Social Justice Pedagogies

Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) made connections between learning in the classroom to the cultural settings and assets that students bring with them, traditionally focused on K12 education. Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) includes the three domains of academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. CRP’s foundations include asset-based pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, and critical pedagogy.

Django Paris (2012) argued that it was not enough to make education more responsive to communities of color. Similar to hook's (199X) concept of engaged pedagogy that prioritizes the wellness of each student, culturally sustaining pedagogy specifically to foster and sustain linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism rather than assimilate students into the dominant culture.

Ladson-Billings (2014) reflected on the history of CRP and advocated for remixing CRP towards culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP). Most notably, Ladson-Billings' critique highlighted the ways that practitioners have condensed the theory to focus on academic success and cultural competence, while severely diminishing the third pillar of CRP that asks educators to raise students’ critical consciousness.

Reflective Practices

As you explore these resources, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What are your assumptions about the archetypical college student? How do some of your teaching strategies center that archetype? In terms of language use and ability? In terms of cultural references and assumptions?
2. What are some teaching strategies that you know of or use that are rooted in cultural contexts for communities of color, such as talk story or other oral traditions?
3.  How do you define student success? Can learning only be measured in grades? The completion of a discrete learning activity or summative assignment? What are some ways to measure student learning that aren't bound by organizational needs and metrics?

Teaching Practices

After you work through some of the reflective practices, here are some starting teaching practices you might adopt:

1. Build opportunities for students to make connections between learning in the classroom to their lived experiences by intentionally selecting course content authored by people of color.
2. Foster class discussions that encourage students to provide input from their lived experiences.
3. Prioritize student agency by providing choice regarding readings, activities, and assignment modalities when possible. 
4. Highlight the corporate, economic, and social factors that shape how information is collected, described, shared, and used in library instruction.