What is Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies

Effectively preparing teachers to work with culturally and linguistically diverse students has been a persistent issue in literacy teacher education in the United States for the past several decades. To prepare preservice teachers to work effectively with all students, including emerging bilinguals, and to engage in culturally sustaining pedagogies, this chapter presents a form of community mapping authors call “caminatas,” which was implemented in a short-term study abroad program for preservice teachers. Examples are provided of ways in which the caminatas promote culturally sustaining pedagogies for preservice teachers as well as increased understandings of teaching multilingual students through the five elements of revised indigenous framework. It is crucial to provide preservice teachers spaces for working with and alongside their students in local communities to build relationships and knowledge of how to develop culturally sustaining pedagogies with and for their students.