Community Mapping as a Tool for Developing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

ABSTRACT

Despite more than two decades of research supporting the use of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) to increase academic outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse students, teacher education programs continue to struggle with helping preservice teachers to develop this pedagogical stance. This article explores the process and outcomes of a class community mapping project as a pedagogical method for developing CRP with early childhood preservice teachers. Using culturally relevant pedagogy to frame our investigation, we report our findings on the impact of the community mapping project on the preservice teachers’ development of CRP as it relates to the theory’s pedagogical tenets of conceptions of self and others, social relations, and conceptions of knowledge. The findings suggest that community mapping is comprehensive in that it incited new understandings and beginning beliefs about each dimension of CRP.

Notes

¹ The terms culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally responsive pedagogy are used interchangeably throughout the article. The body of literature regarding these theories uses a variety of similar terminology (e.g., culturally sustaining, Paris, 2012). Regardless of the term, they all point to the need to draw on and center students’ lived experiences in the education process.