Introduction

In 2012, Paris Django published a call to move the field of education forward in its consideration and use of “resource pedagogies” (also called “asset pedagogies”) (p. 94), including, among others, culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), funds of knowledge (Moll & Gonzalez, 1994), the pedagogical third space (Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Tejeda, 1999), and culturally responsive pedagogy (Cazden & Leggett, 1976). Each of these pedagogical frameworks regards students’ cultural and linguistic identities, knowledge, and communities to be paramount in providing access to dominant cultural practices and language (Dominant American English, or DAE). Paris asks us to think beyond using the culture and language that children bring to the classroom as a bridge to schooling success, but rather, to think in terms of using schooling to sustain the (fluid and evolving) cultural and linguistic identities and communities of our students. Paris wrote, “The term culturally sustaining requires that our pedagogies be more than responsive of or relevant to the cultural experiences and practices of young people – it requires that they support young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competences of their communities while simultaneously offering access to dominant cultural competence” (p. 95). Paris draws our attention to an aspect of resource pedagogies that is too often neglected in practice. It is a shift in thinking, but with deep implications – the goal, in other words, is not simply access to DAE and dominant cultural competence, but access while sustaining those native language and cultural practices that make our students who they are. Paris is careful to point out that cultural identity is not static, but is “dynamic, shifting, and ever-changing.” As we see in the examples in this volume, this distinction is very important in practice.