American Educational Research Journal

Fall 1995, Vol 32, No. 3, pp. 465-491

Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant

Pedagogy
Gloria Ladson-Billings
University of Wisconsin-Madison

In the midst of discussions about improving education, teacher education,

equity, and diversity, little has been done to make pedagogy a central area
of investigation. This article attempts to challenge notions about the intersec-
tion of culture and teaching that rely solely on microanalytic or macroana-
lytic perspectives. Rather, the article attempts to build on the work done in
both of these areas and proposes a culturally relevant theory of education.
By raising questions about the location of the researcher in pedagogical
research, the article attempts to explicate the theoretical framework of the
author in the nexus of collaborative and reflexive research. The pedagogical
practices of eight exemplary teachers of African-American students serve as
the investigative "site." Their practices and reflections on those practices
provide a way to define and recognize culturally relevant pedagogy.

GLORIA LADSON-BILLINGS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curricu-

lum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin, 225 N. Mills St., Madison, WI 53706.
Her specializations are multicultural education and social studies.
Ladson-Billings

T eacher education programs throughout the nation have coupled their

efforts at reform with revised programs committed to social justice and
equity. Thus, their focus has become the preparation of prospective teachers
in ways that support equitable and just educational experiences for all stu-
dents. Examples of such efforts include work in Alaska (Kleinfeld, 1992;
Noordhoff, 1990; Noordhoff & Kleinfeld, 199D, California (King & Ladson-
Billings, 1990), Illinois (Beyer, 199D, and Wisconsin (Murrell, 1990, 1991).
Currently, there are debates in the educational research literature con-
cerning both locating efforts at social reform in schools (Popkewitz, 199D
and the possibilities of "re-educating" typical teacher candidates for the
variety of student populations in U. S. public schools (Grant, 1989; Haberman,
1991a, 1991b). Rather than looking at programmatic reform, this article con-
siders educational theorizing about teaching itself and proposes a theory of
culturally focused pedagogy that might be considered in the reformation of
teacher education.
Shulman's often cited article, "Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations
of the New Reform" (1987), considers philosophical and psychological per-
spectives, underscored by case knowledge of novice and experienced prac-
titioners. Although Shulman's work mentions the importance of both the
knowledge of learners and their characteristics and knowledge of educational
contexts, it generally minimizes the culturally based analyses of teaching
that have preceded it. In this article, I attempt to build on the educational
anthropological literature and suggest a new theoretical perspective to
address the specific concerns of educating teachers for success with African-
American students.

Teaching and Culture

For more than a decade, anthropologists have examined ways that teaching
can better match the home and community cultures of students of color who
have previously not had academic success in schools. Au and Jordan (1981, p.
139) termed "culturally appropriate" the pedagogy of teachers in a Hawaiian
school who incorporated aspects of students' cultural backgrounds into their
reading instruction. By permitting students to use talk-story, a language
interaction style common among Native Hawaiian children, teachers were
able to help students achieve at higher than predicted levels on standardized
reading tests.
Mohatt and Erickson (1981) conducted similar work with Native Ameri-
can students. As they observed teacher-student interactions and participation
structures, they found teachers who used language interaction patterns that
approximated the students' home cultural patterns were more successful in
improving student academic performance. Improved student achievement
also was evident among teachers who used what they termed, "mixed forms"
(p. 117)—a combination of Native American and Anglo language interaction
patterns. They termed this instruction, "culturally congruent" (p. 110).

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 Culturally Relevant Teaching

Cazden and Leggett (1981) and Erickson and Mohatt (1982) used the
term "culturally responsive" (p. 167) to describe similar language interactions
of teachers with linguistically diverse and Native American students, respec-
tively. Later, Jordan (1985, p. 110) and Vogt, Jordan, and Tharp (1987,
p. 281) began using the term "culturally compatible" to explain the success
of classroom teachers with Hawaiian children.
By observing the students in their home/community environment, teach-
ers were able to include aspects of the students' cultural environment in the
organization and instruction of the classroom. More specifically, Jordan
(1985) discusses cultural compatibility in this way:

Educational practices must match with the children's culture in ways

which ensure the generation of academically important behaviors. It
does not mean that all school practices need be completely congruent
with natal cultural practices, in the sense of exactly or even closely
matching or agreeing with them. The point of cultural compatibility
is that the natal culture is used as a guide in the selection of educational
program elements so that academically desired behaviors are pro-
duced and undesired behaviors are avoided, (p. 110)

These studies have several common features. Each locates the source
of student failure and subsequent achievement within the nexus of speech
and language interaction patterns of the teacher and the students. Each
suggests that student "success" is represented in achievement within the
current social structures extant in schools. Thus, the goal of education
becomes how to "fit" students constructed as "other" by virtue of their race/
ethnicity, language, or social class into a hierarchical structure that is defined
as a meritocracy. However, it is unclear how these conceptions do more
than reproduce the current inequities. Singer (1988) suggests that "cultural
congruence in an inherently moderate pedagogical strategy that accepts that
the goal of educating minority students is to train individuals in those skills
needed to succeed in mainstream society" (p. 1).
Three of the terms employed by studies on cultural mismatch between
school and home—culturally appropriate, culturally congruent, and culturally
compatible—seem to connote accommodation of student culture to main-
stream culture. Only the term culturally responsive appears to refer to a more
dynamic or synergistic relationship between home/community culture and
school culture. Erickson and Mohatt (1982) suggest their notion of culturally
responsive teaching can be seen as a beginning step for bridging the gap
between home and school:

It may well be that, by discovering the small differences in social

relations which make a big difference in the interactional ways chil-
dren engage the content of the school curriculum, anthropologists
can make practical contributions to the improvement of minority
children's school achievement and to the improvement of the every-
day school life for such children and their teachers. Making small

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Ladson-Billings
changes in everyday participation structures may be one of the means
by which more culturally responsive pedagogy can be developed.
(p. 170)

