was like, “Man, I’m not gonna say much,” but once that was stripped, everybody started stripping away. . . . So I think that helped a lot you know, I didn’t feel like, “Man, I can’t say this with her ‘cause she’ll go back and tell.”

Use of Informal Language and Dialect The purpose of CRPD is for teachers to be able to discuss topics related to their profession that will increase their self-efficacy and improve student

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achievement. CRPD should not only occur in a nonthreatening, relaxed setting, but the use of informal language and dialect should be viewed as acceptable forms of communication. Because of this tenet, participants in the teacher study group concentrated more on the topics of discussion rather than on using formal registers when speaking. Freedom of speech and a shared language allowed the teachers to express themselves with a type of straightforwardness that Standard English in a traditional professional development setting might have prevented. As ideas, suggestions, and frustrations were expressed and questions were asked, the participants could respond in a manner that implicitly told one another that our common bond created by our ethnicity was evident in our beliefs about our African American students and in our speech. The use of colloquialisms, slang, regional dialect, and any other speech pattern that deviated from Standard English was not perceived as ignorant but was viewed as a language style that enriched our conversations. Slang was used frequently throughout group discussion when the conversation addressed more personal feelings about education or one another. The setting invited us to lapse into more casual codes that provided comfort, support, and validated us as African American women who have a distinct way of communicating. In the case of the African American teacher study group, AAVE (African American Vernacular English) became a tool of empowerment that demonstrated that our home language was revered in the midst of a group of highly educated women. Inclusive of Topics Relevant to Various Cultural Groups CRPD necessitates that topics related to cultures may differ from those involved in the activity being discussed, and these cultures must be respected. For example, we respected our Blackness, but we also showed admiration for the European American teacher who was profiled in The Dreamkeepers (Ladson-Billings 1994). Likewise, although most of the students the teachers encountered were African American, an awareness of other cultural groups was also fostered. When Holly facilitated the group’s discussion, she asked each participant to list characteristics of a teacher who integrated culture into his or her classroom instruction: Trying to teach for understanding, basically not only understanding what’s going on with the lesson, but with the children also, whether it be culture or whether it be from family to family. We may all be African Americans so to speak, but we may have something different going on in our households. A culturally relevant teacher would understand the different cultures so she can

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relate the culture to the learning no matter what it takes. If you teach that way, [students] can relay it back to you. (Tasha)

Culturally relevant pedagogy was not typically outlined in the commercial teaching manuals that were issued for teaching and learning; therefore, CRPD is a change agent that can include culturally relevant materials. Learning how to select and use appropriate materials forced some teachers in the teacher study group to restructure their manner of teaching, regardless of their years of teaching experience, which satisfied one of the goals of CRPD. Commitment A common thread that links the characteristics of CRPD is commitment. Each participant must be dedicated to the goals of the learning activity and committed to assisting his or her colleagues in their professional growth. Participants committed their time and talents to discover what would happen when a group of African American women educators discussed a text that promoted education for African American students. Their willingness to embark on this journey with me required enormous amounts of commitment and trust. Information could not be gathered unless participants attended the meetings and were prepared to discuss and share the readings. The text prompted conversations that were directly related to classroom instruction and those that centered on other topics that were of interest to the participants. CRPD entails that participants be willing to assist others in their professional growth. The participants used their journals to record questions and thoughts so that they could receive feedback from their colleagues. Supporting one another extended beyond the teacher study group. After a work session (teachers exchanged student work and provided feedback on strategies that would assist that student), teachers were later observed sharing materials, ideas, and strategies during their planning time, at lunch, and after school. As Karen shared during her second interview: [The teacher study group] tends to allow teachers who may be going through a lot of stressful situations to open up and realize that you are not the only one. It’s a good thing, and what I found myself doing is really looking forward to the next time that we could sit down and really open up and talk and really get to know one another.

The teachers remained fervent about the group from the beginning until the study concluded, and the teachers felt obligated to make sure that other members of the group were successful inside and outside of the classroom.

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BEYOND CRPD In addition to the five-point star model I outlined above, participants in the teacher study group also named leadership and culturally relevant pedagogy as crucial components of CRPD. Teachers’ attitudes have an indirect effect on their interactions with students depending on the support teachers receive from the administration, and when teachers are engaged in purposeful and useful staff development, these educators are better prepared to instruct students (Murphy 1999). When principals and teachers collaborate to find effective alternatives to traditional staff development, teachers become empowered and more educated decision makers. Administrators who respect and recognize the contributions that teachers can make when defining goals for students and educational design will create small communities of leaders within the school (Bloom and Stein 2004). Barth (1990) believed that in order for administrators to lead a learning organization they must create an environment where “adults and children learn simultaneously and in the same place to think critically and analytically and to solve problems that are important to them. In a community of learners, learning is endemic and mutually visible” (p. 43). The importance of collaboration among school administrators, teacher-leaders, and staff members cannot be underestimated as schools attempt to meet local, district, and national requirements for student performance. Our schools are ever changing in terms of cultural and intellectual diversity of students (and teachers), and staffs who have established open lines of communication are not only united in their endeavor to acquire or maintain school success, but they are more likely to be working toward a common goal as well. All of the participants felt that professional development should be designed in a manner that meets the needs of the teachers and students who are teaching and learning in that respective building. I chose to design and implement a teacher study group that used a text that was applicable to that set of educators. The cultural relevance of the study group became apparent as we discussed strategies for improving educative practices for those subgroups (low socioeconomic status and African American males) who consistently underperformed on formative, criterion-referenced, and standardized assessments. As an administrator at the school, I had immediate access to schoolwide data that the participants would need to request; therefore, the teacher study group had data-driven components. After reviewing test results from the 2005–2006 school year, I asked the participants, “These are the numbers, this is who’s struggling, what are we going to do about it?” Our conversations

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from that point forward centered on how our pedagogy should prepare our students to become successful, literate adults who are prepared for life. The teachers reported that my participation in the study group helped them to see the issues of school globally and, as future leaders, understand the challenges that they may face when they are assigned to this position. I also found that I had to reassure them that they were “leaders among leaders,” and I took the time to acknowledge their individual contributions to the overall school program. The teachers stated that they appreciated this type of support from a member of the administrative team because they needed to know that their efforts were noticed and appreciated. Karen sensed that I understood the challenges that they faced in their classrooms and the teacher study group gave them a chance to vent to someone who cared: “I enjoyed this [teacher study group]; I’m excited, and I’m looking forward to doing it again soon! I believe that you felt what we were feeling, and thank you.” Elle expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the group and she viewed me as the facilitator who would not accept “I don’t know” as a valid response to my questions: First and foremost, thank you for having this study group ‘cause it never came in my mind. . . . It was something that I think all of us knew we needed, but never voiced it. We just went about our daily grind, but it was a welcome diversion from just everything that was going on this year. It really was. You were a very good facilitator; you know how to get it out of us [laughs]. You’ve been a great guide in terms of making us think about the questions we had and never asked anybody.

