Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy A Critical Framework for Centering Communities

• Published in: Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning Vol. 1; pp. 261 - 276
• Main Authors: Samy Alim, H., Paris, Django, Wong, Casey Philip
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2020
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Hegemonic Gazes; CSP; YPAR; Young Man; Cultural Justice; Ann Arbor School District; Pacific Islander Youth; Loving Critique; Social Reproduction; Design Based Research Community; Design Based Implementation Research; Vice Versa; Asset Pedagogies; Latinx Students; Promotora Model; Grove High School; Decolonial Educators; Hip Hop Pedagogies; VWFA; Pacific Islander Communities; Migrant Student Leadership Institute; Queer Youth; Hip Hop
• ISBN: 9780415839044; 041583905X; 9780415839051; 0415839041
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203774977-18

Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) is a critical framework for centering and sustaining Indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian and Pacific Islander communities as these memberships necessarily intersect with gender and sexuality, dis/ability, class, language, land and more. CSP reimagines education not only within the context of centuries of oppression and domination, but critically, draws strength and wisdom from centuries of intergenerational revitalization, resistance and the revolutionary love of our communities in the face of such brutality. CSP positions dynamic cultural dexterity as a necessary good, and sees the outcome of learning as additive, rather than subtractive, as remaining whole rather than framed as broken, as critically enriching strengths rather than replacing deficits. CSP explicitly calls for education,8 including state-sanctioned schooling, to be a site for sustaining the cultural ways of being of communities of color. While there are many consistencies across CSP-minded pedagogues and researchers, these pedagogies take on necessarily different forms across different contexts.