For the most part, studies of cultural appropriateness, congruence, or

compatibility have been conducted within small-scale communities—for
example, Native Hawaiian, Native Americans. However, an earlier generation
of work considered the mismatch between the language patterns of African
Americans and the school in larger, urban settings (Gay & Abrahamson, 1972;
Labov, 1969; Piestrup, 1973).
Villegas (1988) challenged the microsocial explanations advanced by
sociolinguists by suggesting that the source of cultural mismatch is located
in larger social structures and that schools as institutions serve to reproduce
social inequalities. She argued that

As long as school performs this sorting function in society, it must

necessarily produce winners and losers. . . . Therefore, culturally sen-
sitive remedies to educational problems of oppressed minority stu-
dents that ignore the political aspect of schooling are doomed to
failure, (pp. 262-263)

Although I would agree with Villegas's attention to the larger social

structure, other scholars in the cultural ecological paradigm (Ogbu, 1981,
1983) are ahistorical and limited, particularly in their ability to explain African-
American student success (Perry, 1993). * The long history of African-Ameri-
can educational struggle and achievement is well documented (Anderson,
1988; Billingsley, 1992; Bond, 1969; Bullock, 1967; Clark, 1983; Harding,
1981; Harris, 1992; Johnson, 1936; Rury, 1983; Woodson, 1919; Weinberg,
1977). This historical record contradicts the glib pronouncements that, "Black
people don't value education."
Second, more recent analyses of successful schooling for African-Ameri-
can students (King, 1991a; Ladson-Billings, 1992a, 1994; Siddle-Walker, 1993)
challenge the explanatory power of the cultural ecologists' caste-like category
and raise questions about what schools can and should be doing to promote
academic success for African-American students.2
Despite their limitations, the microanalytic work of sociolinguists and the
macrostructural analysis of cultural ecologists both are important in helping
scholars think about their intersections and consider possible classroom/
instructional adjustments. For scholars interested in the success of students
of color in complex, urban environments, this work provides some important
theoretical and conceptual groundwork.
Irvine (1990) developed the concept of cultural synchronization to
describe the necessary interpersonal context that must exist between the
teacher and African-American students to maximize learning. Rather than
focus solely on speech and language interactions, Irvine's work describes the
acceptance of students' communication patterns, along with a constellation of

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 Culturally Relevant Teaching

African-American cultural mores such as mutuality, reciprocity, spirituality,

deference, and responsibility (King & Mitchell, 1990).
Irvine's work on African-American students and school failure considers
both micro- and macro-analyses, including: teacher-student interpersonal
contexts, teacher and student expectations, institutional contexts, and the
societal context. This work is important for its break with the cultural deficit
or cultural disadvantage explanations which led to compensatory educational
interventions.3 A next step for positing effective pedagogical practice is a
theoretical model that not only addresses student achievement but also helps
students to accept and affirm their cultural identity while developing critical
perspectives that challenge inequities that schools (and other institutions)
perpetuate. I term this pedagogy, culturally relevant pedagogy.
Several questions, some of which are beyond the scope of this discus-
sion, drive this attempt to formulate a theoretical model of culturally relevant
pedagogy. What constitutes student success? How can academic success and
cultural success complement each other in settings where student alienation
and hostility characterize the school experience? How can pedagogy promote
the kind of student success that engages larger social structural issues in a
critical way? How do researchers recognize that pedagogy in action? And,
what are the implications for teacher preparation generated by this pedagogy?

The Illusion of Atheoretical Inquiry

Educational research is greeted with suspicion both within and outside of
the academy. Among practitioners, it is regarded as too theoretical (Kaestle,
1993). For many academicians, it is regarded as atheoretical (Katzer, Cook, &
Crouch, 1978). It is the latter notion that I address in this section of the article.
Clearly, much of educational research fails to make explicit its theoretical
underpinnings (Argyris, 1980; Amundson, Serlin, & Lehrer, 1992). However,
I want to suggest that, even without explicating a theoretical framework,
researchers do have explanations for why things "work the way they do."
These theories may be partial, poorly articulated, conflated, or contradictory,
but they exist. What is regarded as traditional educational theory—theories
of reproduction (as described by Apple & Weis, 1983; Bowles, 1977; Weiler,
1988) or neoconservative traditional theory (as described in Young, 1990)—
may actually be a default theory that researchers feel no need to make explicit.
Thus, the theory's objectivity is unquestioned, and studies undergirded by
these theories are regarded as truth or objective reality.
Citing the ranking, or privileging, of theoretical knowledge, Code
(1991) observes:

Even when empiricist theories of knowledge prevail, knowledgeable

practice constructs positions of power and privilege that are by no
means as impartially ordered as strict empiricism would require.
Knowledge gained from practical (untheorized) experience is com-
monly regarded as inferior to theoretically derived or theory-confirm-
ing knowledge, and theory is elevated above practice, (p.243)

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Ladson-Billings
In education, work that recognizes the import of practical experience owes
an intellectual debt to scholars such as Smith (1978, Atkin (1973), Glaser
and Strauss (1967), and Lutz and Ramsey (1974) who explored notions of
grounded theory as an important tool for educational research. Additionally,
work by scholars in teacher education such as Stenhouse (1983), Elliott
(199D, Carr and Kemmis (1986), Zeichner (1990), and Cochran-Smith and
Lytle (1992) illuminates the action research tradition where teachers look
reflexively at their practice to solve pedagogical problems and assist col-
leagues and researchers interested in teaching practice. Even some scholars
in the logical positivist tradition acknowledged the value of a more experien-
tially grounded research approach in education (Cronbach, 1975). More
fundamental than arguing the merits of quantitative versus qualitative meth-
odology (Gage, 1989) have been calls for broader understanding about the
limits of any research methodology (Rist, 1990). In using selected citations
from Kuhn, Patton, Becker, and Gouldner, Rist (1990) helps researchers
understand the significance of research paradigms in education. For example:

Since no paradigm ever solves all of the problems it defines and since
no two paradigms leave all the same problems unsolved, paradigm
debates always involve the question: Which problems is it more signifi-
cant to have solved? (Kuhn, 1970, p. 46)
A paradigm is a world view, a general perspective, a way of breaking
down the complexity of the real world. As such, paradigms are deeply
embedded in the socialization of adherents and practitioners, telling
them what is important, what is reasonable. (Patton, 1975, p. 9)
The issue is not research strategies, per se. Rather, the adherence to
one paradigm as opposed to another predisposes one to view the
world and the events within it in profoundly differing ways. (Rist,
1990, p. 83)
The power and pull of a paradigm is more than simply a methodologi-
cal orientation. It is a means by which to grasp reality and give it
meaning and predictability. (Rist, 1990, p. 83)

It is with this orientation toward the inherent subjectivity of educational

research that I have approached this work. In this next section, I discuss
some of the specific perspectives that have informed my work.