My goal was for the participants to see that their ideas were valued and their suggestions were pertinent to our school. Certain concerns that the teachers had were rephrased and mentioned to our principal; therefore, changes in our school operation were inevitable because of the improved collegial relationships between the participants and me. With administrative support, teacher study groups can replace the boredom that is associated with traditional staff development and empower teachers to use inquiry to solve issues that they have identified. When teachers are provided with opportunities to actively participate in the decision-making process, they become active members of education, and this efficacious behavior will positively affect school climate and student achievement. Recent educational reform has placed teachers in a compromising position. The educational community asks teachers to “think outside the box” while insisting that curriculum objectives be taught in a prescribed order. The autonomy of teachers is also infringed upon through the careful scrutiny of lesson plans and systematic observations to ensure that teachers are

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“maximizing classroom instruction.” Regardless of the educational agenda of the leader of our country, the goal of American education has always been to prepare students to be contributing members to society (Holloway 2002; Noddings 2005). All teachers have been asked to complete an arduous task during six hours of student contact—individualize instruction for all students while paying careful attention to their unique learning modalities and needs. This task must be completed as the teacher simultaneously meets various deadlines given by building- and district-level administrators, maintains open lines of communication with parents, redirects negative student behavior, and attempts to increase student performance on norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessments. In the African American community, African American teachers assume an additional responsibility as they “reinforce the community’s cultural norms and encourage African American students to achieve beyond what society has expected of them” (Foster 1991, p. 233). In other words, African American teachers are expected to form an “extended kinship” (p. 261) that gives them the authority to instruct and discipline African American students in the same manner as a parent or relative. I had numerous opportunities to observe the teachers in the study group engage their students in meaningful dialogue and concrete learning experiences, and I realized that their suggestions for improving the curriculum for African American students were implemented in their classrooms. The teachers understood what African American children needed, but they would like to see these practices implemented consistently on a global scale. The study group teachers felt that all African American students can be academically successful if the curriculum (and teachers implementing the curriculum) shows respect for their language, potential, and other cultural values and characteristics that they might bring into the classroom. I challenge other educators to incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy into classroom instruction that will remind African American students that they are the descendants of kings and queens every day of the school year, not just during Black History Month.

THE IMPACT OF CULTURALLY RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT The African American teacher study group changed the way that the participants viewed professional learning at our school. According to the participants, professional development designed by the district assumes that the

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courses are of interest and importance to everyone. As Kim explained, “The county sugarcoats things and . . . the classes or staff development that they offer really doesn’t get to the heart of the problems per se.” The participants also believed that the district assumes that all children and adults learn the same way. Professional development, according to the participants, was narrow-minded and frequently did not leave any room for interpretation or modification for the types of students that they taught. Becoming actively involved in the teacher study group alerted the participants that staff development course offerings excluded the nature and needs of African American students or culturally relevant pedagogy: I think that the school district should look closely at the research that’s out there as far as teachers who educate African American children and put in place different resources such as in-services, staff development classes to better help teachers or equip them with the necessary skills that they need to teach these kids. (Kim) I think we need more workshops of this kind [teacher study group], and I think we need a more realistic approach to [what] we’re trying to do, you know? . . . We get this handout that says “best practices,” but we have to consider what the best practices really are for African American children. . . . You go to the studies that the research footnotes—sometimes we get those best practices. Who are these best practices for if you go to those studies? Are they African American children? Do the children, even if they are not African American, mirror our kids? (Amber)

Tina exclaimed that she viewed herself as a lifelong learner and has the same expectations from her students whereas traditional staff development did not give her that same feeling, “It’s [learning] continuous, ongoing, every day!” Tina also stated that professional development provided by the county does not deal with issues that are pertinent to the school: They [those responsible for district staff development] just need to get people who’ve been out there in the field of teaching who’ve experienced some of the things we’re experiencing, gone through some of the problems we’ve gone through, and who can give us some . . . help, realistic help instead of pulling something off of the Internet and coming out and dishing it out. Be real.

The most salient feature of the African American teacher study group was the manner in which the participants looked to others as competent peers who were able to teach them strategies and techniques that may have been foreign to them. Once they returned to their classrooms and tried the suggestions of their colleagues, they returned to the next session to share their successes.

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The study group, a form of culturally relevant professional development, was used as an impetus for transformation and change and strived to give teachers the kind of intrinsic motivation that would propel them to empower themselves and their students. Traditional staff development, unlike the teacher study group, is usually neither interactive nor considerate of the audience’s need to have questions answered once the training has been completed. The participants asked to continue our conversations and extend this opportunity to other members of our school community the following year; the participants felt that such dialogue needs to permeate throughout the school building. The participants’ excitement about the teacher study group has now spread to two other schools. Amber’s mother, who teaches at another school in the district, felt her daughter’s enthusiasm and purchased a personal copy of The Dreamkeepers. After mother and daughter read the book together, Amber’s mother introduced the text to her principal and colleagues. Although we are not in the same building (I have also been assigned to a different school), we utilize our district’s intranet to communicate at least monthly by posing instructional questions to the group and sharing professional successes. We continue to rely on one another for professional opinions and this type of collegiality is a result of our participation in the teacher study group. I am currently facilitating individual learning communities at my new school, and teachers have commented that they appreciate the ability to collaborate with their peers on teaching and learning.

A CHALLENGE TO OTHER EDUCATIONAL LEADERS Teachers must be involved in professional learning activities that are relevant to their needs, respects them as professionals, and considers the nature and needs of adult learning. Administrators should consistently assess areas for growth in teachers and allow teachers to select professional learning activities of their choice. Classroom instruction is important in every school setting, but teachers who are assigned to urban schools especially must have a firm grasp of the curriculum as well as be able to contend with societal issues that emerge in the classroom. Culturally relevant professional development provided the participants with a forum in which we could be African American educators who proclaimed our love of teaching African American children by “any means necessary.” Absent from the group were the shrouds of being politically correct in both speech and actions. Also absent was dishonesty. We laughed, we cried, we recommended, and we questioned—the purpose of our group

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became apparent to us and was embedded in the word we. We discovered that our success as a school was dependent on everyone in that room, and the teacher study group put us closer to finding solutions together that remained unsolved when we depended on our individual resources for answers. Discussing the profiles and pedagogies of the teachers in The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African-American Children allowed and encouraged all of us to take advantage of the opportunity to critically examine race, teaching and leadership practices, and ourselves through a professional learning activity that was designed with our needs in mind. The African American teacher study group revealed that we, as concerned educators, must actively seek effective means for improving teaching and learning for teachers and students through this type of professional learning activity. Those who are in charge of professional development—researchers examining urban schools, educational leaders, and state and federal departments of education—must individually and collectively engage in courageous conversations in their school districts as a method of increasing teacher efficacy and student achievement. The repercussions of not employing the principles of culturally relevant professional development may be detrimental and irreparable.

