Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teache

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Education

Conra Gist, Iesha Jackson, Bianca Nightengale-Lee, and Keisha Allen
Subject: Education, Cultures, and Ethnicities Online Publication Date: Jun 2019
DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.266
Summary and Keywords
To effectively teach an increasingly diverse student population throughout the United

States, scholars and teacher educators have become proponents of using culturally re
sponsive pedagogy. Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined as a combination of knowl
edge, practices, and dispositions that center racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse
students’ cultural traditions, experiences, and perspectives to facilitate meaningful and
transformative learning opportunities. Culturally responsive pedagogy is particularly im
portant for students of color who have persistently been marginalized in U.S. schools and
will become increasingly relevant in teacher education as the racial, ethnic, and linguistic
diversity of school populations continues to grow in the United States. As such, educator
preparation programs are key teacher learning sites for preparing future teachers to be
able to engage in culturally responsive pedagogical practices with their students.
In the context of the United States, traditional educator preparation has often centered
its program designs for a White female teacher population, preparing them to address the
learning needs of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse student populations via
sense making and application activities in individual courses, community service projects,
and fieldwork experiences. These efforts are often additive approaches for addressing
culturally responsive pedagogy in the curriculum and not always central to the mission of
programs.
Scholars have challenged piecemeal preparation approaches for addressing culturally re
sponsive pedagogy and argued for an integration of culturally responsive approaches
throughout preservice teacher preparation experiences. Despite calling attention to such
approaches, several issues complicate this effort. For one, the pervasive Whiteness that
encompasses most educator preparation programs must be acknowledged, critiqued, and
addressed in ways that many programs are ill-equipped to do given the demographic
makeup of the teaching faculty. Even if some programs recognize this pressing need and
work to emphasize the importance of culturally responsive pedagogy in the core mission
statements of their programs, close examination of the program design suggests gaps of
the application as it relates to the learning experiences of teacher candidates.
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Further, there is growing concern regarding the overemphasis of culturally responsive

approaches for preparing White teachers in ways that overlook the learning and prepara
tion needs of teachers of color. Given these challenges, discourse on culturally responsive
pedagogy in teacher education must be addressed through the perspective of multiple
stakeholders and program facets, with a common goal of emphasizing rigorous, engag
ing, and challenging educational opportunity for racially, ethnically, culturally, and lin
guistically diverse youth in schools.
Keywords: culturally responsive pedagogy, culturally relevant teaching, culturally responsive teacher education,
culturally responsive practices
Introduction
Calls for addressing culturally responsive pedagogy in teacher education are often
framed based on the demographic imperative (Villegas & Davis, 2008). A sense of ur
gency is advanced in light of the growing racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of the U.S.
population. This growth is situated in a U.S. context that has historically disenfranchised
and marginalized students of color (Ladson-Billings, 2006) and continues to create in
equitable educational opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse student popu
lations in the first quarter of the 21st century (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2018). Al
though it is clear growing student diversity coupled with persistent educational inequities
is a global issue, the articulation of knowledge and problems of practice related to cultur
ally responsive pedagogy and teacher education in this overview are couched in a U.S.
context where the topic has gained widespread usage and application in various forms.
With this in mind, the organization of the topic culturally responsive pedagogy in teacher
education is structured in this article to (a) explain the core tenets of culturally respon
sive pedagogy based on research-based practices in schools, (b) describe how culturally
responsive pedagogy is addressed in educator preparation organizational features, insti
tutional structures, and preparation practices in teacher education literature, (c) identify
challenges for advancing educator preparation agendas for advancing culturally respon
sive pedagogy, and (d) outline key principles of practice for teacher programs committed
to preparing culturally responsive teachers.
As Black female faculty, our perspectives on culturally responsive pedagogy in teacher ed
ucation are informed by our work within a predominantly White mainstream educator
preparation system that has historically marginalized and discounted the intellectual
work of Black women (Dillard, 2000). Our contributions to this article are foregrounded
by sister scholars in the field who amplify the power of the Black female voice to name in
equity as a means to enact emancipatory pedagogy and engage in intellectual activism for
justice in our schools and communities (Collins, 2013). Thus, the content and structure of
this article is ultimately designed to challenge stakeholders in the educator preparation
enterprise to work on the side of ensuring culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy
for the educational realities of students of color in the United States.
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Components of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined as a combination of knowledge, practices, and
dispositions that center racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students’ cultural
traditions, experiences, and perspectives to facilitate meaningful and transformative
learning opportunities (Gay, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Sheets, 2004). Most often attrib
uted to the work of Geneva Gay (2010), culturally responsive teaching utilizes ethnically
diverse students’ experiences, ways of knowing and doing, and knowledge to create
teaching and learning exchanges that are relevant to them and therefore more effective
(p. 31). Gay is careful to situate her work in the broader tradition of multicultural educa
tion and acknowledge the “virtually identical” nature of concepts such as culturally rele
vant teaching, culturally efficacious practices, culturally mediated instruction, and cultur
ally congruent practices as they relate to improving teaching and learning for ethnically
diverse children (p. 31). Important to note is that culturally responsive pedagogy pur
posefully extends beyond the call for curricular inclusion of diversity aligned with tradi
tional understandings of multicultural education; such approaches arguably emphasize
cosmopolitanism but do not explicitly serve the interests of students of color (Leonardo &
Grubb, 2014). When considering the various ways in which culturally responsive peda
gogy is often defined and applied in praxis, it is important to address core themes that ap
pear across influential scholarship. In this case, critical and sociopolitical consciousness
of education, anti-deficit perspectives of diversity, and building on students’ knowledge,
background, and experiences to facilitate learning were the most pertinent for describing
the core features of culturally responsive pedagogy taken up by teachers in schools. In
the section “CRITICAL AND SOCIOPOLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF EDUCATION,” we
describe these key tenets by utilizing evidence from the research literature to convey
their importance for racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students in schools.
Critical and Sociopolitical Consciousness of