The Participant-Observer Role for Researchers Who Are "Other"

Increasingly, researchers have a story to tell about themselves as well as
their work (Carter, 1993; Peterson & Neumann, in press). I, too, share a
concern for situating myself as a researcher—who I am, what I believe, what
experiences I have had all impact what, how, and why I research. What
may make these research revelations more problematic for me is my own
membership in a marginalized racial/cultural group.
One possible problem I face is the presumption of a "native" perspective
(Banks, 1992; Narayan, 1993; Padilla, 1994; Rosaldo, 1989) as I study effective

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 Culturally Relevant Teaching

practice for African-American students. To this end, the questions raised by

Narayan seem relevant:

"Native" anthropologists, then, are perceived as insiders regardless

of their complex backgrounds. The differences between kinds of
"native" anthropologists are also obviously passed over. Can a person
from an impoverished American minority background who, despite
all prejudices, manages to get an education and study her own com-
munity be equated with a member of a Third World elite group who,
backed by excellent schooling and parental funds, studies anthropol-
ogy abroad yet returns home for fieldwork among the less privileged?
Is it not insensitive to suppress the issue of location, acknowledging
that a scholar who chooses an institutional base in the Third World
might have a different engagement with Western-based theories,
books, political stances, and technologies of written production? Is a
middle-class white professional researching aspects of her own society
also a "native" anthropologist? (p. 677)

This location of myself as native can work against me (Banks, 1992; Padilla,
1994). My work may be perceived as biased or, at the least, skewed, because
of my vested interests in the African-American community. Thus, I have
attempted to search for theoretical grounding that acknowledges my stand-
point and simultaneously forces me to problematize it. The work of Patricia
Hill Collins (1991) on Black feminist thought has been most helpful.
Briefly, Collins's work is based on four propositions: (1) concrete experi-
ences as a criterion of meaning, (2) the use of dialogue in assessing knowl-
edge claims, (3) the ethic of caring, and (4) the ethic of personal
accountability. Below, I briefly describe the context and methodology of my
study and then attempt to link each of these propositions to a 3-year study
I conducted with successful teachers of African-American students.

Issues of Context and Methodology

While it is not possible to fully explicate the context and method of this
study in this article, it is necessary to provide readers with some sense of
both for better continuity. I have provided more elaborate explanations of
these aspects of the work in other writings (Ladson-Billings, 1990; 1992a,
1992b, 1994). Included here is a truncated explanation of the research context
and method.
In 1988, I began working as a lone investigator with a group of eight
teachers in a small (less than 3,000 students) predominantly African-Ameri-
can, low-income elementary school district in Northern California. The teach-
ers were identified through a process of community nomination (Foster,
1991), with African-American parents (in this case, all mothers) who attended
local churches suggesting who they thought were outstanding teachers. The
parents' criteria for teaching excellence included being accorded respect by
the teacher, saident enthusiasm toward school and academic tasks, and
student attitudes toward themselves and others. The parents' selections were

471
Ladson-Billings
cross-checked by an independent list of excellent teachers generated by
principals and some teaching colleagues. Principals' criteria for teaching
excellence included excellent classroom management skills, student achieve-
ment (as measured by standardized test scores), and personal observations
of teaching practice. Nine teachers' names appeared on both the parents'
and principals' lists and were selected to be in the study. One teacher declined
to participate because of the time commitment. The teachers were all females:
five were African American and three were White.
The study was composed of four phases. During the first phase, each
teacher participated in an ethnographic interview (Spradley, 1979) to discuss
her background, philosophy of teaching, and ideas about curriculum, class-
room management, and parent and community involvement. In the second
phase of the study, teachers agreed to be observed by me. This agreement
meant that the teachers gave me carte blanche to visit their classrooms. These
visits were not scheduled beforehand. I visited the classrooms regularly for
almost 2 years, an average of 3 days a week. During each visit, I took field
notes, audiotaped the class, and talked with the teacher after the visit, either
on-site or by telephone. The third phase of the study, which overlapped the
second phase, involved videotaping the teachers. I made decisions about
what to videotape as a result of my having become familiar with the teachers'
styles and classroom routines.
The fourth and final phase of the study required that the teachers work
together as a research collective or collaborative to view segments of one
another's videotapes. In a series of ten 2-3-hour meetings, the teachers
participated in analysis and interpretation of their own and one another's
practice. It was during this phase of the study that formulations about cultur-
ally relevant pedagogy that had emerged in the initial interviews were con-
firmed by teaching practice.
My own interest in these issues of teaching excellence for African-
American students came as a result of my desire to challenge deficit paradigms
(Bloom, Davis, & Hess, 1965) that prevailed in the literature on African-
American learners. Partly as a result of my own experiences as a learner, a
teacher, and a parent, I was convinced that, despite the literature, there
were teachers who were capable of excellent teaching for African-American
students. Thus, my work required a paradigmatic shift toward looking in the
classrooms of excellent teachers, through the reality of those teachers. In
this next section, I discuss how my understanding of my own theoretical
grounding connected with the study.
Concrete Experiences as a Criterion of Meaning
According to Collins, "individuals who have lived through the experiences
about which they claim to be experts are more believable and credible than
those who have merely read and thought about such experience" (p. 209).
My work with successful teachers of African-American students began
with a search for "expert" assessment of good teachers. The experts I chose
were parents who had children attending the schools where I planned to

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conduct the research. The parents were willing to talk openly about who
they thought were excellent teachers for their children, citing examples of
teachers' respect for them as parents, their children's enthusiasm and changed
attitudes toward learning, and improved academics in conjunction with sup-
port for the students' home culture. In most cases, the basis for their assess-
ments were comparative, both from the standpoint of having had experiences
with many teachers (for each individual child) and having had several school-
age children. Thus, they could talk about how an individual child fared in
different classrooms and how their children collectively performed at specific
grade levels with specific teachers.
The second area where concrete experiences as a criterion of meaning
was evident was with the teachers themselves. The eight teachers who partici-
pated in this study had from 12 to 40 years of teaching experience, most of
it with African-American students. Their reflections on what was important
in teaching African-American students were undergirded by their daily teach-
ing experiences.