REFERENCES Arbaugh, F. (2003). “Study Groups: Professional Growth through Collaboration.” The Mathematics Teacher, 96, 188–91. Barth, R. (1990). Improving Schools from Within. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. Birchak, B., Connor, C., Crawford, K. M., Kahn, L. H., Kaser, S., Turner, S., and Short, K. G. (1998). Teacher Study Groups: Building Community through Dialogue and Reflection. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Bloom, G., and Stein, R. (2004). “Building Practice.” Leadership, 34, 20–22. Cochran-Smith, M. (2003). “Sometimes It’s Not about the Money: Teaching and Heart.” Journal of Teacher Education, 54(5), 371–75. Delpit, L. (1988). “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children.” Harvard Educational Review, 58, 280–98. Delpit, L., and Dowdy, J. K. (eds.). (2002). The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom. New York: The New Press. Fleischer, C., and Fox, D. L. (2003). “Toward Meaningful On-Line Professional Development in English Education.” English Education, 35(4), 259–61. Foster, M. (1991). “Constancy, Connectedness, and Constraints in the Lives of African-American Teachers.” NWSA Journal, 31, 233–61. ———. (1997). Black Teachers on Teaching. New York: The New Press. Fox, D. L., and Fleischer, C. (2004). “The Long and Winding Road: Supporting Teachers’ Learning across the Lifespan.” English Education, 36(3), 171–73.

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Garry, A., and Graham, P. (2004). “Using Study Groups to Disseminate Technology Best Practices.” Tech & Learning. Retrieved November 2, 2004, from www.techlearning.com/story./showArticle.jhtml?articleID=17301678. Hollins, E. R., McIntyre, L. R., DeBose, C., Hollins, K. S., and Towner, A. (2004). “Promoting a Self-Sustaining Learning Community: Investigating an Internal Model for Teacher Development.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 17, 247–64. Holloway, J. H. (2002). “What Do Students Know?” Educational Leadership, 60, 85–86. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge. Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of AfricanAmerican Children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. ———. (1995). “But That’s Just Good Teaching: The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” Theory into Practice, 34, 159–65. ———. (2000). “Fighting for Our Lives: Preparing Teachers to Teach African-American Students.” Journal of Teacher Education, 51, 206–14. Lefever-Davis, S., Wilson, C., Moore, E., Kent, A., and Hopkins, S. (2003, May). “Trends in Teacher Certification and Literacy.” The Reading Teacher, 56, 782–84. Lynn, M. (1999). “Toward Critical Race Pedagogy: A Research Note.” Urban Education, 33, 606–26. McIntosh, K., Horner, R. H., Chard, D. J., Dickey, C. R., and Braun, D. H. (2008). “Reading Skills and Function of Problem Behavior in Typical School Settings.” Journal of Special Education, 42(3), 131–47. Moll, L. C., and Gonzalez, N. (2001). “Lessons from Research with Language-Minority Children.” In E. Cushman, E. R. Kintgen, B. M. Kroll, and M. Rose (eds.), Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook (pp. 156–73). Boston: St. Martin’s Press. Murphy, J. (1999). “Reconnecting Teaching and Educational Administration: A Call of a Unified Profession.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal. Noddings, N. (2005). “What Does It Mean to Educate the WHOLE CHILD?” Educational Leadership, 63, 8–13. Smitherman, G. (2003). “Toward a National Public Policy on Language.” In L. Delpit and J. K. Dowdy (eds.), The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom (pp. 163–78). New York: The New Press. Solórzano, D. G., and Bernal, D. D. (2001). “Examining Transformational Resistance through a Critical Race and Latcrit Theory Framework: Chicana and Chicano Students in an Urban Context.” Urban Education, 36, 308–43. West, C. V. (2007). “Culturally Relevant Professional Development: An Examination of Race, Practice, and Self through an African-American Teacher Study Group.” PhD diss., Georgia State University, Atlanta. Willis, A. I. (2000). “Keeping It Real: Teaching and Learning about Culture, Literacy, and Respect.” English Education, 32(4), 267–77.

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Chapter Seven

Overcoming (Under) Lying Assumptions Approaching Language Education from a Freirean Perspective Miguel Mantero, University of Alabama

My approach to education is grounded in the activity of taking part and understanding the discourses within our communities. I approach individuals as creations of our current and past environments. This view has always been supported and energized by the memories and experiences of those who influenced my life the most: my family and lifelong friends, and a few good educators. Also, it would be naive of me to believe that I have not been influenced by mediocre teachers throughout my schooling. To this day, I still feel the aftershocks of some of their lessons in some of my limitations. And, unfortunately, I encounter this mediocrity on a daily basis as I interact with educators, community members, and students who believe that their assumptions about schooling and learning should ring true with everyone they encounter. In an effort to help you understand my writing a little more, I would like to offer a few basic assumptions that guide my research, teaching, and approach to education. First of all, I believe that the one thing that makes us equal, the human spirit, is the one part of us that accentuates our differences. Also, language not only expresses our thoughts, but its primary purpose is to protect our beliefs. Finally, I believe Kant when he stated that education should be based on the following principles: clarity, association, order, and application while holding true to Seneca’s words: “Non scholae sed vitae est discimus” (We learn not for school, but for life). Paulo Freire, renowned for his work in transformative and critical pedagogy and for supporting the activity of lifelong learning, referred to the elements of hope, love, faith, humility, mutual trust, and critical thinking as 141

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framing teaching. He related each one of these to the activity of self-discovery, transformation, and education (Freire 1970, 1985). For the successful negotiation of home and school identities based on the Freirean principles of hope, love, faith, humility, mutual trust, and critical thinking, students must be provided with opportunities to invest their home identities in the classroom; relationships and peer interaction in the classroom context must reflect transformative and positive social positioning of English language learners (ELLs); students and their families must have access to meaningful learning opportunities through the community and educational context; and students and families must have opportunities for their voices to be expressed, valued, and understood (Luke and Grieshaber 2004; Stroud and Lee 2006). By adopting the ideology present in the principles of Freirean pedagogy, teachers and students are able to value each other as well as their skills and knowledge, and worth will be attributed to the voices of our students and their families—the main resource of each child. As educators seek to engage each student by encouraging investment in home identity, more opportunities will be created for parents to engage in school-based activities. This will assist in building and fostering a classroom environment that values the resources of each child, empowers each voice, and promotes investment of home identities in meaningful activities and will positively impact all students and aid ELLs in negotiating home and school identities. How can the Freirean principles be practiced in our classrooms, and what does this mean not only for the education of ELLs but for all students?