Education
As a tenet of culturally responsive pedagogy, critical consciousness refers to a deep un
derstanding of social, political, and economic structures that shape our lived experiences
and a commitment to counter social injustice (Freire, 1973; Gay, 2010; Valenzuela, 2016).
Such an understanding is important in situating schools within a larger project of social
transformation. Critical consciousness is interchangeably used with sociopolitical con
sciousness to emphasize the importance of the social and political contexts in which
learning takes place. From this stance, culturally responsive educators acknowledge that
teaching is a political act (hooks, 1994) and schooling can prime young people to critique
and redress oppressive structures through active civic participation (Ladson-Billings,
1995). Similarly, a critical consciousness is necessary for educators to judiciously exam
ine the potential for their work to either constrain or support efforts to ameliorate in
equity. The latter involves an understanding that schooling for racially, ethnically, and lin
guistically diverse students should not simply socialize them for “success” in the world
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as-is but to educate them to read and right the world toward justice. Teaching for a criti
cal consciousness, therefore, involves positioning students as active participants, both in
dividually and collectively, in disrupting power dynamics that privilege some to the detri
ment of other.
Ladson-Billings’ (1995) underpinnings for culturally relevant pedagogy are foundational

dispositions from which other dispositions for culturally responsive practice are a deriva
tive. Ladson-Billings observed that teachers who were effective with African American
students viewed the profession as an art, saw themselves as members of their students’
communities, and believed that their students were capable of academic success and that
it was their responsibility as educators to bring that out of their students. While only two
of her participants lived in the same community as their students, it is important to note
that the other teachers still connected to the community by supporting local businesses
and engaging in community events. Teachers who saw themselves as a part of the com
munity also felt a sense of responsibility to it. Further, in articulating dispositions neces
sary for teachers to engage a critical consciousness, Ladson-Billings (2001) provides four
teacher-centered indicators: (1) the teacher knows the larger sociopolitical context of the
school-community-nation-world; (2) the teacher has an investment in the public good; (3)
the teacher plans and implements academic experiences that connect students to the
larger social context; and (4) the teacher believes that a student’s success has conse
quences for his or her own quality of life (p. 120).
Anti-Deficit Perspectives of Student Diversity

Culturally responsive educators also view non-dominant students, their students’ families,
and communities from strength-based perspectives. The majority of P–12 schools privi
lege White, middle-class values and beliefs and position children who do not adhere to
those standards as deficient (Anyon, 1980; Oakes, 2005). Established and maintained by
cultural racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2017), deficit perspectives about non-dominant students
are rooted in notions of White superiority that manifest in curricula, forms of assessment,
and student–teacher relationships. While some may view curricula as acultural, it has
been used historically to deculturalize cultural “others” by replacing their ways of know
ing and being with Eurocentric ones (Spring, 2016). Working in tandem with curriculum,
formal assessments then become a way of measuring how well non-dominant students
have acquired dominant knowledge. Additionally, how teachers view students is revealed
in how they treat them (Gay, 2010). Teachers holding deficit perspectives of students of
color see them as problems to fix, and their interactions can range from controlling to
professional neglect (Sleeter, 2013). Ford (2013) describes the difference between think
ing that is limiting versus thinking that reflects high expectations for students as deficit
versus dynamic.
Another aspect of deficit thinking is rooted in what Tuck (2009) has identified as damage-
centered research and teacher practices where researchers and educators use narratives
of brokenness and pain to compel decision-makers and stakeholders in positions of power
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to act on behalf of communities of color. She further argues that this approach ultimately
does little to address the underlying issue, systems of oppression; the overwhelming mes
sage that remains is that of pain and pathology. Instead, we should take up desire-based
frameworks that are rooted in “understanding complexity, contradiction, and the self-de
termination of lived lives” (Tuck, 2009, p. 416). This means teachers understand, for in
stance, that while systems of oppression disadvantage students of color, the resilience,
funds of knowledge (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2006), and community cultural wealth
(DeNicolo, González, Morales, & Romaní, 2015; Yosso, 2005) developed as a result of
their marginalization are assets from which culturally responsive teachers draw (Gay,
2002).
Duncan-Andrade (2009) provides another viewpoint on anti-deficit perspectives among

culturally responsive teachers in his discussion of critical hope, which he distinguishes
from empty, color-blind, or deferred hope. Instead, teachers enacting critical hope carry
forth the metaphor of a rose growing from concrete by believing that there are always
cracks in the concrete from which roses can grow and that providing quality pedagogy,
engaging and building upon students’ critical consciousness, and prioritizing students’
humanity and acting in solidarity with them are essential to supporting urban youth. This
differs dramatically from teachers who become overwrought by feelings of shame and
sorrow that manifest as low expectations for marginalized students.
Finally, culturally relevant care (Parsons, 2005) is another means by which teachers en
gage anti-deficit perspectives in culturally responsive teaching. Similar to Duncan-
Andrade’s (2009) critical hope, culturally relevant care requires teachers to take owner
ship of students’ educational outcomes as a means of engaging in socially just pedagogy.
Culturally relevant care is also characterized by reciprocity whereby teachers’ interac
tions with students are sincere and humanizing. Watson, Sealey-Ruiz, and Jackson (2016),
for instance, found that because of the care extended to them by their mentor, the young
Black and Latino men participating in their study developed a sense of collective respon
sibility rooted in community and vulnerability—traits seldom ascribed to Black and Latino
males. The care demonstrated in this study stands in stark contrast to “care” rooted in
pity and disgust (Matias & Zembylas, 2014).
Building on Student Knowledge, Backgrounds,

