Cover not available
Article published In:
Preparing Teachers for Addressing the Sociocultural Issues with Asian Pacific Immigrants and Refugees
Edited by Yin Lam Lee-Johnson and Hsiao-Chin Kuo
[Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 31:1] 2021
► pp. 79–99

Agency and pedagogy in literacy education

Toward culturally sustaining pedagogy for immigrant adolescents

 | University of Massachusetts Amherst
This longitudinal ethnographic case study examines, from a sociocultural perspective, how a White female English as a second language teacher of immigrant adolescents enacted agency toward culturally sustaining pedagogy in her classroom, school, and community. The teacher demonstrated her agency in her personal and professional spaces by (a) re-contextualizing curriculum and instruction with students, (b) engaging in daily conversations with students, (c) recruiting community members to participate in class, (d) constructing an ELL teacher community, (e) visiting students’ homes and involving herself in refugee communities, and (f) performing community services with students. 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.
Keywords: teacher agency, funds of knowledge, culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally sustaining pedagogy
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Theoretical perspectives
  • Research on FoK, CRP, and CSP
  • Methods
    • Context and participants
    • Researcher positionality
    • Data collection and analysis
  • Findings
    • Re-contextualization of curriculum and materials in the classroom
    • Connecting classroom instruction with community resources
    • “Oh, that worked? Tell me.”: Construction of ELL teacher community in school
    • Active involvement in community
  • Agentive CSP vs. assimilative pedagogy
  • Discussion and implications
  • References
Published online: 17 September 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00058.jeo
References (56)
References
Amanti, C. (2005). Beyond a beads and feathers approach. In N. González, L. Moll, & C. Amanti (Eds.), Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. 131–142). Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ball, A. F. (2009). Toward a theory of generative change in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 46(1), 45–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Banks, J. A. (1993). An introduction to multicultural education: Theory and practice. Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
(Ed.). (2006). Cultural diversity and education: Foundations, curriculum, and teaching (5th ed.). Pearson.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Buck, P., & Sylvester, S. P. (2005). Preservice teachers enter urban communities: Coupling funds of knowledge research and critical pedagogy in teacher education. In N. González, L. Moll, & C. Amanti (Eds.), Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. 213–232). Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Buendía, E., Gitlin, A., & Doumbia, F. (2003). Working the pedagogical borderlands: An African critical pedagogue teaching within an ESL context. Curriculum Inquiry, 33(3), 291–320. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Sage.Google Scholar
Child Trends (2018). Racial and ethnic composition of the child population.Google Scholar
Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). Teacher education and the American future. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2), 35–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Debach, D. B., & Fones, A. (2016). Beyond the “English learner” Frame: Transnational funds of knowledge in social studies. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 18(1), 7–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delpit, L. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New Press.Google Scholar
Egalite, A. J., Kisida, B., & Winters, M. S. (2015). Representation in the classroom: The effects of own-race teachers on student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 451, 44–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibson, M. (1988). Accommodation without assimilation: Sikh immigrants in an American high school. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
González, N. (2005). Beyond culture: The hybridity of funds of knowledge. In N. González, L. Moll, & C. Amanti (Eds.), Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms (pp. 29–46). Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
González, N., Moll, L., Floyd Tenery, M., Rivera, A., Rendon, P., Gonzáles, R., & Amanti, C. (1995). Funds of knowledge for teaching in Latino Households. Urban Education, 29(4), 444–471. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hogg, L. (2011). Funds of knowledge: An investigation of coherence within the literature. Teaching and Teacher Education, 271, 666–677. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Howard, C. T. (2003). Culturally relevant pedagogy: Ingredients for critical teacher reflection. Theory into Practice, 42(3), 195–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaffe-Walter, R. & Lee, J. S. (2018). Engaging the transnational lives of immigrant youth in public schooling: Toward a culturally sustaining pedagogy for newcomer immigrant youth. American Journal of Education, 1241, 257–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jeong, H. (2013). Exploring the spaces of culturally relevant pedagogy: The Discursive (trans)formation of pedagogical practices of two teachers of English language learners. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Utah.Google Scholar