The Use of Dialogue in Assessing Knowledge Claims

This second criterion suggests that knowledge emerges in dialectical relation-
ships. Rather than the voice of one authority, meaning is made as a product
of dialogue between and among individuals. In the case of my study, dialogue
was critical in assessing knowledge claims. Early in the study, each teacher
participated in an ethnographic interview (Spradley, 1979). Although I had
specific areas I wanted to broach with each teacher, the teachers' own life
histories and interests determined how much time was spent on the various
areas. In some cases, the interviews reflect a teacher's belief in the salience
of his or her family background and education. In other instances, teachers
talked more about their pedagogical, philosophical, and political perspec-
tives. Even after I began collecting data via classroom observations, it was
the teachers' explanations and clarifications that helped to construct the
meaning of what transpired in the classrooms.
Additionally, after I collected data from classroom observations and
classroom videotaping, the teachers convened as a research collaborative to
examine both their own and one anothers' pedagogy. 4 In these meetings,
meaning was constructed through reciprocal dialogue. Instead of merely
accepting Berliner's (1988) notions that "experts" operate on a level of auto-
maticity and intuition that does not allow for accurate individual critique
and interpretation—that is, they cannot explain how they do what they
do—together the teachers were able to make sense of their own and their
colleagues' practices. The ongoing dialogue allowed them the opportunity
to re-examine and rethink their practices.

The Ethic of Caring

Much has been discussed in feminist literature about women and caring
(Gilligan, 1982; Noddings, 1984, 1991). Other feminists have been critical of

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Ladson-Billings
any essentialized notion of women (Weiler, 1988) and suggest that no empiri-
cal evidence exists to support the notion that women care in ways different
from men or that any such caring informs their scholarship and work. I argue
that Collins's use of caring refers not merely to affective connections between
and among people but to the articulation of a greater sense of commitment
to what scholarship and/or pedagogy can mean in the lives of people.
For example, in this study, the teachers were not all demonstrative and
affectionate toward the students. Instead, their common thread of caring was
their concern for the implications their work had on their students' lives, the
welfare of the community, and unjust social arrangements. Thus, rather than
the idiosyncratic caring for individual students (for whom they did seem to
care), the teachers spoke of the import of their work for preparing the
students for confronting inequitable and undemocratic social structures.

The Ethic of Personal Accountability

In this final dimension, Collins addresses the notion that who makes knowl-
edge claims is as important as what those knowledge claims are. Thus,
the idea that individuals can "objectively" argue a position whether they
themselves agree with the position, as in public debating, is foreign. Individu-
als' commitments to ideological and/or value positions are important in
understanding knowledge claims.
In this study, the teachers demonstrated this ethic of personal account-
ability in the kind of pedagogical stands they took. Several of the teachers
spoke of defying administrative mandates in order to do what they believed
was right for students. Others gave examples of proactive actions they took
to engage in pedagogical practices more consistent with their beliefs and
values. For example, one teacher was convinced that the school district's
mandated reading program was inconsistent with what she was learning
about literacy teaching/learning from a critical perspective. She decided to
write a proposal to the school board asking for experimental status for a
literacy approach she wanted to use in her classroom. Her proposal was
buttressed by current research in literacy and would not cost the district any
more than the proposed program. Ultimately, she was granted permission
to conduct her experiment, and its success allowed other teachers to attempt
it in subsequent years.
Although Collins's work provided me with a way to think about my
work as a researcher, it did not provide me with a way to theorize about
the teachers' practices. Ultimately, it was my responsibility to generate theory
as I practiced theory. As previously mentioned, this work builds on earlier
anthropological and sociolinguistic attempts at a cultural "fit" between stu-
dents' home culture and school culture. However, by situating it in a more
critical paradigm, a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy would necessarily
propose to do three things—produce students who can achieve academically,
produce students who demonstrate cultural competence, and develop stu-
dents who can both understand and critique the existing social order. The
next section discusses each of these elements of culturally relevant pedagogy.

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 Culturally Relevant Teaching

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Student Achievement

Much has been written about the school failure of African-American students
(see, e.g., African American Male Task Force, 1990; Clark, 1983; Comer, 1984;
Irvine, 1990; Ogbu, 1981; Slaughter & Kuehne, 1988). However, explanations
for this failure have varied widely. One often-cited explanation situates Afri-
can-American students' failure in their "caste-like minority" (p. 169) or "invol-
untary immigrant" status (Ogbu, 1983, p. 171). Other explanations posit
cultural difference (Erickson, 1987, 1993; Piestrup, 1973) as the reason for
this failure and, as previously mentioned, locate student failure in the cultural
mismatch between students and the school.
Regardless of these failure explanations, little research has been done
to examine academic success among African-American students. The effective
schools literature (Brookover, 1985; Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, &
Wisenbaker, 1979; Edmonds, 1979) argued that a group of schoolwide corre-
lates were a reliable predictor of student success.5 The basis for adjudging
a school "effective" in this literature was how far above predicted levels
students performed on standardized achievement tests. Whether or not schol-
ars can agree on the significance of standardized tests, their meaning in the
real world serves to rank and characterize both schools and individuals.
Thus, teachers in urban schools are compelled to demonstrate that their
students can achieve literacy and numeracy (Delpit, 1992). No matter how
good a fit develops between home and school culture, students must achieve.
No theory of pedagogy can escape this reality.
Students in the eight classrooms I observed did achieve. Despite the
low ranking of the school district, the teachers were able to help students
perform at higher levels than their district counterparts. In general, compared
to students in middle-class communities, the students still lagged behind.
But, more students in these classrooms were at or above grade level on
standardized achievement tests.6 Fortunately, academic achievement in these
classrooms was not limited to standardized assessments. Classroom observa-
tions revealed a variety of demonstrated student achievements too numerous
to list here. Briefly, students demonstrated an ability to read, write, speak,
compute, pose and solve problems at sophisticated levels—that is, pose their
own questions about the nature of teacher- or text-posed problems and
engage in peer review of problem solutions. Each of the teachers felt that
helping the students become academically successful was one of their pri-
mary responsibilities.