REINVENTING OURSELVES AND OUR PEDAGOGY As of late, the idea of hope has become very popular in education. For the most part, this has had a positive impact on the schools. However, it is worth restating that in a Freirean approach, the purpose of instilling hope in students is to inspire a need for change in their lives, a change that is worth fighting for and against the status quo. Hope is not about what our students achieve while they are with us in our classrooms. Instilling hope in our students reflects the confidence that we have in them when they leave our classroom. Therefore, we need to return to a place-based education where our language and pedagogy reflect the needs of our communities rather than the needs of a curriculum destined to institutionalize youth and standardize language and knowledge. If we choose to include the notion of hope in our classrooms then we must be comfortable with not having all of the answers, as hope, by definition, is founded on the idea of the need to focus on the possibility inherent in the incomplete.

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The idea of love has been traditionally translated as “passion.” That is, how many times have we heard, “She (or he) has a passion for teaching”? By moving away from the element of love in our classrooms we have failed to include more and more the purpose of love: freedom. Love serves as part of the foundation that includes commitment to the profession, to the students, and to building a dialogue in class. This helps students use the knowledge learned to re-create themselves in the community. Essentially, love frees us and helps to engage our students in a discourse about their lives while using our content and curricula to support their goals and not as the goals in and of themselves. Faith and hope are easily confused, especially in our classrooms. Whereas hope is about what our students may be able and would like to do in the future, faith is about what our students are able to do at the moment and about their potential. For example, in language classrooms, too many times have we heard a teacher say, “This student isn’t even literate in her (or his) own language, and she (or he) hasn’t been to school on a regular basis, so how can I be expected to teach her (or him)?” Teachers who may feel this way have little faith in the human spirit and in the potential that youth and energy embrace. More importantly, our interactions with international students may negatively impact the beliefs others in the school have that may come to light later in the community. Faith, in this context, does not solely refer to a religious faith. In some settings, this may be true, but as important as one’s religious faith, is faith in the human spirit. In our current educational system, which is primarily based on competition, achievement, and academic absolutes reflected in current “best practices” approaches to education, the ideas of humility and mutual trust have almost been forgotten. Humility provides teachers and students with the vehicle to understand that absolute truth does not reside in any individual. Rather, absolute truth is reflected in the activities and discourse of our community. For example, as language teachers we are able to help students learn the language, but it is outside of the classroom where language, through social interaction, gains meaning and is crucial to developing a pedagogy based on Freirean principles. Also, humility allows us to understand that our lived experiences are particular only to us, permitting us to build mutual trust inasmuch as our students understand that a goal of education is for them to continue to contribute and develop as individuals rather than to reproduce an institutional, majority-based discourse. In other words, humility and mutual trust help us to understand how each individual’s experience of the world is a singular event and that our experiences are shaped by the whole of who we are; we need not change who we are to be able to learn and contribute to our communities. This permits us to

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learn from each other and to enter into a meaning and experientially-based dialogue with our students. The final element of Freirean pedagogy is arguably the most well-known and popular: critical thinking. Transformative and critical thinking is a vital aspect to what has come to be known as critical pedagogy. In our classrooms we may approach pedagogy as oriented by a tool-for-result emphasis, which separates a method from the knowledge it produces, or our lessons may be framed by a tool-and-result pedagogy, which explicitly observes an ecology between the methodological choices a teacher makes and the resultant knowledge and understanding his or her students build and produce. If we are to build on the elements of Freirean pedagogy as discussed in this section, approaching our classrooms as environments that help to unify the students with their communities and the world, then our realities become a process of transforming our lives and our societies with the support of schools and teachers. If teachers are to provide opportunities for students to reinvent themselves, then it becomes necessary to emphasize some essential elements that need to be found in critical pedagogy: our student’s identity, voice, and language. For these conditions to be met the following false assumptions must be overcome: 1. Home language is irrelevant and an obstacle to academic achievement. 2. Preexisting knowledge and skills of English language learners are irrelevant. 3. Contributions of culturally and linguistically diverse parents are not valuable. (Cummins, Bismilla, Chow, Cohen, Giampapa, and Leoni 2005) These assumptions limit opportunities for ELLs and must be overcome for them to be able to successfully integrate home and school selves. In order to demonstrate how the Freirean principles are intertwined and are impacted by our pedagogy, I further clarify a critical approach to the education of English language learners. INITIAL PERCEPTIONS OF IDENTITY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS As DaSilva Iddings and Katz (2007) point out, there is a complex relationship among language, learning, and identity. Their recent research examines the role of the individual in identity construction by studying how students actively negotiate multiple selves over home and school discourses. This supports a conceptualization of identity as influenced by transnational and transcultural trajectories rather than as static inventories of traits and capacities (Taylor, Bernhard, Garg, and Cummins 2008).

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That is, identities are reorganized and negotiated as individuals participate in the daily practices of the community and schooling. However, the degree to which these negotiations take place may vary considerably according to the conditions, practices, and contexts in schools that enable students to express their voices, perform meaningful roles, and fully participate in learning practices (DaSilva Iddings and Katz 2007). Therefore, we need to recognize that identities are not fixed entities; rather they are subject to negotiation and reorganization through the encounters with new linguistic, social, and cultural realms of practice. According to this perspective, learners are not simply processors of information but negotiators in particular contexts and influenced by their dynamic ethnic, national, gender, class, and social realities.

LANGUAGE POLICIES AND PRACTICES Phillipson (1992) argues that there is a global hierarchy of languages that privileges English above all other languages and that English language education is used to reinforce Eurocentric myths and stereotypes and create and maintain an idealistic image of the English-speaking world. This ideology has influenced society and is maintained through educational practices and the promotion of English as the hegemonic language (King and Haboud 2002). According to Volk and Angelova (2007), resources that have been legitimated by a particular culture or society are transformed into cultural capital. Languages, too, are transformed into cultural capital in a manner that reflects the political and social power struggles within the culture (MartinezRoldan and Malave 2004). These languages may be able to be used to one’s advantage; languages that are not valued may not be recognized as cultural capital but may be seen as a hindrance to learning. The perpetuation of Standard English as the hegemonic language of education demotes non–Anglo Saxons “to subordinate roles in the classroom and to positions of inferiority in society” (DaSilva Iddings and Katz 2007, p. 301). Such practice directly affects students’ constructions of social identities, as individuals produce and reproduce themselves through their experiences.

