Teaching racial literacy in secondary humanities classrooms: challenging adolescents’ of color concepts of race and racism

Abstract

This article examines how three culturally relevant teachers in New York City public schools challenged the concepts of race and racism which low-income adolescents of color brought to the study of history and contemporary society. Framed by concepts of culturally relevant teaching and racial literacy, the study illustrated how the teachers used sustained and strategic instruction about race (Skerrett 2011) to complicate and challenge students’ ideas of race and racism. The authors conclude by examining the implications for teaching racial literacy in humanities classrooms with low-income students of color. They also explore how the teachers’ ‘alternate models of pedagogy’ (Ladson-Billings 1995) builds upon and extends the theory of culturally relevant pedagogy as it is commonly conceptualized.

Keywords:

• culturally relevant pedagogy
• racial literacy
• secondary classrooms

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was supported by research grants to the first author from the Spencer Foundation and the PSC-CUNY Research Awards Program.