Culturally Relevant Teaching and Cultural Competence

Among the scholarship that has examined academically successful African-
American students, a disturbing finding has emerged—the students' academic
success came at the expense of their cultural and psychosocial well-being
(Fine, 1986; Fordham, 1988). Fordham and Ogbu (1986) identified a phenom-
enon entitled, "acting White" (p. 176) where African-American students who
were academically successful were ostracized by their peers. Bacon (1981)

475
Ladson-Billings
found that, among African-American high school students identified as gifted
in their elementary grades, only about half were continuing to do well at the
high school level. A closer examination of the successful students' progress
indicated that they were social isolates, with neither African-American nor
White friends. The students believed that it was necessary for them to stand
apart from other African-American students so that teachers would not attri-
bute to them the negative characteristics they may have attributed to African-
American students in general.
The dilemma for African-American students becomes one of negotiating
the academic demands of school while demonstrating cultural competence. 7
Thus, culturally relevant pedagogy must provide a way for students to main-
tain their cultural integrity while succeeding academically. One of the teachers
in the study used the lyrics of rap songs as a way to teach elements of
poetry.8 From the rap lyrics, she went on to more conventional poetry.
Students who were more skilled at creating and improvising raps were
encouraged and reinforced. Another teacher worked to channel the peer
group leadership of her students into classroom and school wide leadership.
One of her African-American male students who had experienced multiple
suspensions and other school problems before coming to her classroom
demonstrated some obvious leadership abilities. He could be described as
culturally competent in his language and interaction styles and demonstrated
pride in himself and his cultural heritage. Rather than attempt t a minimize
his influence, the teacher encouraged him to run for sixth-grade president
and mobilized the entire class to organize and help run his campaign. To
the young man's surprise, he was elected. His position as president provided
the teacher with many opportunities to respond to potential behavior prob-
lems. This same teacher made a point of encouraging the African-American
males in her classroom to assume the role of academic leaders. Their aca-
demic leadership allowed their cultural values and styles to be appreciated
and affirmed. Because these African-American male students were permitted,
indeed encouraged, to be themselves in dress, language style, and interaction
styles while achieving in school, the other students, who regarded them
highly (because of their popularity), were able to see academic engagement
as "cool."
Many of the self-described African-centered public schools have focused
on this notion of cultural competence. 9 To date, little data has been reported
on the academic success of students in these programs. However, the work
of African-American scholars such as Ratteray (1994), Lee (1994), Hilliard
(1992), Murrell (1993), Asante (199D, and others indicates that African-cen-
tered education does develop students who maintain cultural competence
and demonstrate academic achievement.
Culturally Relevant Teaching and Cultural Critique
Not only must teachers encourage academic success and cultural compe-
tence, they must help students to recognize, understand, and critique current
social inequities. This notion presumes that teachers themselves recognize

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 Culturally Relevant Teaching

social inequities and their causes. However, teacher educators (Grant, 1989;
Haberman, 1991b; King, 1991b; King& Ladson-Billings, 1990; Zeichner, 1992)
have demonstrated that many prospective teachers not only lack these under-
standings but reject information regarding social inequity. This suggests that
more work on recruiting particular kinds of students into teaching must be
done. Also, we are fortunate to have models for this kind of cultural critique
emanating from the work of civil rights workers here in the U. S. (Aaronsohn,
1992; Morris, 1984; Clark, 1964; Clark, with Brown, 1990) and the international
work of Freire (1973, 1974) that has been incorporated into the critical
and feminist work currently being done by numerous scholars (see, e.g.,
Ellsworth, 1989; Giroux, 1983; Hooks, 1989; Lather, 1986; McLaren, 1989).
Teachers who meet the cultural critique criteria must be engaged in a critical
pedagogy which is:

a deliberate attempt to influence how and what knowledge and identi-

ties are produced within and among particular sets of social relations.
It can be understood as a practice through which people are incited to
acquire a particular "moral character." As both a political and practical
activity, it attempts to influence the occurrence and qualities of experi-
ences. (Giroux & Simon, 1989, p. 239)

Thus, the teachers in this study were not reluctant to identify political under-
pinnings of the students' community and social world. One teacher worked
with her students to identify poorly utilized space in the community, examine
heretofore inaccessible archival records about the early history of the commu-
nity, plan alternative uses for a vacant shopping mall, and write urban plans
which they presented before the city council.
In a description of similar political activity, a class of African-American,
middle-school students in Dallas identified the problem of their school's
being surrounded by liquor stores (Robinson, 1993). Zoning regulations in
the city made some areas dry while the students' school was in a wet area.
The students identified the fact that schools serving White, upper middle-
class students were located in dry areas, while schools in poor communities
were in wet areas. The students, assisted by their teacher, planned a strategy
for exposing this inequity. By using mathematics, literacy, social, and political
skills, the students were able to prove their points with reports, editorials,
charts, maps, and graphs. In both of these examples, teachers allowed stu-
dents to use their community circumstances as official knowledge (Apple,
1993). Their pedagogy and the students' learning became a form of cul-
tural critique.

