Enacting Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in Diverse Secondary Classrooms: Teachers’ Perceptions, Preparation, Current Practices, and Challenges

Due to an increasingly diverse student population in U.S. public schools, there has been a pertinent need for teachers to enact culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) when educating children from racially and linguistically diverse backgrounds. CSP is an asset-based approach that uses the cultural capital of communities of color to guide curriculum development, classroom climates, instructional strategies, and relationships with students. Although much is known about CSP, less work has explored how teachers enact CSP in diverse classrooms and how their background knowledge, lived experiences, pre-service preparation, and in-service professional learning may facilitate this process. Therefore, this case study examines the factors that teachers believe contribute to the development of CSP and how these factors help them enact CSP skills in the process of teaching and learning. Data collection included 15 teachers from a suburban high school district in Northeastern United States who participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews and classroom visits. The findings indicated that “diversity” is a multifaceted and evolving construct and that all stakeholders, including the administration, faculty, staff, students, and parents, are responsible for shaping perceptions of diversity in the school community. Several key elements of CSP were identified in how the participants presented themselves: as mindful individuals trying to embrace a whole-child philosophy, ready to learn alongside their students, and eager to establish relationships with students and engage students’ families in the educational process. However, the findings also showed that some participants lacked culturally sustaining pedagogical beliefs and skills and perpetuated biases and color-evasive attitudes. Despite these challenges, all participants made an effort to become culturally proficient, although their journeys are an ongoing process of self-reflection and vulnerability. Implications of this study include (a) creating professional learning programs to help teachers acquire and enact CSP skills in their diverse classrooms and (b) taking actions to provide more equitable access to challenging classes for all students and to detrack the curriculum. Further research is needed to uncover the impact of CSP on student achievement and how various stakeholders (i.e., administration, students, families, and social support staff) perceive diversity in a school environment

Dewey in China: A Historical Look at His Message of Peace and Understanding

Not long after he arrived in East Asia, a journey he eagerly welcomed, John Dewey quickly turned his thoughts to the past world war. It was a conflict that traversed the globe, ravaged the European landscape beyond anyone’s comprehension, led to almost seventeen million deaths, and tumbled dynastic empires forever. As he began to pen an article for the liberal journal, The New Republic, he kept abreast of developments at the Treaty of Versailles. He had hoped that the victorious Allies would find common ground by putting aside partisan hatred and bitterness in favor of lasting peace. His wish was not granted. In some respects, he only had himself to blame. Although he would not admit that he was not entirely wrong for sacrificing his pragmatism to the call to arms, he did hav