and Experiences to Facilitate Learning
Students are not blank slates for knowledge to be transcribed upon; rather, they are be
ings that come with culturally specific practices for experiencing life. Much of the litera
ture that examines culturally specific practices in classrooms uses the theoretical frame
work of Vygotsky to explain the roles culture and social interaction play in learning.
Vygotsky’s coining of the term zone of proximal development is important for scholars
and educators interested in the role of culturally responsive practices in curriculum and
instruction (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). Indeed, developing a constructive ap
proach that builds upon the cultural heritage and strengths of students by acknowledging
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their active role in learning and building bridges between their preexisting knowledge
and experience and curricular content, is one of the most important aspects of culturally
responsive pedagogy.
Central to the notion of culturally responsive teaching is the belief that teachers must
take time to learn about their students’ lives outside of school, the communities in which
they live, their perceptions of school, and their connections to school knowledge (Banks,
2007; Delpit, 2006; Nieto, 2004). Banks (2007) argues that “By learning which particular
communities of practice a student has had access to, and the kinds of participation in
those communities that a student has engaged in, a teacher can come to understand the
personal culture of each student—to see each student as ‘cultural’ without stereotyping
the student simplistically as ‘Anglo’ or ‘African-American,’ as ‘lower class’ or ‘upper mid
dle class,’ as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’” (p. 49). In this sense, it is imperative that culturally respon
sive pedagogues engage in the practice of learning about their students in ways that en
hance teaching and learning experiences for culturally and linguistically diverse students.
Empathy and the commitment to acquire knowledge about one’s students in ways that
guide one’s professional decision-making is at the heart of this component of culturally
responsive pedagogy (Warren, 2017). Flores, Claeys, and Gist (2018) describe a culturally
efficacious high school mathematics teacher modeling such a commitment to address the
linguistic diversity of her students. She frequently engaged in translanguaging by using
the students’ native language as a pedagogical resource to deepen students in meaning
making with math content. Despite her colleagues’ opposition, she was committed to this
practice because she knew its importance for student learning. It should be noted, keep
ing in mind the critiques of culturally sustaining pedagogy that culturally responsive ped
agogy can be used to engage in uncritical practices that focus on student assets as fixed
and above critique (Paris & Alim, 2017), that this teacher’s practice and understanding of
students’ linguistic capital was evolving, requiring ongoing sense making with students to
ensure her approaches were relevant and tailored for that educational context. Culturally
sustaining pedagogy is an important new-wave evolution of culturally responsive peda
gogy that emphasizes fluid versus static notions of pedagogical practices in ways that
challenge fixed conceptions of student learning (Ladson-Billings, 2014).
Some proponents of culturally responsive pedagogy do not stop simply at ensuring access
to engaging and relevant teaching and learning experiences by drawing from students’
community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005); they advocate working with students in such a
way that they are compelled to take social justice actions in their lives and communities.
In this sense, the culturally responsive teacher develops community between and with
her or his students—helping their students to develop a sense of responsibility for one an
other. Grant and Sleeter (2011) describe this as taking action in the classroom and be
yond by viewing schooling as a tool of freedom and democracy. This requires designing a
learning environment in which students develop critical consciousness and engage in de
mocratic participation within and outside the school.
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Further, approaches such as youth participatory action research, digital storytelling, and
photovoice have been used with K–12 students to implement constructivist curricula with
local and social implications. For example, Roxas, Gabriel, and Becker (2017) conducted a
photovoice project with 10 immigrant middle school students who used pictures, re
search, and lived experiences to not only document incidents of discrimination and exclu
sion but also to construct counternarratives of who they were. Photos, which served as
data the students learned to collect and analyze, were taken at school and at home. Find
ings from the research were presented in poster form and shared with teachers, peers,
and the community as part of a formal exhibit. In this way, academic skills were scaffold
ed with students’ lived experiences as prior knowledge to foster both academic engage
ment and community activism.
Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers

In teacher education programs that seek to prepare culturally responsive teachers, there
must be a programmatic stance that supports preservice teachers’ (PSTs) learning to im
plement culturally responsive pedagogy. Educator preparation programs are generally de
signed based on institutional structures (i.e., concrete programs and policies that frame
the programs’ missions), organizational features (i.e., nature of social relations as they re
late to faculty and students), and program preparation practices (i.e., teaching and learn
ing opportunities, curriculum, and instructional approaches) (Zeichner & Conklin, 2008).
However, the vision and commitments that anchor an educator preparation program are
important for establishing these program facets. Cochran-Smith (2004) offers a set of in
quiry-based questions to analyze the multiple meanings of multicultural teacher educa
tion, which include the following:
1. Diversity question: How should the increasingly diverse student population in U.S.
schools be understood as a challenge or “problem” for teaching and teacher educa
tion, and what are desirable solutions to this problem?
2. Ideology question: What is the purpose of schooling, what is the role of education
in a democratic society, and what historically has been the role of schooling in main
taining or changing the economic and social structure in society?
3. Knowledge question: What knowledge, interpretive frameworks, beliefs, and atti
tudes are necessary to teach diverse populations effectively, particularly knowledge
and beliefs about culture and its role in schooling?
4. Learning question: How do teachers learn to teach diverse populations, and what
in particular are the pedagogies of teacher preparation that make this learning possi
ble?
5. Practice question: What are the competencies and pedagogical skills teachers
need to teach diverse populations effectively?
6. Outcome question: What should the consequences or outcomes of teacher prepa
ration be, and how, by whom, and for what purposes should these outcomes be as
sessed?
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7. Selection question: What candidates should be recruited and selected for