Theoretical Underpinnings of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

As I looked (and listened) to exemplary teachers of African-American stu-
dents, I began to develop a grounded theory of culturally relevant pedagogy.
The teachers in the study met the aforementioned criteria of helping their
students to be academically successful, culturally competent, and sociopoliti-

477
Ladson-Billings
cally critical. However, the ways in which they met these criteria seemed to
differ markedly on the surface. Some teachers seemed more structured or
rigid in their pedagogy. Others seemed to adopt more progressive teaching
strategies. What theoretical perspective(s) held them together and allowed
them to meet the criteria of culturally relevant teaching?
One of the places I began to look for these commonalties was in teachers'
beliefs and ideologies. Lipman (1993) has suggested that, despite massive
attempts at school reform and restructuring, teacher ideologies and beliefs
often remain unchanged, particularly toward African-American children and
their intellectual potential. Thus, in the analysis of the teacher interviews,
classroom observations, and group analysis of videotaped segments of their
teaching, I was able to deduce some broad propositions (or characteristics)
that serve as theoretical underpinnings of culturally relevant pedagogy.
I approach the following propositions tentatively to avoid an essential-
ized and/or dichotomized notion of the pedagogy of excellent teachers.
What I propose represents a range or continuum of teaching behaviors, not
fixed or rigid behaviors that teachers must adhere to in order to merit the
designation "culturally relevant." The need for these theoretical understand-
ings may be more academic than pragmatic. The teachers themselves feel
no need to name their practice culturally relevant. However, as a researcher
and teacher educator, I am compelled to try to make this practice more
accessible, particularly for those prospective teachers who do not share
the cultural knowledge, experiences, and understandings of their students
(Haberman, 1994).
The three broad propositions that have emerged from this research
center around the following:10

• the conceptions of self and others held by culturally relevant teachers,

• the manner in which social relations are structured by culturally rele-
vant teachers,
• the conceptions of knowledge held by culturally relevant teachers.

Conceptions of Self and Others

The sociology of teaching literature suggests that, despite the increasing
professionalization of teaching (Strike, 1993), the status of teaching as a
profession continues to decline. The feeling of low status is exacerbated
when teachers work with what they perceive to be low-status students (Foster,
1986). However, as I acted as a participant-observer in the classrooms of
exemplary teachers of African-American students, both what they said and
did challenged this notion. In brief, the teachers:
• believed that all the students were capable of academic success,
• saw their pedagogy as art—unpredictable, always in the process of
becoming,
• saw themselves as members of the community,
• saw teaching as a way to give back to the community,

478
 Culturally Relevant Teaching

• believed in a Freirean notion of "teaching as mining" (1974, p. 76) or

pulling knowledge out.
The teachers demonstrated their commitment to these conceptions of
self and others in a consistent and deliberate manner. Students were not
permitted to choose failure in their classrooms. They cajoled, nagged, pes-
tered, and bribed the students to work at high intellectual levels. Absent
from their discourse about students was the "language of lacking." Students
were never referred to as being from a single-parent household, being on
AFDC (welfare), or needing psychological evaluation. Instead, teachers
talked about their own shortcomings and limitations and ways they needed
to change to ensure student success.
As I observed them teach, I witnessed spontaneity and energy that came
from experience and their willingness to be risk takers. In the midst of a
lesson, one teacher, seemingly bewildered by her students' expressed belief
that every princess had long blond hair, swiftly went to her book shelf, pulled
down an African folk tale about a princess, and shared the story with the
students to challenge their assertion. In our conference afterward, she
commented,

I didn't plan to insert that book, but I just couldn't let them go on
thinking that only blond-haired, White women were eligible for roy-
alty. I know where they get those ideas, but I have a responsibility
to contradict some of that. The consequences of that kind of thinking
are more devastating for our children, (sp-6, Field notes)11

The teachers made conscious decisions to be a part of the community

from which their students come. Three of the eight teachers in this study
live in the school community. The others made deliberate efforts to come
to the community for goods, services, and leisure activities, demonstrating
their belief in the community as an important and worthwhile place in both
their lives and the lives of the students.
A final example I present here is an elaboration of a point made earlier.
It reflects the teachers' attempt to support and instill community pride in the
students. One teacher used the community as the basis of her curriculum.
Her students searched the county historical archives, interviewed long-term
residents, constructed and administered surveys and a questionnaire, and
invited and listened to guest speakers to get a sense of the historical develop-
ment of their community. Their ultimate goal was to develop a land use
proposal for an abandoned shopping center that was a magnet for illegal
drug use and other dangerous activities. The project ended with the students'
making a presentation before the City Council and Urban Planning Commis-
sion. One of the students remarked to me, "This [community] is not such a
bad place. There are a lot of good things that happened here, and some of
that is still going on." The teacher told me that she was concerned that too
many of the students believed that their only option for success involved
moving out of the community, rather than participating in its reclamation.

479
Ladson-Billings
Social Relations
Much has been written about classroom social interactions (see, e.g., Bro-
phy & Good, 1970; Rist, 1970; Wilcox, 1982). Perhaps the strength of some
of the research in this area is evidenced by its impact on classroom practices.
For example, teachers throughout the nation have either heard of or imple-
mented various forms of cooperative learning (Cohen & Benton, 1988; Slavin,
1987): cross-aged, multi-aged, and heterogeneous ability groupings. While
these classroom arrangements may be designed to improve student achieve-
ment, culturally relevant teachers consciously create social interactions to
help them meet the three previously mentioned criteria of academic success,
cultural competence, and critical consciousness. Briefly, the teachers:

• maintain fluid student-teacher relationships,

• demonstrate a connectedness with all of the students,
• develop a community of learners,
• encourage students to learn collaboratively and be responsible for
another.