(2019). Resource vs. deficit views about English language learners in classroom practice. In S. Keengwe & G. Onchawari (Eds.), Handbook of research on emerging immigrant families and promoting academic success for English language learners (pp. 91–111). IGI Global. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, K. E. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40 (1), 235–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2009). The dream keepers: The successful teachers of African American children. Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
(2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the Remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84 (1), 74–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, S. J. (2005). Up against Whiteness: Race, school, and immigrant youth. Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Lindholm, K. J. (1987). Directory of bilingual immersion programs (Educational Report No. 8). Center for Language Education and Research.Google Scholar
Machado, E., Vaughan, A., Coppola, R., & Woodard, R. (2017). Lived life through a colored lens: Culturally sustaining poetry in an urban literacy classroom. Language Arts, 7(1), 367–381.Google Scholar
Menken, K. (2010). NCLB and English language learners: Challenges and consequences. Theory Into Practice, 49(2), 121–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Merriam, S. (Ed.). (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Milner, H. R. (2011). Culturally relevant pedagogy in a diverse urban classroom. Urban Review, 431, 66–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moje, E. B., Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K. E., Ellis, L. M., Carrillo, R., & Collazo, T. (2004). Working toward third space in content area literacy: An examination of everyday funds of knowledge and discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(1), 38–70. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moll, L. (1990). Vygotsky and education. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morrison, K. A., Robbins, H. H., & Rose, D. G. (2008). Operationalizing culturally relevant pedagogy: A synthesis of classroom-based research. Equity & Excellence in Education, 41(4), 433–452. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
National Center for Educational Statistics (2019). Common core of data (CCD): Public elementary/secondary school universe survey. U.S. Department of Education.Google Scholar
New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paris, A. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paris, D. & Alim, H. S. (2014). (Eds.). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for educational justice in a changing world. Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Priestley, M., Edwards, R., Priestley, A., & Miller, K. (2012). Teacher agency in curriculum making: Agents of change and spaces for manoeuvre. Curriculum Inquiry, 42(2), 191–214.Google Scholar
Puzio, K., Newcomer, S., Pratt, K., McNeely, K., Jacobs, M., & Hooker, S. (2017). Creative failures in culturally sustaining pedagogy. Language Arts, 94 (4), 223–233.Google Scholar
Rodriguez, G. M. (2013). Power and agency in education: Exploring the pedagogy and dimensions of funds of knowledge. Review of Research in Education, 371, 87–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sleeter, C. (1991). Empowerment through multicultural education. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
(1994). A multicultural educator views: white racism. Multicultural Education, 1(39), 5–8.Google Scholar
Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Sage.Google Scholar
Street, B. (1984). Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1993). Cross-cultural approaches to literacy. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Suárez-Orozco, C., Suárez-Orozco, M., & Todorova, I. (2008). Learning in a new land: Immigrant students in American society. Belknap press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Valdés, G. (1998). The world outside and inside schools: Language and immigrant children. Educational Researcher 26(6), 4–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: Issues of caring in education of US-Mexican youth. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Walsh, D. (2018). Youth participatory action research as culturally sustaining pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 571, 127–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). ASCD.Google Scholar
Yin, K. R. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods. Sage.Google Scholar
Zeichner, K. (2003). Pedagogy, knowledge, and teacher preparation. In B. Williams (Eds.), Closing the achievement gap: A vision for changing beliefs and practices (pp. 99–114). ASCD.Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Labayandoy, Michael Eduard L. & Dennis S. Erasga
2024. Wielding Gay Men’s Agency: Empirical Evidence from HEIs in the Philippines. Journal of Homosexuality ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Akin-Sabuncu, Sibel, Crystal Chen Lee & Michelle Knight-Manuel
2023. Opening Pandora’s box: a culturally relevant perspective on elementary teachers’ approaches to educating immigrant and refugee students in Turkey. European Journal of Teacher Education ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Fu, Yao & Zhenjie Weng
2023. Examining ESL and bilingual teachers’ agency after NCLB: expanding the ecological perspective. International Multilingual Research Journal 17:3 ► pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. , DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.