Summary Of Challenges To Conceptualizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Incorporating Social Justice in Education The article “Challenges to Conceptualizing and Actualizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: How Viable Is the Theory in Classroom Practice?” by Evelyn Young is an insightful piece on social justice involvement in teachings. In this article, Young discusses the main points of culturally relevant pedagogy and how they can be analyzed in the classroom setting and studied to improve cultural differences in the classroom. Young relates back to Ladson-Billings’s study throughout the piece on the same topic. Then, Young explains her own study on cultural relevant pedagogy at Maplewood Elementary School. There are many ways to involve cultural differences in the classroom with all subjects, and teachers
This concept is very similar to Sadker and Zittleman’s essentialism philosophy, which is education based on the essential academics and traditions. Critical thinking and real world experiences are also parts of academic success which contribute to the focuses of progressivism. Cultural competence is to focus on the students cultural practices and beliefs. The key ways in which teachers can influence this in the classroom is to get to know and have relationships with their students. Teachers can discuss the cultures of all students in the classroom and make it an open topic within the class. Once a teacher learns about the different cultures of the classroom, they can involve all the different types of cultures by celebrating holidays and having different types of foods from all cultures. This will help students get to know who they are and their culture and learn about other cultures of students in the classroom. Sociopolitical consciousness is preparing students for the real world experiences of racism and inequality. This is sometimes the hardest one for the teachers to incorporate because of the lack of knowledge some people have in this area. Sometimes if oppression isn’t involved in people’s daily lives they are unaware of the issues around them. To help teachers better understand these concepts Ladson-Billings came up with three other
Teachers need to think about the six concepts and try to get a good variety of all the different aspects. I think that all teachers should read the studies and examples that Young presents before they are sent in the field. When children are young and learning about knew things they are usually learning in the classroom, so if we can make classrooms more culturally based then students will start leaning about inequalities at an early age. Teachers need to be more informed on the concepts and how they can incorporate these topics into their lesson plans, because the main problem is the lack of knowledge teachers have in this area. Therefore, Young’s piece and studies can be very helpful to teachers and future