INTEGRATING HOME AND SCHOOL IDENTITIES IN A COMMUNITY-BASED CONTEXT In order to build upon and transcend the influences and issues discussed above we must develop a renewed vision of the purpose of classroom

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discourse and language learner participation in language communities for ELL education. Van Lier’s (1997, 2002) construct of ecological linguistics becomes very important if we are to truly outline a framework for integrating home and school identities in community-based contexts: • Language emerges from content-based, meaning-driven activity. • Language arises from affordances and opportunities during active engagement in a classroom that embraces the social realities of the community. • Language arises from individuals interacting with each other and over a goal or purpose (triadic interaction). • Linguistic quality is important and the quantity of language learned emerges over time through guidance and negotiated interactions. Language works with thoughts, gestures, and cultural artifacts to produce meaning that may need to be negotiated between participants (Leontiev 1981). What exactly does language embody? Language embodies our social experiences. And we may find ourselves and our social experiences (and identities) brought to light as imposed, assumed, or negotiable. Language helps us to expand our perceptions of the world as we relate our experiences and build new ones during dialogue and interaction. During interaction we are always including something else into our personal frame of reference. By personal frame of reference I mean that which we focus on or talk about with other people. This could be a newspaper article, an accident that we witnessed, or a particularly good dessert. The long-standing debate over what to focus on, linguistic quantity or language quality, has heavily influenced our approaches to ELL education. It is difficult to argue that a focus on linguistic quantity (the sum of language that we know) is less important than the quality of language that we know because we would hope that the more language we know the more we are able to do with it (Glass and Wong 2003). Our identities, and those of our students, come to life as “language learners” when we participate in meaning-driven discourse in authentic contexts. This is the reality of language learning. Many ELLs become frustrated because although they may know a great deal of the language (for example), they are unable to represent themselves and what they can do in authentic settings. We must provide opportunities for students to engage in interaction that will help new language and knowledge emerge as learning is realized through community-based activity and not just linguistic construction in artificial environments.

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FAMILY, IDENTITY, AND SCHOOLING Souto-Manning (2007) and Valdes (1996) argue that educators must cease to view English language learners from a deficit perspective, as though they are lacking skills or prior knowledge. Educators must abandon the mentality that these so-called deficiencies must be corrected in order for these learners to function in the mainstream classrooms and in the community. We should understand and gain access to the resources provided by their families, sociocultural histories, and community-based literacy practices in order to help students embrace their new surroundings. Through using students’ and families’ sociocultural histories and cultural resources, students and parents will be empowered and given space for positively negotiating integration of multiple selves while taking part in their own education. “[There is the pressing need for] educators of ELLs to build upon the richness and complexity of learners’ prior knowledge, [to] treat ‘home background’ not as a deficit but as affecting deep levels of identity and epistemology” (Taylor et al. 2008, p. 289). As an example of a renewed approach, New Literacy Studies (NLS) seeks to help language learners negotiate and construct their identities by taking into consideration the family literacy practices that encompass understanding of cultural values, norms, beliefs, and relationships of a particular community. NLS recognizes the value in the cultural and linguistic literacy practices that families use to guide their children to interact with and understand the written text (Taylor et al. 2008). This type of practice allows families to reinvent themselves and their identities in new communities, without being forced to adopt traditional, dominant methods, ideologies, and approaches to education. Within the classroom context, students are learning a diverse set of sociocultural practices in addition to the linguistic system that reflects the broader relations of power as explained above. Therefore, classroom practices significantly influence what individuals learn as well as the reorganization and construction of meaning and understandings as the learner assesses social value of their home and school identities (Hawkins 2004). Volk and Angelova (2007) state that all children bring resources with them to school, but it is only when their resources have been legitimated by the institution and transformed into cultural capital that they can be used as an initial point of departure by the students. Foundational research indicates that effective learning should engage and integrate prior understanding and background knowledge, both cultural and linguistic forms. However, when this prior information is not treated as cultural capital it may be disregarded or even viewed as an obstacle to future learning. This limits our students’ abilities to take ownership of learning through investing

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identities in learning opportunities. And it may hinder student engagement in opportunities for learning and identity construction or validation integration. Del Valle (2003) confirms that language learners who retain their native languages and cultures are more likely to see higher academic achievements than those who quickly attempt to assimilate. Thus, pedagogy and approaches to educational reform must seek to build on our students’ preexisting cultural and linguistic knowledge as well as their lived experiences in their new homes. Consequently, the ability of ELLs to engage socially and culturally is crucial to negotiating the integration of home and school identities. Human relationships are important in ELLs’ adjustment to schooling (Cummins et al. 2005) and negotiation of integration of home and school identities. Identities and languages are always in an emergent state as the world around us impacts our activities and perceptions. The meaning that emerges through our activity in society carries with it our individual voice. “Voice” is not a purely linguistic concept, nor is it a purely individual entity. Voice is, however, a result of the perceptions we have of our community’s investment in hope, love, faith, humility, mutual trust, and critical thinking and, more importantly, our voices give us the power to change not only how others view us, but also, how we view ourselves.

REFERENCES Cummins, J., Bismilla, V., Chow, P., Cohen, S., Giampapa, F., and Leoni, L. (2005). “Affirming Identity in Multilingual Classrooms.” Educational Leadership, 63(1), 38–43. DaSilva Iddings, A. C. D., and Katz, L. (2007). “Integrating Home and School Identities of Recent-Immigrant Hispanic English Language Learners through Classroom Practices.” Journal of Language Identity, and Education, 6(4), 299–314. Del Valle, S. (2003). “Bilingual Education: Learning and Politics in the Classroom.” Language Rights and the Law in the United States: Finding Our Voices. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. ———. (1985). The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Glass, R. D., and Wong, P. L. (2003). “Engaged Pedagogy: Meeting the Demands for Justice in Urban Professional Development Schools.” Teacher Education Quarterly, 30(2), 69–87. Hawkins, M. (2004). “Researching English Language and Literacy Development in Schools.” Educational Research, 33(3), 14–25. King, K. A., and Haboud, M. (2002). “Language Planning and Policy in Ecuador.” Current Issues in Language Planning, 3(4), 359–424.