America’s teaching workforce?
8. Coherence question: To what degree are the answers to the first seven questions
connected to and coherent with one another in particular policies or programs, and
how are diversity issues positioned in relation to other issues?
These questions, and the problems of practice they are designed to unpack and address,
are particularly important for educator preparation programs with commitments to
preparing culturally responsive educators. Villegas and Lucas (2002), in their ground
breaking text Educating Culturally Responsive Teachers: A Coherent Approach, describe
the ways in which culturally responsive pedagogy should be positioned as the center of
program practices. Specifically, they indicate the following four infrastructure compo
nents: (a) commitment to increasing the diversity of the college and university communi
ty, as reflected in efforts to recruit and retain students and faculty of color; (b) careful re
cruitment and selection of students into teacher education; (c) collaboration among the
college of education, the college of arts and sciences, and local school districts where
prospective teachers carry out field experiences under supervisions of practicing teach
ers; and (d) strong investment in faculty development. Aside from the explication of the
infrastructure needed for a culturally responsive teacher education program, a key con
tribution of this work was the centering of culturally responsive pedagogy in all facets of
the program design and curriculum. In general, the research literature indicates pro
grams with a culturally responsive agenda critically orchestrate program designs, which
includes ensuring responsive curriculum and pedagogical practices, incorporating inten
tional and tailored opportunities for PSTs to interrogate belief systems and dispositions,
and working to recruit and cultivate critical and reflective teacher educators. By estab
lishing a holistic culturally responsive preparation experience, such programs move be
yond a piecemeal approach toward preparing culturally responsive pedagogues and
demonstrate a commitment to transforming taken for granted norms in teacher educa
tion.
Program Design
Efforts to design educator preparation programs with commitments to preparing cultural
ly responsive teachers, though small in comparison to skills- and technical competency-
based teacher education research, have been addressed in teacher education scholarship.
Often couched in program commitments to social justice, equity, and multicultural educa
tion, these efforts have been characterized as programs possessing critical and social ori
entations to learning (Feiman-Nemser, 2012). Though very few research studies explore
within-program differences across these critical educator preparation projects (Sleeter &
Milner, 2011), a description of a few frameworks is noteworthy here.
Flores et al. (2018) explain the use a culturally efficacious evolution model for teacher de
velopment that brings preservice teachers (PSTs) through a critical reflection process
over the course of the education preparation program and includes the following stages:
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(a) awakening critical and cultural consciousness, (b) acquiring cultural competence, (c)
developing cultural proficiency, (d) actualizing cultural and critical responsivity, and (e)
realizing cultural efficaciousness. In this way, the development of culturally responsive
teachers is seen as a process that takes place over time and culminates in PSTs’ belief, or
in others words efficacy, that they can enact culturally responsive pedagogy in class
rooms. Taking a different approach, Zygmunt, Clark, Clausen, Mucherah, and Tancock
(2016) center their program design on the development of community teachers. Since
community is central to the program mission, design features involve opportunities to
learn from community mentors, engage in critical service learning and community mobi
lization, invite community expertise and community voices as part of the knowledge con
struction process, and develop agency and take action to promote social justice in the
community. Both Flores et al. (2018) and Zygmunt et al. (2016) represent programs that
adhere to the integration of program design models recommended by Villegas and Lucas
(2002) when preparing culturally responsive teachers.
Nieto and McDonough (2011) also affirm the aforementioned approaches by emphasizing
the importance of collaboration within and across educator preparation programs, col
leges, and higher education institutions with an equity-based agenda in teacher educa
tion. Indeed, an important aspect of a programmatic stance that reflects culturally re
sponsive practices is a shared vision of preparation between university professors and
school-based mentor teachers. Grant and Gibson (2011) refer to this as reflective commu
nities of practice, where social justice and diversity commitments are generated across
multiple stakeholders. The authors assert that culturally responsive pedagogy is best
achieved when PSTs, teacher educators, university supervisors, and school-site profes
sionals work collaboratively to think about the role of diversity and culture in classroom
settings.
While it is most often the case that traditional teacher education PSTs are majority White,
intentional attention to the preparation needs of PSTs of color also alerts attention to the
need for particular program design features. Gist (2017) analyzes various alternative
routes to teaching programs working in partnership with educator preparation programs
with commitments to racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse PSTs. Four
core attributes of critical teacher development framed these programs, which included
the following: (a) antiracist educational structures (i.e., the implementation of policies
and practices that work to dismantle racist barriers preventing access to teacher educa
tion programs and restricting their ability to navigate through programs to become teach
ers of record and remain in K–12 classrooms); (b) tailored and responsive preparation
(i.e., pedagogies, curriculum, and instructional practices in the context of coursework,
fieldwork, and teaching experiences focused on supporting and developing teachers of
color to be critically conscious and positively impactful for students, schools, and commu
nities); (c) partnership and leadership (i.e., value, recognize, and integrate community-
based partnerships and leadership along the teacher development continuum); and (d) ve
hicles for justice (i.e., access to intentional and focused mechanisms or entities that culti
vate and build on community solidarity and advocate for social justice commitments). Tak
en as a whole, programs committed to culturally responsive pedagogy are intentionally
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designed in their mission, explicit in their commitments to PSTs and K–12 students, and
foster dynamic partnerships within and across educator preparation programs.
Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices

The curriculum and teaching within teacher education programs are paramount. By this
we mean that teacher educators should not only consider what preservice teachers (PSTs)
are learning in relation to a critical consciousness, but also how they are presented with
learning opportunities. Examining how learning opportunities are presented is important
given that “critical consciousness is socially constructed through conversational interac
tions exploring multiple perspectives, collaborative practice with shared growth, and au
thentic reflection manifesting valued authentic actions” (Gallavan & Webster-Smith,
2012, p. 405). This belief undergirds the significant role of teacher preparation program
curricula and instruction; the experiences that PSTs have and do not have during their
certification programs orient them to definitions of and expectations for effective teach
ing. A curriculum for culturally responsive teacher education should challenge estab
lished curricula that sporadically introduce issues related to teaching diverse student
populations (Villegas & Lucas, 2002).
While arguably too few teacher preparation programs in the United States are adequately
preparing future teachers for increasing diverse students in school settings (Lazar, 2007,
Ullucci & Battey, 2011), past and burgeoning efforts are being made to improve teacher
education curricula toward that end. Villegas and Lucas (2002) assert a vision of cultural
ly responsive curriculum as a series of six strands that blend dispositions, knowledge, and
skills in an intersecting and cohesive whole which includes the following dimensions: (a)
gaining sociocultural consciousness; (b) developing an affirming attitude toward students
from culturally diverse backgrounds; (c) developing the commitment and skills to act as
agents of change; (d) embracing the constructivist foundations of culturally responsive
teaching; (e) learning about students and their communities; and (f) cultivating the prac
tice of culturally responsive teaching.
Taking a slightly different approach, Cochran-Smith (2004) emphasizes similar commit

