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Cited by 3,335Multilingual Education and PolicyGlobal Education and MulticulturalismCritical Race Theory in Education

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: A Needed Change in Stance, Terminology, and Practice

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Paris, Django·2012·Educational Researcher
DOI 10.3102/0013189x12441244
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Abstract

Seventeen years ago Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) published the landmark article “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy,” giving a coherent theoretical statement for resource pedagogies that had been building throughout the 1970s and 1980s. I, like countless teachers and university-based researchers, have been inspired by what it means to make teaching and learning relevant and responsive to the languages, literacies, and cultural practices of students across categories of difference and (in)equality. Recently, however, I have begun to question if the terms “relevant” and “responsive” are really descriptive of much of the teaching and research founded upon them and, more importantly, if they go far enough in their orientation to the languages and literacies and other cultural practices of communities marginalized by systemic inequalities to ensure the valuing and maintenance of our multiethnic and multilingual society. In this essay, I offer the term and stance of culturally sustaining pedagogy as an alternative that, I believe, embodies some of the best research and practice in the resource pedagogy tradition and as a term that supports the value of our multiethnic and multilingual present and future. Culturally sustaining pedagogy seeks to perpetuate and foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling. In the face of current policies and practices that have the explicit goal of creating a monocultural and monolingual society, research and practice need equally explicit resistances that embrace cultural pluralism and cultural equality.

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  1. [15]15. Gutiérrez, K., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning. Educational Researcher, 35(5), 19-25.
  2. [17]17. Heath, S. B. (1992). Why no official tongue? In J. Crawford (Ed.), A source book on the official English controversy (pp. 20-32). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
  3. [24]24. Kinloch, V. (2010). Harlem on our minds: Place, race, and the literacies of urban youth. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
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  5. [43]43. Paris, D., & Ball, A. (2009). Teacher knowledge in culturally and lin- guistically complex classrooms: Lessons from the golden age and beyond. In L. M. Morrow, R. Rueda, & D. Lapp (Eds.), Handbook of research on literacy instruction: Issues of diversity, policy, and equity (pp. 379-395). New York, NY: Guilford.
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Authors
Paris, D.
Affiliations
Michigan State University (US)
Corresponding author
Paris, Django
ORCID
Paris, Django
Venue
Educational Researcher
Publisher
American Educational Research Association (AERA)
Published
2012-04
Volume
41
Issue
3
Pages
93-97
ISSN
  • 0013-189X (ISSN-L)
  • 1935-102X
DOI
10.3102/0013189x12441244
OpenAlex
W2110218280
Cited by
3,335
References
43
Citations by year
2026: 321 · 2025: 360 · 2024: 325 · 2023: 343 · 2022: 311 · 2021: 374 · 2020: 332 · 2019: 288 · 2018: 229 · 2017: 161 · 2016: 111 · 2015: 79 · 2014: 60 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 5
FWCI
258.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Educational Researcher (publishedVersion)
  • The Physics Video Demonstration Database (Cornell University) (acceptedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Multilingual Education and Policy
  • Social Sciences › Education › Global Education and Multiculturalism
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Critical Race Theory in Education
Keywords
culturally sustaining pedagogy, culturally relevant pedagogy, Gloria Ladson-Billings, cultural pluralism, linguistic diversity, multilingualism, marginalized communities, structural inequality, monoculturalism, democratic education, cultural equality

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