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Leontiev, A. A. (1981). Psychology and the Language Learning Process. Oxford: Permagon. Luke, A., and Grieshaber, S. (2004). “New Adventures in the Politics of Literacy: An Introduction.” Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 4(1), 5–9. Martinez-Roldan, C., and Malave, G. (2004). “Language Ideologies Mediating Literacy and Identity in Bilingual Contexts.” Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 4(2), 155–80. Phillipson, R. (1992). “Linguistic Imperialism: Theoretical Foundations.” Linguistic Imperialism (pp. 38–77). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Souto-Manning, M. (2007). “Immigrant Families and Children (Re)Develop Identities in a New Context.” Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(6), 399–405. Stroud, W., and Lee, L. (2006). “Anxiety and Identity in the Language Classroom.” Regional Language Centre Journal, 37(3), 299–307. Taylor, L. K., Bernhard, J. K., Garg, S., and Cummins, J. (2008). “Affirming Plural Belonging: Building on Students’ Family-Based Cultural and Linguistic Capital through Multiliteracies Pedagogy.” Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 8(3), 269–94. Valdes, G. (1996). Con Respeto: Bridging the Distances between Culturally Diverse Families and Schools: An Ethnographic Portrait. New York: Teachers College Press. Van Lier, L. (1997). “Approaches to Observation in Classroom Research: Observation from an Ecological Perspective.” TESOL Quarterly, 31(4), 783–87. ———. (2002). “An Ecological-Semiotic Perspective on Language and Linguistics.” In C. Kramsch (ed.), Language Acquisition and Language Socialization (pp. 140–64). New York: Continuum. Volk, D., and Angelova, M. (2007). “Language Ideology and the Mediation of Language Choice in Peer Interactions in a Dual-Language First Grade.” Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 6(3), 177–99.

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Index

Abbott, R., 116, 118 academic identity, 78 achievement gap, vii, 60, 155 activism, 77–78 Adato, A., 87 Agbo, S. A., 86 Aesop, 98 African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 132 Aguilera-Black Bear, D. E., 65, 69, 71, 81 Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN), 69 Albright, C., 103 Alexander, K. L., 41 Alexie, S., 8 Allen, A., 40 Allen, J., 73 Alvarez, H., 2 Alvermann, D. E., 40 Amanti, C., 14 Andrews, D. L., 109 Angelova, M., 145, 147 Anhalt, C., 13 Allexsaht-Snider, M., 13

American Indian Literacy and Technology (AILT) program, 69, 74–81 Apple, M. W., 104, 111 Arbaugh, F., 127, 129 Atkinson, M., 108 Atrens, D., 113 Au, K., 40 Ayala, J., 40 Bacha, M., 73 Ball, D. L., 14 Baquedano-Lopez, 2 Balfantz, R., 41 Barnhardt, R., 69 Barth, R., 134 Bentley, C., 86 Bernal, D. D., 127 Bernhard, J. K., 144, 147 Bernier, B., 13, 17 Beuschel, A. C., 40 Bhabha, H. K., 2, 31–32 Biddle, S. J. H., 108 Big Brothers/Sisters, 50–51 Bismilla, V., 144, 148

151

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biopower, 112 Birchak, B., 127 Black History Month, 136 Blain, M., 89 Blair, S. N., 115 Bloom, G., 134 body literacies, 109 Bouchard, C., 115 boundaries or borders, 1–4, 104 Bowen, N. K., 14 Brant, B., 86 Braun, D. H., 127 Bridges, F. W., 86 Broadbent, J., 89 Bromell, N., 108 Brown, M., 86 Cajete, G., 69 Calabrese Barton, A., 11, 13 Cale, L., 108 Camacho, A. S., 112, 116, 117 Cameron, N., 108 Cammack, D. W., 41 Cammarota, J., 73 Campbell-Jones, F., 40 Carillo, R., 2, 30 Carroll, M. D., 119 Centers for Disease Control, 108 Chagnon, Y. C., 108 Chard, D. J., 127 Chevaz, C. E., 76 Children’s Defense Fund, 4 Chiu, M. M., 2 Chow, P., 142, 148 Ciechanowski, K. M., 2 Civil, M., 13, 14, 17 Clinton, K., 40 Cochran-Smith, M., 126 Cohen, S., 144, 148 Coiro, J., 41 Coles, R., 87 Collazo, T., 2 Connor, C., 127 Cook-Sather, A., 40 Corbett, D., 40

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Index

Costain, L., 110 Crawford, K. M., 127 Creswell, J. W., 42 critical consciousness, x, 15, 72, 75, 101, 117, 120 Croker, H., 110 cultural competence, 15, 20, 33 culturally congruent, 40 culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), v, vi, viii, x, xi, 3, 7, 12, 14, 20, 30, 34, 35, 49, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 80, 127, 128, 129, 133, 134, 136, 137; challenges, ix–x; collective, 14–16, 30–33, 72; critically framed, 66–80; definitions, 14–15; full service schools, 52; goals, 15; integrating home and school identities, 146; kinesiology, 114–19; legitimacy, 9; principles, 68–70; professional development, 125–39; visual sociology, 39–63 culturally responsive education (CRE), 3, 68–70, 78 culturally responsive pedagogy, viii, 67, 95, 98 Cummins, J., 144, 147, 148 Curran, M., 86 Curtin, L. R., 119 Cushman, K., 40 DaSilva Iddings, A. C. D., 144, 145 DeBose, C., 127, 129 deficit model, 67, 68, 74 De Gaetano, Y., 86 Deloria, Jr., V., 68 Delpit, L., 40, 68, 127, 128 Del Valle, S., 147 Demmert, W., 69, 81 Deyhle, D., 74 Dewey, J., 71 Dickens, C., 95 Dickey, C. R., 127 digital storytelling, 30, 36–38 Dowdy, J. K., 127 Drake, C., 11, 13