ments related to teaching for social justice by addressing certain principles with PSTs,
such as (a) enabling significant work within a community of learners; (b) building on what
students bring to school with them—knowledge, interests, and cultural and linguistic re
sources; (c) teaching skills, bridging gaps; (d) working with (not against) individuals, fam
ilies, and communities; (e) diversifying forms of assessment; and (f) making inequity, pow
er, and activism explicit parts of the curriculum. Valenzuela (2016), emphasizing the im
portance of preparing critically conscious teachers, describes two core courses in pro
gram curriculum that involve core big ideas and pedagogical practices, including (a)
teaching from a social justice paradigm; (b) naming and interrogating practice and poli
cies in public schools; (c) critical race theory; (d) critical pedagogy; (e) sociocultural
teaching and learning theory; (f) language, literacy, and culture; and (g) creative praxes.
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Each of these big ideas and pedagogical practices have particular guiding questions,
themes, activities, and recommended readings that explicitly frame the work with PSTs.
Based on these examples of possible curriculum, the core culturally responsive content in
educator preparation may include infusing all courses with a week or two on topics such
as teaching racially and ethnically diverse learners, inclusive classrooms for students
with special needs, and affirming linguistic diversity in the classroom. Gordon (2005) rec
ommends offering multicultural courses, diverse field experiences, and curricula infused
with tenets of multiculturalism to address the gap between White teachers and the stu
dents of color they serve. While an important starting place, this approach is often insuffi
cient to engender anti-deficit perspectives or enact critically conscious curricula in uni
versity courses, especially if culturally responsive pedagogy is ill-modeled for PSTs.
Despite this challenge, there are various pedagogical approaches taken by educator
preparation programs with a culturally responsive agenda. Nieto and McDonough (2011)
emphasize the importance of equity-based educator preparation by providing critical cur
ricular models and frameworks, inquiry projects, and the positioning of youths as men
tors for PSTs to reflect on their work as future teachers. In particular, they argue PSTs
need to reflect on their identities and privileges and to be explicitly taught how to chal
lenge racism. Literature across teacher education and multiculturalism warns that a criti
cal orientation to culturally responsive pedagogy is challenged if PSTs fail to first recog
nize their own identities and how these identities position them in society. Grappling with
this process can take place via pedagogical practices such as autobiography, Whiteness
studies, ethnography, counter-stories, critical analysis of research and histories, and
youth participatory action research.
Wiggins, Follo, and Eberly’s (2007) study of diverse field experiences for PSTs found that
immersion in schools with populations that do not share the same cultural, socioeconom
ic, or racial status can lead to more culturally responsive teachers. However, in order to
achieve this, multiple levels of support should be provided prior to being placed in set
tings with students who have different backgrounds. Another means of fostering cultural
ly responsive teaching practices is to provide teacher candidates with meaningful, com
munity-based learning opportunities. Different from field experiences, community-based
learning opportunities require PSTs to learn about the broader communities in which
schools operate in order to inform their practice with students. With this commitment in
mind, Zygmunt et al. (2016) inextricably link community engagement to preparing cultur
ally responsive teachers. They constructed a teacher education program that includes
community mentors and critical service learning to create a learning environment in
which university faculty and students “sit alongside [K–12] school personnel and commu
nity members in a shared commitment to grow teachers who know that their work can
[not] be accomplished . . . without express knowledge of and experience with the culture
in which children are growing and learning” (p. 54). More specifically, they describe their
pedagogical practices for developing community teachers as pushing PSTs to identify crit
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ical incidents, synthesize learning to develop a personal conceptual framework and effica
cy, and work to transition theory into praxis.
In addition to PSTs’ learning to work alongside community members, teacher educators

stress the importance of working in solidarity with families (Murrell, 2001; Skinner, Gar
reton, & Schultz, 2011). For example, Zeichner, Bowman, Guillen, and Napolitan (2016)
examine the impact of PSTs learning to involve, engage, and work in community with fam
ilies and communities as an integral part of their teacher preparation program. They ac
knowledged a “distinct epistemological and political challenge in this work that forced
them to look beyond teaching practices in order to consider dispositions such as listening
as a practice of engagement” (p. 287). Some, but not all, of the teacher candidates in
their study learned to value and incorporate familial and community expertise in their
practice. The authors highlight tensions that arose between some community members
and teacher educators who raised questions for how to more fully address power dynam
ics in what could be transformative partnerships.
Interrogating Belief Systems and Dispositions

From a culturally responsive standpoint, the ability to critically reflect on the self as well
as others is an essential component of teaching and learning. Several scholars (Flores et
al., 2018; Gay & Kirkland, 2003; Howard, 2003) highlight both the importance of and
challenges to developing a critical consciousness through self-reflection. Flores et al.
(2018) explain the use a culturally efficacious observation protocol (CEOP), a tool that fa
cilitates observing and providing feedback on culturally responsive pedagogy in practice.
The CEOP offers a framework for grounding preservice teachers’ (PSTs) emerging under
standings of culturally responsive pedagogy through a critical reflection process through
out their educator preparation coursework, but it is particularly integral for the field-
based component of teachers’ preparation as they work with students, classroom teach
ers, mentors, and teacher educators to strengthen their practice. The observation frame
work consists of the following nine attributes of cultural efficacy: (a) developing con
sciousness of difference; (b) understanding ethnic identity; (c) building interpersonal rela
tionships; (d) creating conditions for language learning; (e) working with culturally inclu
sive content; (f) creating a culturally safe classroom context; (g) developing critical rea
soning skills; (h) assessment; and (i) ethical and enduring professional responsibilities.
The use of educational autobiographies serves as another well-documented practice to