In these teachers' classrooms, the teacher-student relationships are equi-

table and reciprocal. All of the teachers gave students opportunities to act
as teachers. In one class, the teacher regularly sat at a student's desk, while
the student stood at the front of the room and explained a concept or some
aspect of student culture. Another teacher highlighted the expertise of various
students and required other students to consult those students before coming
to her for help: "Did you ask Jamal how to do those math problems?" "Make
sure you check with Latasha before you turn in your reading." Because she
acknowledged a wide range of expertise, the individual students were not
isolated from their peers as teacher's pets. Instead, all of the students were
made aware that they were expected to excel at something and that the
teacher would call on them to share that expertise with classmates.
The culturally relevant teachers encouraged a community of learners
rather than competitive, individual achievement. By demanding a higher
level of academic success for the entire class, individual success did not
suffer. However, rather than lifting up individuals (and, perhaps, contributing
to feelings of peer alienation), the teachers made it clear that they were
working with smart classes. For many of the students, this identification with
academic success was a new experience. "Calvin was a bad student last
year," said one student. "And that was last year," replied the teacher, as
she designated Calvin to lead a discussion group. Another example of this
community of learners was exemplified by a teacher who, herself, was a
graduate student. She made a conscious decision to share what she was
learning with her sixth graders. Every Friday, after her Thursday evening
class, the students queried her about what she had learned.
A demonstration of the students' understanding of what she was learning
occurred during the principal's observation of her teaching. A few minutes
into a discussion where students were required to come up with questions

480
 Culturally Relevant Teaching

they wanted answered about the book they were reading, a young man
seated at a table near the rear of the class remarked with seeming disgust,
"We're never gonna learn anything if y'all don't stop asking all of these low
level questions!" His comment was evidence of the fact that the teacher had
shared Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956) with the class.
At another time, two African-American boys were arguing over a notebook.
"What seems to be the problem?" asked the teacher. "He's got my meta-
cognitive journal!" replied one of the boys. By using the language of the
teacher's graduate class, the students demonstrated their ability to assimilate
her language with their own experiences.
To solidify the social relationships in their classes, the teachers encour-
aged the students to learn collaboratively, teach each other, and be responsi-
ble for the academic success of others. These collaborative arrangements
were not necessarily structured like those of cooperative learning. Instead,
the teachers used a combination of formal and informal peer collaborations.
One teacher used a buddy system, where each student was paired with
another. The buddies checked each other's homework and class assignments.
Buddies quizzed each other for tests, and, if one buddy was absent, it was
the responsibility of the other to call to see why and to help with makeup
work. The teachers used this ethos of reciprocity and mutuality to insist that
one person's success was the success of all and one person's failure was the
failure of all. These feelings were exemplified by the teacher who insisted,
"We're a family. We have to care for one another as if our very survival
depended on it. . . . Actually, it does!"

Conceptions of Knowledge
The third proposition that emerged from this study was one that indicated
how the teachers thought about knowledge—the curriculum or content they
taught—and the assessment of that knowledge. Once again, I will summarize
their conceptions or beliefs about knowledge:

• Knowledge is not static; it is shared, recycled, and constructed.

• Knowledge must be viewed critically.
• Teachers must be passionate about knowledge and learning.
• Teachers must scaffold, or build bridges, to facilitate learning.
• Assessment must be multifaceted, incorporating multiple forms of
excellence.

For the teachers in this study, knowledge was about doing. The students
listened and learned from one another as well as the teacher. Early in the
school year, one teacher asked the students to identify one area in which
they believed they had expertise. She then compiled a list of "classroom
experts" for distribution to the class. Later, she developed a calendar and
asked students to select a date that they would like to make a presentation
in their area of expertise. When students made their presentations, their

481
Ladson-Billings

knowledge and expertise was a given. Their classmates were expected to

be an attentive audience and to take seriously the knowledge that was being
shared by taking notes and/or asking relevant questions. The variety of topics
the students offered included rap music, basketball, gospel singing, cooking,
hair braiding, and baby-sitting. Other students listed more school-like areas
of expertise such as reading, writing, and mathematics. However, all students
were required to share their expertise.
Another example of the teachers' conceptions of knowledge was demon-
strated in the critical stance the teachers took toward the school curriculum.
Although cognizant of the need to teach certain things because of a dis-
trictwide testing policy, the teachers helped their students engage in a variety
of forms of critical analyses. For one teacher, this meant critique of the social
studies textbooks that were under consideration by a state evaluation panel.
For two of the other teachers, critique came in the form of resistance to district-
approved reading materials. Both of these teachers showed the students what
it was they were supposed to be using along with what they were going to
use and why. They both trusted the students with this information and
enlisted them as allies against the school district's policies.
A final example in this category concerns the teachers' use of complex
assessment strategies. Several of the teachers actively fought the students'
right-answer approach to school tasks without putting the students' down.
They provided them with problems and situations and helped the students
to say aloud the kinds of questions they had in their minds but had been
taught to suppress in most other classrooms. For one teacher, it was the
simple requiring of students to always be prepared to ask, "Why?" Thus,
when she posed a mathematical word problem, the first question usually
went something like this: "Why are we interested in knowing this?" Or,
someone would simply ask, "Why are we doing this problem?" The teacher's
response was sometimes another question: "Who thinks they can respond
to that question?" Other times, the teacher would offer an explanation and
then ask, "Are you satisfied with that answer?" If a student said "Yes," she
might say, "You shouldn't be. Just because I'm the teacher doesn't mean I'm
always right." The teacher was careful to help students to understand the
difference between an intellectual challenge and a challenge to the authority
of their parents. Thus, just as the students were affirmed in their ability to
code-switch, or move with facility, in language between African-American
language and a standard form of English, they were supported in the attempts
at role-switching between school and home.
Another teacher helped her students to choose both the standards by
which they were to be evaluated and the pieces of evidence they wanted
to use as proof of their mastery of particular concepts and skills. None of
the teachers or their students seemed to have test anxiety about the school
district's standardized tests. Instead, they viewed the tests as necessary irrita-
tions, took them, scored better than their age-grade mates at their school,
and quickly returned to the rhythm of learning in their classroom.

