Culturally sustaining pedagogy in literacy education
What is it about?
Many research studies have found that culturally relevant/sustaining pedagogy is effective for teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students. But many educators and researchers are not sure what culturally sustaining pedagogy is and how to enact it in their classrooms. Therefore, this longitudinal ethnographic case study demonstrates how one White English as a second language teacher of immigrant adolescents enacted culturally sustaining pedagogy in her classroom, and connected her classroom literacy instruction with school and community practices.
Why is it important?
This study provides significant implications about how teachers, who will be working in classrooms and schools and encountering deficit discourses about immigrant students and standardization forces, can create agentive pedagogical spaces where the linguistic, cultural, and community resources of immigrant students are identified, understood, centered, and can connect those resources with classroom and community practices.