help facilitate self-reflection (Bersh, 2018; Kumashiro, 2004; Reid, 2017). This approach
maintains an intentional and structured curricular process which allows teacher candi
dates to interrogate the ways their personal experiences have been marked by particular
privileges or inequities. In this vein, Kraehe and Brown (2011) examined aesthetic awak
enings of PSTs through arts-based inquiry projects that asked students to use self-reflex
ive imaginative processes to “confront one’s positioning within matrices of
oppression” (p. 493). They describe instances of PSTs’ developing a deeper understand
ing of their thinking about racial, socioeconomic, and gender-related inequalities
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throughout the course. Their work highlights the importance of teacher educators in
planning and implementing academic experiences that lead PSTs to embody and critique
inequitable societal constructions.
However, guiding teacher candidates through critical self-reflection can present various
challenges. For one, teacher candidates who lack culturally diverse experiences or harbor
(un)conscious biases toward specific groups are forced to confront the potentially harm
ful impact of their perspectives. This process can engender guilt, anger, and avoidance.
For instance, Howard (2003) discussed the emotional tax some students felt while reflect
ing on race in a particular teacher education course. Students reported “not wanting
their comments to appear racially insensitive, racist, prejudiced, or politically incorrect”
but were required through the course activities to confront their discomfort (p. 199). Rec
ommendations for facilitating critical reflection included teacher educators (a) modeling
critical reflection through examining their own autobiographies, prejudices, and discom
fort; (b) normalizing difficult dialogues in the classroom by requiring active participation
in discussing uncomfortable topics; and (c) establishing a clear purpose for the reflective
process by connecting it to professional growth and development. Despite potential chal
lenges and resistance to developing a critical consciousness, such an orientation to teach
ing is essential for PSTs to be prepared to effectively support diverse students’ learning.
Miller and Mikulec (2014) report that identity exploration helps PSTs “not only have an
understanding for the diverse populations with whom they will work, but also foster the
same within themselves” (p. 18). Exploring identity as a tool to understand diversity is
supported by Irizarry (2007), who states that critically conscious educators “seek to gain
a better understanding of their own culture, their students’ culture, and the historical re
lationship between the two” (p. 27). Identity analysis as a mechanism for deeper self-
awareness is important to consider when we know that teachers’ beliefs and societal val
ues influence their interaction with diverse students and their instructional practice (Ni
eto & McDonough, 2011). Chubbuck (2010) argues that teacher educators wishing to fos
ter such commitments should work to scaffold PSTs’ learning by acknowledging the emo
tional work and dispositional posture necessary to cultivate equitable classrooms.
Mills and Ballantyne’s (2010) research extends our understanding of these factors by
positing a hierarchical model for dispositions, noting that of the 6% of their study’s par
ticipants who demonstrated commitments to social justice, they also demonstrated self-
awareness, self-reflectiveness, and openness. PSTs demonstrating openness also pos
sessed self-awareness and self-reflectiveness, suggesting that self-awareness and self-re
flectiveness are a prerequisite for both openness and commitment to social justice. In oth
er words, PSTs’ dispositional development progresses from self-awareness and self-reflec
tiveness to openness and then to commitment to social justice. Given this sequence of de
velopment, they argue, a stand-alone course on diversity cannot adequately move PSTs
through the needed dispositions to teach in socially just ways (Mills & Ballantyne, 2010).
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Teacher Educators
Finally, in considering the context of teacher preparation programs with a culturally re
sponsive agenda, the importance of teacher educators’ critical reflection is frequently
sidestepped. While the demographics of the teacher workforce in the United States is of
ten discussed in relation to increasing racial and ethnic diversity of K–12 students, less
often addressed are the demographics and prior experiences of teacher education faculty.
When reflecting on the challenges currently confronting teacher education, Ladson-
Billings (2005) laments the challenge of a predominately White teacher education faculty
for addressing the need for and application of culturally responsive pedagogy in schools.
Many of the professionals entrusted with preparing culturally responsive teachers have
limited experiences working with diverse student populations; as a result, scholars have
highlighted the importance of culturally responsive professional development for teacher
educators that includes critically reflecting on their own practices and beliefs about di
versity (Prater & Devereaux, 2009; see also Underwood & Mensah, 2018). Framed as
“faculty fears and concerns about teaching social justice content,” Bell, Love, Washing
ton, and Weinstein (2007) list several issues that we contend should undergird teacher
educators’ critical reflection, including awareness of one’s social and cultural identity,
learning to recognize previously unrecognized prejudices and biases, learning to chal
lenge students’ biases, and navigating vulnerability when sharing one’s personal experi
ences. A program committed to preparing culturally responsive teachers must then re
quire of itself teacher educators who routinely examine their own critical consciousness,
deficit perspectives, and biases that could potentially hinder their students’ development
into culturally responsive teachers.
Gist (2014A) examined the pedagogical practices of teacher educators working in a pro
gram with commitments to preparing culturally responsive teachers. Despite such com
mitments, differences in faculty practices existed, reflecting varying interpretations of
how culturally responsive pedagogy may be applied in educator preparation classrooms
when teaching and learning academic disciplines as well as the types of pedagogical
practices preservice teachers (PSTs) were engaged with. Differences between teacher ed
ucators were most apparent in the level of critical consciousness they displayed related to
schooling, students, and the PSTs in their classes. These differences were categorized as
ranging on a continuum from critically blind, critically emerging, and critically conscious.
The critically conscious teacher educator was identified as having a critical lens toward
aspiring teacher learners that weaved together the sociopolitical context of teacher edu
cation, cultural and linguistic knowledge about PSTs, and a sense of how they were posi
tioned as citizens and future teachers in schools. A different part of this study also exam
ined how culturally responsive pedagogy for PSTs of color showed up in some of the prac
tices of these teacher educators (Gist, 2014B). A few teacher educators of color were not
ed as articulating a type of culturally responsive pedagogy with PSTs of color in at least
three ways: (a) making an intentional choice to work as a change agent for communities
of color; (b) challenging sociocultural barriers to academic and professional achievement
of teachers of color; and (c) implementing constructivist approaches as an instructional
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bridge to prepare teacher candidates of color to work with culturally and linguistically di
verse students.
Problems of Practice for Culturally Responsive

