Beyond Critical Race Theory: Infusing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Into the K-16 Curriculum

Introduction

One of the authors (Tutwiler) speaks to his older sister practically every day. She happily self-identifies as a “Boomer” and frequently recalls growing up during periods of radical social change and discord during an era bound by the Civil Rights movement and the United States’ ideological involvement in and eventual withdrawal from the civil war in Viet Nam. She recalls institutional segregation, pushes to integrate schools and other facets of society, and the speed with which, to her younger self, the world seemed to change. She also recalls playing “cowboys and Indians,” and being fascinated by romanticized stories of Native Americans in various media during her childhood and adolescence, which is why one recent conversation was particularly memorable.

During said conversation, she explained that she had recently read detailed histories of interactions between Native Americans and early European settlers written by tribal historians. These stories more fully highlighted the often-brutal tactics employed by the colonizing communities, and the ways in which they celebrated and gave thanks for their victories over defeated and marginalized local populations. She confided that these diverse and alternative narratives shook the foundations of her belief in national holidays of her youth, such as Thanksgiving and Columbus Day. She very clearly stated that she would no longer personally observe them as she had done in the past and would, instead, make sure to be more reflective and somber. At the completion of her confession, this author informed her that the process of critical evaluation through multiple perspective taking has a name: Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Our lives are filled with similar moments of reflection that terminate in realizations that change the way we perceive and live within the world around us. These radical reconceptualization events happen so frequently when we are young that we do not notice them at all. Practically every new bit of information is a revelation of complex truth to our younger selves. But, as father time and mother nature dictate, we grow up; passing first through stages of adolescent self-doubt and identity seeking, in lock step with our capacities, to think more broadly and abstractly about the nature of things. Next, we settle in to more stable “selves” with complex and often contradictory concepts about how the world works. But, as our schema, our inner maps of the world, become more complex and our capacities to navigate the world become more robust, our experience of conceptual change diminishes in frequency (Vosniadou, 2007).

Along the way, beginning at our earliest levels of formal education, we also accept received truths about the national and local communities to which we belong; largely in an effort to build shared experiences and commonalities required to organize and communicate in large social groups (Harari, 2014). These national myths often serve as the foundations upon which our conceptualizations of history are built and are the bedrock of the schema we build over time. They give tidy and righteous direction to the growth of governments and nations into their modern forms, focusing on virtuous leaders, brave sacrifices of a chosen few, and the underlying message that ends often justify means (to the degree that means are discussed at all.) These national myths are almost entirely fictional, in that lies by omission constitute lies nonetheless.

We stand at a pivotal moment in history, with adequate perspective to fully understand and face the role that racism and racial inequality have played in shaping the structure and nature of our nation and the communities therein. But we must not stop there. Lasting change requires us to develop pedagogies that build from these moments of reflection and realization and harness the true strength of our lasting democratic experiment: our cultural diversity. Through the lens of CRT, we can begin to identify and confront the racism embedded in our national myths and the systems of inequality that they engender. From there, we can embrace the multiple perspectives and viewpoints that CRT allows to build and employ Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) capable of nurturing cultural strengths and supporting student growth and learning.