482
 Culturally Relevant Teaching

Conclusion
I began this article arguing for a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. I
also suggested that the tensions that surround my position as a native in the
research field force me to face the theoretical and philosophical biases I
bring to my work in overt and explicit ways. Thus, I situated my work in
the context of Black feminist thought. I suggested that culturally relevant
teaching must meet three criteria: an ability to develop students academically,
a willingness to nurture and support cultural competence, and the develop-
ment of a sociopolitical or critical consciousness. Next, I argued that culturally
relevant teaching is distinguishable by three broad propositions or concep-
tions regarding self and other, social relations, and knowledge. With this
theoretical perspective, I attempted to broaden notions of pedagogy beyond
strictly psychological models. I also have argued that earlier sociolinguistic
explanations have failed to include the larger social and cultural contexts of
students and the cultural ecologists have failed to explain student success.
I predicated the need for a culturally relevant theoretical perspective on the
growing disparity between the racial, ethnic, and cultural characteristics of
teachers and students along with the continued academic failure of African-
American, Native American and Latino students.
Although I agree with Haberman's (1991b) assertion that teacher educa-
tors are unlikely to make much of a difference in the preparation of teachers
to work with students in urban poverty unless they are able to recruit "better"
teacher candidates, I still believe researchers are obligated to re-educate the
candidates we currently attract toward a more expansive view of pedagogy
(Bartolome, 1994). This can be accomplished partly by helping prospective
teachers understand culture (their own and others) and the ways it functions
in education. Rather than add on versions of multicultural education or
human relations courses (Zeichner, 1992) that serve to exoticize diverse
students as "other," a culturally relevant pedagogy is designed to problematize
teaching and encourage teachers to ask about the nature of the student-
teacher relationship, the curriculum, schooling, and society.
This study represents a beginning look at ways that teachers might
systematically include student culture in the classroom as authorized or
official knowledge. It also is a way to encourage praxis as an important
aspect of research (Lather, 1986). This kind of research needs to continue
in order to support new conceptions of collaboration between teachers and
researchers (practitioners and theoreticians). We need research that proposes
alternate models of pedagogy, coupled with exemplars of successful peda-
gogues. More importantly, we need to be willing to look for exemplary
practice in those classrooms and communities that too many of us are ready
to dismiss as incapable of producing excellence.
The implication of continuing this kind of work means that research
grounded in the practice of exemplary teachers will form a significant part
of the knowledge base on which we build teacher preparation. It means
that the research community will have to be willing to listen to and heed the

483
Ladson-Billings
"wisdom of practice" (Shulman, 1987, p. 12) of these excellent practitioners.
Additionally, we need to consider methodologies that present more robust
portraits of teaching. Meaningful combinations of quantitative and qualitative
inquiries must be employed to help us understand the deeply textured,
multilayered enterprise of teaching.
I presume that the work I have been doing raises more questions than
it answers. A common question asked by practitioners is, "Isn't what you
described just 'good teaching?" And, while I do not deny that it is good
teaching, I pose a counter question: why does so little of it seem to occur
in classrooms populated by African-American students? Another question
that arises is whether or not this pedagogy is so idiosyncratic that only
"certain" teachers can engage in it. I would argue that the diversity of these
teachers and the variety of teaching strategies they employed challenge that
notion. The common feature they shared was a classroom practice grounded
in what they believed about the educability of the students. Unfortunately,
this raises troubling thoughts about those teachers who are not successful,
but we cannot assume that they do not believe that some students are
incapable (or unworthy) of being educated. The reasons for their lack of
success are far too complex for this discussion.
Ultimately, my responsibility as a teacher educator who works primarily
with young, middle-class, White women is to provide them with the examples
of culturally relevant teaching in both theory and practice. My responsibility
as a researcher is to continue to inquire in order to move toward a theory
of culturally relevant pedagogy.

Notes
I am grateful to the National Academy of Education's Spencer postdoctoral fellowship
program for providing me with the funding to conduct this research. However, the ideas
expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Academy
of Education or the Spencer Foundation.
Although issues of culturally relevant teaching can and should be considered cross-
culturally, this work looks specifically at the case of African-American students.
2
It is interesting to note that a number of trade books have emerged that detail
the rage and frustration of academically successful, professional, middle-class, African-
American adults, which suggests that, even with the proper educational credentials, their
lives continue to be plagued by racism and a questioning of their competence. Among
the more recent books are Jill Nelson's Volunteer Slavery (1993), Brent Staples's Parallel
Time (1994), and Ellis Cose's The Rage of a Privileged Class (1993).
3
It should be noted that the "cultural deficit" notion has been reinscribed under the
rubric of "at-risk" (Cuban, 1989). Initially, the U. S. Commission on Excellence in Education
defined the nation as at risk. Now, almost 10 years later, it appears that only some children
are at risk. Too often, in the case of African-American students, their racial/cultural group
membership defines them as at risk.
^ h e research collaborative met to view portions of the classroom videotapes that I,
as researcher, selected for common viewing.
5
These correlates include: a clear and focused mission, instructional leadership, a
safe and orderly environment, regular monitoring of student progress, high expectations,
and positive home-school relations.
6
Students in this district took the California Achievement Test (CAT) in October and
May of each school year. Growth scores in the classrooms of the teachers in the study
were significantly above those of others in the district.

484
 Culturally Relevant Teaching
7
This is not to suggest that cultural competence for African-American students means
being a failure. The problem that African-American students face is the constant devaluation
of their culture both in school and in the larger society. Thus, the styles apparent in
African-American youth culture?—e.g., dress, music, walk, language—are equated with
poor academic performance. The student who identifies with "hip-hop" culture may be
regarded as dangerous and/or a gang member for whom academic success is not expected.
He (and it usually is a male) is perceived as not having the cultural capital (Bourdieu,
1984) necessary for academic success.
8
An examination of rap music reveals a wide variety of messages. Despite the high
profile of "gansta rap," which seems to glorify violence, particularly against the police
and Whites, and the misogynistic messages found in some of this music, there is a segment
of rap music that serves as cultural critique and urges African Americans to educate
themselves because schools fail to do so. Prominent rap artists in this tradition are Arrested
Development, Diggable Planets, KRS-1, and Queen Latifah.
9
I am indebted to Mwalimu Shujaa for sharing his working paper, "Afrikan-Centered
Education in Afrikan-Centered Schools: The Need for Consensus Building," which elabo-
rates the multiplicity of thinking on this issue extant in the African-centered movement.
10
Readers should note that I have listed these as separate and distinct categories for
analytical purposes. In practice, they intersect and overlap, continuously.
"These letters and numbers represent codes I employed to distinguish among the
interview data and field notes I collected during the study.

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Manuscript received June 20, 1994

Revision received September 19, 1994
Accepted September 24, 1994

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