Pedagogy in Teacher Education
Common features often involved in educator preparation efforts to prepare culturally re
sponsive teachers, while seeming logical and appropriate given the P–12 educational con
text in the United States, frequently encounter problems of practice that complicate these
efforts. Though alluded to in different ways earlier, two formidable challenges for advanc
ing a culturally responsive agenda in teacher education are the absence of critical theo
retical frameworks and the normalization of Whiteness in teacher education.
Absence of Critical Theoretical Frameworks Anchoring the Work
What critical educational theories guide the work of educator preparation programs? The
answer to this question is often overlooked in attempts to actualize the mission and goals
of educator preparation programs committed to culturally responsive practices. The ab
sence of critical theoretical frameworks can prevent well-meaning teacher educators
from identifying ways in which Whiteness and White supremacy are normalized and main
tained in teacher education (Brown, 2014; Cross, 2005; Matias, 2016; Sleeter, 2017). This
is especially problematic because of the centrality of race and racism in social institu
tions, including educational institutions, that structure our lives. Frameworks such as
critical race theory in education (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), cultural-historical activity
theory (Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles, & Lopez-Torres, 2003), and critical sociocultural theory
(Vossoughi & Gutierrez, 2016) have yet to be fully employed to critique teacher education
practices that may reinforce ideologies counter to a program’s goals. While such critique
may be a clear first step in the design of programs committed to preparing culturally re
sponsive teachers, increasingly, the leaders and accountability stakeholders for educator
preparation are constituents outside the educator preparation community who often have
limited knowledge of implementing critical theoretical frameworks.
Further, research suggests there is a troubling misalignment between teacher prepara

tion programs’ diversity-based rhetoric and the actual practice necessitated to support
such aims (Boutte, 2012; Gist 2014A; Jackson & Kohli, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2005). De
spite the benefits of culturally responsive pedagogy for all students, teacher preparation
programs have been slow if not outright resistant to adopt critical frameworks as a pro
grammatic stance for preparing teachers. For example, Hayes and Juárez (2012) detail
the challenges Malik, a Black male teacher educator in their study, faced when embed
ding culturally responsive pedagogy into his course; he received a formal reprimand after
addressing a student’s color-blind critique of the coursework.
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Normalization of Whiteness in Teacher Education
Whiteness in teacher education influences what is taught, how it is taught, by whom, and
how those individuals are received (Sleeter, 2001). While there is a stated desire to pre
pare teacher candidates to be culturally responsive, that desire often goes unmet as col
or-blindness and racial comfort are prioritized over engaging in the hard work of interro
gating power and privilege (Cross, 2005). While culturally responsive teaching requires
educators to shift from deficit thinking to dynamic thinking, teacher education was never
intended to do as much from its inception (Chapman, 2011). Instead, Whiteness is nor
malized within curriculum, program development, and teaching through focusing on indi
vidual dispositions instead of on examining racism on a systemic level (Gordon, 2005).
Cross (2005) argues, for instance, that field experiences that do not draw White PSTs’ at
tention to power and position reify existing racial hierarchies and position PSTs as “know
ers” of students of color and their communities without real interaction, reciprocity, or
the ability for students of color to be the experts and turn the gaze in the opposite direc
tion. In essence, this practice serves as another form of colonization in which PSTs are
able to extract what they need for their educational benefit. Additionally, examinations of
the underachievement of students of color who are separated from contexts of power and
White supremacy run the risk of being damage centered (Mazzei, 2008; Tuck, 2009).
Several White teacher educators have engaged in research that reveals the ways in which
they subconsciously maintain White supremacy within teacher education (Galman, Pica-
Smith, & Rosenberger, 2010; Gordon, 2005; Mazzei, 2008). For many White teacher edu
cators, understandings of and comfort in addressing race, racism, and educational equity
are insufficient for similar reasons as for White PSTs—they have been socialized not to
“see” or talk about it. Implications for not seeing race and racism include silencing and
shying away from conversations about race. Galman et al. (2010), for instance, found that
they often prioritized White comfort, theirs and their White students’, by allowing White
PSTs to opt out of participating in conversations about race because they were uncom
fortable or were perceived as unready by their professor. It is interesting to note that in
no other domain within teacher education are PSTs able to opt out or be given a pass for
not being ready. The fact that this happens in relation to educational experiences and
coursework that engages PSTs in issues of race, racism, and White supremacy speaks vol
umes about how it is prioritized (or not) and about teacher educators’ own beliefs about
the necessity for this work in relation to the larger project of teacher education.
Final Considerations
When considering the state of teacher education, the preservice teacher (PST) population
it is primarily designed to serve, and the ways in which Whiteness is codified in the pro
gram design and knowledge structures in the field, the notion of advancing culturally re
sponsive pedagogy in educator preparation can appear to be a daunting task. Yet under
standing the core tenets of culturally responsive pedagogy from school-based research, in
tandem with the approaches teacher education programs have taken to prepare cultural
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ly responsive teachers, offer possibilities for a way forward. We believe that teacher
preparation programs that uphold a firm commitment to culturally responsive pedagogy
require thoughtful planning, bold action, and courage, as faculty, student, and staff collec
tively work to move a technocratic system grounded in hegemony forward. For those
committed to racial and social justice in educator preparation, critically considering the
role of culturally responsive pedagogy and anticipating and addressing challenges to em
bedding culturally responsive pedagogy in program design, they need to keep the goal of
ensuring equitable and just educational opportunities for culturally and linguistically di
verse students real and potentially attainable. Thus, we conclude this article with a brief
description of four key principles for advancing a comprehensive vision of culturally re
sponsive pedagogy in teacher education.
Principle 1: Preservice Teachers’ Critical Openness and Reflection
Considering research that asserts teacher candidates are typically underprepared to en
act cultural responsiveness upon entering the field, more emphasis must be placed on de
veloping content knowledge alongside critical orientations to teaching and learning. This
begins by establishing culturally responsive praxis standards that ensure prospective
teachers are ready to access and acknowledge critical perspectives. Further, to support
preservice teachers (PSTs) in their development, critical reflections should be required at
different checkpoints during their matriculation to safeguard successful program comple
tion. Critical reflection is a powerful mechanism for making perceptual shifts, since it
calls into question the integrity of assumptions and beliefs of prior experience (Mezirow,
2000). Each reflection should be guided by critical questions that focus on culturally re
sponsive pedagogical knowledge and understanding. To fully utilize critical reflection
with PSTs, Mezirow (2000) suggests collaborative discourse and guidance with a more
knowledgeable other to enact transformation of preexisting notions.
Principle 2: Administrator and Faculty Culturally Responsive Com