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Index

Dugdale, A., 109 Duncan, M. C., 108, 112 Duncan-Andrade, J. M. R., 71, 72, 73 Dutro, E., 40 Dworkin, A. G., 74 Eady, S., 89 ecological linguistics, 146 educator activist, 67 Ellis, L., 2 English Language Learners (ELLs), 4, 142, 144, 146, 147, 148 Entwisle, D. R., 41 epistemology, 69, 104, 109, 147 equity, x, 3, 16, 65, 67, 68, 77, 80, 86, 126 Eurocentrism, 67–68 Ewald, W., 41 exercise-industrial-complex, 106, 113, 114 Fernandez-Balboa, J. M., 112, 116, 117 Feyerbend, P., 117 Fine, M., 73, 74 Finklestein, J., 106, 107 Flegal, K. M., 115, 119 Fleischer, C., 126 Foster, M., 128, 136 Foucault, M., 112, 114 Fox, D. L., 126 Fradd, S. H., 15 Freire, P., 67, 71, 72, 116, 117, 120, 142 Frost, R., 1 funds of knowledge, 14, 68, 129, 154 Galdone, P., 98 Galletta, A., 40 Gard, M., 107–108, 111, 113, 116, 120 Garg, S., 144, 147 Garry, A., 126, 127, 129 Gay, G., 40, 86 George, M., 13 Giampapa, F., 144 148 Giardina, M. D., 116 Giroux, H. A., 71, 72, 104, 114, 117

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153

Glasby, T., 112, 113 Glass, R. D., 146 Gomez, M. L., 40 Gonzalez, N., 14, 129 Gorely, T., 108 Graham, M., 109 Graham, P., 126, 127, 129 Grande, S., 68 Grieshaber, S., 142 Gutierrez, K. D., 2, 16 Haboud, M., 145 Halford, J., 87 Harewood, S., 116 Harmon, J. A., 41 Harper, D., 41 Harris, J., 108 Harris-Murri, N., 86 Harvey, D., 119 Hawkins, M., 148 healthism, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114 Hedley, A. A., 119 Hibbing, A. N., 41 high standards, ix, 55 Hill, H., 14 Hill, J. O., 115 Hilliard, A., ix Hollins, E. R., 127, 129 Hollins, K. S., 127, 129 Hollingsworth, S., 90 Holloway, J. H., 136 hooks, b., 72, 128 Hopkins, S., 126, 129 Horner, R. H., 127 Horkheimer, M., 116 Howard, T. C., 40 Hull, G., 40 hybrid, hybridity, vi, 2, 3, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 hybrid communities of practice, 11–38 Indigenous, 69, 78 Institute of medicine, 73 Isenberg, J., 90

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Jackson, K., 13, 14, 17 Jalongo, M., 90 Jameson, F., 117 Janisch, C., 41 Johnson, M., 41 Johnson, R., 119 Jones, M., 40 Jordan, C., 81 Joselowsky, F., 40 Kabbani, N., 41 Kahn, L. H., 127 Karlsson, J., 41 Kaser, S., 127 Katz, L., 144, 145 Kawagley, A. O., 69 Kent, A., 126, 129 Kincheloe, J., 104 kinesiology, 103, 104 King, K. A., 86, 145 King-White, R., 103 Kinzer, C. K., 41 Kirk, D., 108, 110, 118 Kirkland, K., 86 Knez, K., 116, 118 Kramer, K., 2 Kuczmarski, R. L., 119 Kuhn, T. S., 117 Ladson-Billings, G., 15, 40, 86, 117, 125, 128, 130, 132 learned powerlessness, vi LeCompte, M. D., 69, 74 Lee, J., 14 Lee, L., 142 Lee, O., 15 Lefever-Davis, S., 126, 129 Legters, N., 41 Leoni, L., 144, 148 Leontiev, A. A., 146 Leu, D. J., 41 Lipka, J., 81 Loffler-Anzbock, 41 liberation, ix, 4

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Index

life cycles, 11, 19–20, 27 Lindsey, R. B., 40 Lipton, M., 71 Lucas, T., 40 Lupton, D., 111, 113 Luke, A., 142 Lynn, M., 128 Lyotard, J. F., 117 MacDonald, D., 116, 118 Maguire, J., 105 Malave, G., 145 Mantero, M., 141 Markula, P., 113 Marquez-Zenkov, K., 41 Marshall, S. J., 108 Martinez-Roldan, C., 145 Marx, R. W., 31 McCarthey, C., 116 McDowell, M. A., 119 McIntosh, K., 127 McIntyre, L. R., 127, 129 McLaren, P., 72, 104 Melanson, E. L., 115 Metzger, K. L., 5 Mitra, D., 40 Moje, E. B., 1, 2, 4, 31 Moll, L. C., 14, 30, 129 Moore, C. G., 118, 126 Moore, E., 129 Morales, A., 73 Morrell, E., 40, 71, 72, 73 Muller, D., 89 multicultural literature, 6, 8 Murphy, J., 134 Murray, S., 109, 110, 112 National Center for Education Statistics, 86 National Research Council, 13, 73 Native American students, 7–9, 65–83 Nelson, A., 116, 118 neoliberalism, 104–107, 109, 111, 112, 114, 118

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Index

Nestle, M., 107, 118 New Literacy Studies (NLS), 40–41, 147 Newman, J. I., 103 Nieto, S., 99 No Child Left Behind (NCLB), vii, 13, 16, 29, 125 Noddings, N., 136 Norton, N. E. L., 85, 86, 87, 90 Oakes, J., 71 Obidah, J., 40 Ogden, C. L., 119 Orzol, S. M., 118 Palmer, P., 87 parental engagement, 13–15, 17, 18 Park, J. K., 116 Patterson, P. D., 118 pedagogy of the obese, 107–109 peer as leader, 47 Peressini, D. D., 13 Perez, G., 13 Perusse, L., 108 Petersen, A., 111 Phillipson, R., 145 photovoice, 41 platform for transformation, 20, 31 poverty, vi, vii, 8, 16, 29, 53, 65, 128 Pringle, R., 113 Probst, J. C., 118 Prosser, J., 42 Pruitt, L., 74 Quinter, S., 73 Quintos, B., 14 Raggl, A., 41, 42 Rankin-Erickson, J. L., 41 Rankinen, T., 108 Remillard, J., 13, 17 Rhoades, G., 105 Rigsby, B., 109 Robert, L. M., 40

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Rodgers, C., 40 Rogers, J., 71 Rostenberg, D., 86 Roxas, K., 86 Sams, J., 92 Schilling, 14 Schratz, M., 41, 42 Schultz, K., 40 Schwartz, D., 42 Seidle, B., 40 Shinogle, J. A., 118 Shor, I., 71, 72, 73 Short, K. G., 127 Silverstein, S., 98 Slaughter, S., 105 Smitherman, G., 127 Solorzano, D. G., 127 Souto-Manning, M., 147 Snyder, E. E., 108 social capital, 79 social justice, 1, 68, 72 Soja, E. W., 2 Sokanovic, M., 89 spiritualities, 85–102 Stein, R., 134 Stewart, III, C. F., 86 St. Louis, K., 13 Street, B., 41 Strickland, D. S., 40 Stroud, W., 142 student voice, 40, 72 students of color, vi, vii, viii, x, 5, 67 Tabak, C. J., 119 Tatum, A. W., v, vi Taylor, L. K., 144, 147 teacher study group, 125–38 teacher support, 12, 17 Teel, K. M., 40 Tehani, C., 31 TE-PAC2, 16, 26–30; process, 17–18; purpose, 17; sessions, 18 Tharp, R. G., 81

