Chapter 12: Enacting Culturally Responsive Pedagogies: A Multicase Study of Middle Level Teachers in Urban, Priority Schools

In this study, we explored four middle school teachers’ enactment of culturally responsive pedagogies as well as their processes developing those pedagogies across three years. Using a multicase approach, we analyzed data using a complexity framework informed by sociocultural theory. Three core elements of culturally responsive pedagogies emerged: centering middle level learners in recognition of all their identities, the development of teaching stances characterized by high help and high perfectionism, and a push for critical consciousness. Teachers’ processed culturally responsive pedagogies in nonlinear ways prompted by disequilibrium. Further, they embedded culrurally responsive pedagogies within their teaching and interactions with events, agents, and circumstances. The findings of this multi-year study suggest ways middle level teachers can enact more culturally and developmentally responsive pedagogies.