mitments
Though we discuss the importance of programmatic alignment, the impetus of this work
initializes with firm commitments from college leadership, department administration,
and faculty. Each of these stakeholders must come together to ensure that culturally re
sponsive standards, practices, and procedures are aligned to a shared vision of effective
culturally responsive praxis. However, efforts to mobilize this kind of progressive prepa
ration may be stymied without the support of the dean and college leadership who should
make clear the college’s stance toward culturally responsive pedagogy, the associated ex
pectations for faculty and staff, and ensure that the needed professional development
supports are in place to advance this endeavor.
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Principle 3: Culturally Responsive Clinical Experiences
Culturally responsive clinical experiences must extend beyond simply placing PSTs in set
tings with students of different backgrounds. PSTs, regardless of race, must see effective
culturally responsive practice in action within a real-world setting. Culturally responsive
clinical experiences begin with strategic partnerships with community members, school
districts, and teachers who are invested in culturally responsive pedagogy and are willing
to support such aims. To help PSTs recognize effective and ineffective culturally respon
sive pedagogy methods, they should use observation inventories, which help them take
notice of culturally responsive pedagogical techniques, including examples and non-exam
ples across various classroom settings and among various teachers. These observation in
ventories then need to be debriefed and discussed to provide multiple avenues for under
standing and applying culturally responsive pedagogy (Flores et al., 2018).
Principle 4: Culturally Responsive Curriculum and Instruction
The notion of a one-shot culturally responsive course in teacher education is no longer a

viable solution in supporting PSTs’ knowledge base. Considering this, curricular align
ment needs to be strategically developed across all professional courses, with concentra
tion on integrating culturally responsive principles and practices (Villegas & Lucas,
2002). This kind of curricular alignment supports the idea that all methods content
should be negotiated through the lens of culturally responsive pedagogy. This would re
quire professional courses to be structured around a culturally responsive conceptual
framework that would make explicit what kinds of pedagogical practices are necessary
for successful curricular implementation. Though this plan may sound simple, we recog
nize that a fully integrated culturally responsive curriculum is threatened by heightened
content-area standards and performance measures that devalue non-dominant forms of
knowledge. From an instructional standpoint, teacher educators will need to enact cultur
ally responsive ways of teaching, responding, and engaging in classrooms settings. The
convergence of these efforts works to fortify teacher candidates’ understanding of cultur
ally responsive pedagogical principles and how they translate into their own practice.
Digital Resources
Aceves, T. C., & Orosco, M. J. (2014). Culturally responsive teaching (Document No. IC-2).
Retrieved from University of Florida, Collaboration for Effective Educator, Development,
Accountability, and Reform Center website.
Videos
Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment. (2015, June 26). Professor
Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin-Madison [Video file].
Teaching Tolerance. (2010, June 17). Introduction to culturally relevant pedagogy [Video
file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8
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Websites
Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment.
Rethinking Schools.
Teaching Tolerance.
The Education Alliance at Brown University.
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Conra Gist
University of Houston
Iesha Jackson
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Bianca Nightengale-Lee
Florida Atlantic University
Keisha Allen
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
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Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Education

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Education

Summary and Keywords

To effectively teach an increasingly diverse student population throughout the United

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 08 July 2019

Further, there is growing concern regarding the overemphasis of culturally responsive

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Components of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Critical and Sociopolitical Consciousness of

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Ladson-Billings’ (1995) underpinnings for culturally relevant pedagogy are foundational

Anti-Deficit Perspectives of Student Diversity

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Duncan-Andrade (2009) provides another viewpoint on anti-deficit perspectives among

Building on Student Knowledge, Backgrounds,

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Preparing Culturally Responsive Teachers

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7. Selection question: What candidates should be recruited and selected for

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Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices

Taking a slightly different approach, Cochran-Smith (2004) emphasizes similar commit­

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In addition to PSTs’ learning to work alongside community members, teacher educators

Interrogating Belief Systems and Dispositions

The use of educational autobiographies serves as another well-documented practice to

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Problems of Practice for Culturally Responsive

Absence of Critical Theoretical Frameworks Anchoring the Work

Further, research suggests there is a troubling misalignment between teacher prepara­

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Normalization of Whiteness in Teacher Education

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Principle 1: Preservice Teachers’ Critical Openness and Reflection

Principle 2: Administrator and Faculty Culturally Responsive Com­

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Principle 3: Culturally Responsive Clinical Experiences

Principle 4: Culturally Responsive Curriculum and Instruction

The notion of a one-shot culturally responsive course in teacher education is no longer a

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Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment.

The Education Alliance at Brown University.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African-American

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Bersh, L. C. (2018). Writing autobiography to develop culturally responsive competency:

Chubbuck, S. M. (2010). Individual and structural orientations in socially just teaching:

Collins, P. H. (2013). On intellectual activism. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

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Feiman-Nemser, S. (2012). Teachers as learners. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher

Gordon, J. (2005). Inadvertent complicity: Colorblindness in teacher education. Education­

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Kumashiro, K. K. (2004). Uncertain beginnings: Learning to teach paradoxically. Theory

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 08 July 2019

Neumann, J. W. (2013). Developing a new framework for conceptualizing “student-cen­

Nieto, S. (2004). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education.

Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 08 July 2019

Parsons, E. C. (2005). From caring as a relation to culturally relevant caring: A white

Taking a slightly different approach, Cochran-Smith (2004) emphasizes similar commit

Further, research suggests there is a troubling misalignment between teacher prepara

Principle 2: Administrator and Faculty Culturally Responsive Com

Gordon, J. (2005). Inadvertent complicity: Colorblindness in teacher education. Education

Neumann, J. W. (2013). Developing a new framework for conceptualizing “student-cen

Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Re