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third space, 1, 2, 3, 16 Thompson, J., 73 “Through Students Eyes” Project, 39, 41, 45, 59 Tinning, R., 109, 112, 113 Tippeconnic, J., III, 81 Tomlinson-Clarke, S., 86 Towner, A., 127 Towner, J. C., 69, 129 Townsend, B., 109 transformation, ix, x, 20, 31, 70, 72, 74–75, 138, 142 Tribal Nation children, 68–69 Tuck, E., 73 Tuck, M., 73 Turner, S., 127 urban youth, 43 Valdes, G., 147 Van Allsburg, C., 95 Van Horn, L., 41 Van Lier, L., 145 Villegas, A., 40 visual inquiries/sociology, 41, 56–57 visual texts, 41 Vogt, L. A., 81 Volk, D., 86, 147

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Index

Walker, R., 42 Walts, B., 108 Wei, R., 119 Weinstein, C., 86 Weis, L., 74 Weisnagel, S. J., 108 Wenger, E., 30, West, C. V., 125 Whitaker, R. C., 118 whiteness, 6, 7, 78 Wildcat, D. R., 68 Williams, L. R., 86 Willis, A. I., 126 Wilson, C., 126, 129 Winston, J., 89 Wilson, B., 40 Wong, P. L., 146 working toward a sense of the possible, 20, 26–30 World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education, 69 Wright, J., 107–108, 111, 113, 115, 120 Yolen, J., 95 Yonezawa, S., 40 young adult literature, 6, 7 Zanker, C., 116 Zenkov, K., 39, 40, 41 Zinsser, C., 87, 108

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About the Editors

Lisa Scherff is associate professor of English language arts at the University of Alabama. A former high school English and reading teacher, she earned a PhD in reading education with a graduate certificate in educational policy from Florida State University. Lisa’s research focuses primarily on opportunity to learn in secondary English, the teaching of young adult literature, and teacher preparation and induction and has been published in journals such as English Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Research in the Teaching of English. She and Leslie Rush (University of Wyoming) are the coeditors of English Education (2010–2015). Karen Spector is currently assistant professor of English language arts and literacy at the University of Alabama. She taught high school English in Florida and Ohio with diverse students before earning her EdD in literacy from the University of Cincinnati and beginning her career in higher education in 2005. Karen’s working class background has shaped the way she sees the world and thereby her research and writing interests, which include social class, narrative, and response to literature. Her research has been published in journals such as Research in the Teaching of English, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Changing English, as well as in several books, including Trajectories: Social and Educational Mobility of Education Scholars from Poor and Working Class Backgrounds, edited by Jane Van Galen and Van Dempsey.

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About the Contributors

Dorothy E. Aguilera-Black Bear (Choctaw) is assistant professor in the Department of Educational Management and Development at New Mexico State University. Her research interests include studies of Indigenous Education, decolonizing education, culturally responsive education, language immersion schools, participatory action research with youth, and educational leadership for equity and social justice. Carolyn Albright is assistant professor in the Department of Physical Education and Exercise Science at Immaculata University. She teaches courses in Exercise Physiology, Exercise Testing and Programming, Biomechanics, and Research Methods. Her research interests focus on cardiovascular disease prevention in middle age and younger adults. Angela Calabrese Barton is professor of teacher education at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on issues of equity and social justice in science education, with a particular emphasis on the urban context. She conducts ethnographic and case study research in community- and schoolbased settings that targets the science teaching-learning experiences of upper elementary and middle school youth, teachers learning to teach science for social justice, and parents engaging in their children’s science education. She is currently co-editor for the Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Corey Drake is associate professor of elementary mathematics education at Iowa State University. As a researcher and a teacher educator, her primary 159

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About the Contributors

interest is in supporting teachers in learning to incorporate new resources into their teaching. These resources include family and community funds of knowledge as well as new curriculum materials, policies, and teaching practices. She writes about mathematics education, curriculum studies, and teacher education. Ryan King-White is assistant professor at Towson University. His research has focused on the Little League World Series, Danny Almonte, Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees rivalry, the ethics of sport internships, and an ethnographic study of market forces in regard to obesity. Current research projects include an ethnography of Boston Red Sox fans and an ethnography of a food production company. Miguel Mantero is the Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and associate professor of Educational Linguistics. Among Mantero’s many interests are cognition and second language acquisition, language teacher identity and education, and the use of literature to enhance second language learning. He was recently selected as editor of Critical Inquiry and Language Studies: An International Journal and is the current editor of the Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies. Kenan L. Metzger is assistant professor in the English department at Ball State University. He received his doctorate from the University of Kansas in Lawrence where he also worked with Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence as part of a postdoctoral position. His research interests include teaching young adult literature with Native American themes to Native American students, work he is pursuing in Arizona and New Mexico. Joshua I. Newman lectures in the areas of sport and physical culture, qualitative research, cultural studies, and critical pedagogy at the University of Otago’s (New Zealand) School of Physical Education. His research, teaching, and supervision are committed to interrogating the intersections of late capitalism, identity, and cultural politics of the body. He is the author of Embodying Dixie: Studies in the Body Pedagogics of Southern Whiteness. Nadjwa E. L. Norton is associate professor in the Transformative Literacy Program at City College, CUNY. Her teaching experience ranges from early childhood through graduate school. Her research interests include critical literacies, hip-hop literacies, and spiritualities. Alfred W. Tatum is associate professor at the University of Illinois of Chicago where he also serves as director of the UIC Reading Clinic. He is the

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About the Contributors

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author of the award-winning book Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap and of Reading for Their Lives:(Re) building the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males. Charnita V. West is an elementary school assistant principal with the DeKalb County School System (Georgia). She also teaches graduate reading courses at Georgia State University. West taught kindergarten, fourth, and sixth grades, and she was also employed as a Title I math teacher and reading specialist. Her primary interest is in creating authentic professional learning activities for teachers that positively impact teaching and learning in schools. Kristien Zenkov is associate professor of education at George Mason University and the co-director of “Through Students’ Eyes,” a project based in professional development schools which asks urban high school and middle school youth to document with photographs and writing what they believe are the purposes of school. He has published more than seventy articles, book chapters, and books concerning urban teacher education, language arts pedagogy, and curriculum.

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