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Toward an Ethnic Studies Pedagogy: Implications for K-12 Schools from the Research

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Abstract

In direct contrast to Arizona’s criminalization of Ethnic Studies in Arizona, the San Francisco Unified School District’s Board of Education unanimously adopted a resolution to support Ethnic Studies in their schools. As schools across the country begin to place Ethnic Studies courses on their master schedules, the lack of preparation and education to support effective Ethnic Studies teaching has emerged as a problem. Therefore, the central questions addressed in this paper are: What is Ethnic Studies pedagogy? and What are its implications for hiring and preparing K-12 teachers? This is a conceptual article that builds upon existing research studies to investigate the pedagogy of effective K-12 teachers of Ethnic Studies. From this literature, we identify several patterns in their pedagogy: culturally responsive pedagogy, community responsive pedagogy and teacher racial identity development. We then tease out these components, briefly reviewing the literature for each, leading to a synthesized definition of Ethnic Studies pedagogy. We conclude the paper by providing recommendations for practice and research in the interest of preparing and supporting effective Ethnic Studies teaching in K-12 classrooms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales

  2. Education, Society and Culture, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    Rita Kohli

  3. Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jocyl Sacramento

  4. Department of Secondary Education, California State University, Fullerton, College Park CP600-18, P.O. Box 6868, Fullerton, CA, 92834-6868, USA

    Nick Henning

  5. Department of Elementary Education, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Ruchi Agarwal-Rangnath

  6. Professor Emerita, College of Professional Studies, California State University, Monterey Bay, Monterey, CA, USA

    Christine Sleeter

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  1. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales
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  2. Rita Kohli
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  3. Jocyl Sacramento
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  4. Nick Henning
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  5. Ruchi Agarwal-Rangnath
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  6. Christine Sleeter
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Correspondence to Nick Henning.

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All authors contributed equally to the writing of this article.

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Tintiangco-Cubales, A., Kohli, R., Sacramento, J. et al. Toward an Ethnic Studies Pedagogy: Implications for K-12 Schools from the Research. Urban Rev 47, 104–125 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-014-0280-y

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