2. gender (Stiker 2009). In this vein, Baynton (2001) concluded that, “not only has it
been considered justifiable to treat disabled people unequally, but the concept of dis-
ability has been used to justify discrimination against other groups by attributing dis-
ability to them” (33, emphasis in original).
Given the historical sedimentations of these intersections of difference, it is not
surprising that a number of what Foucault (1986) called “dividing practices” in edu-
cational systems blend their meanings, thus producing different populations in which
low educational performance, race, social class, gender, language background, cul-
tural habits, and impairments overlap in intricate ways, depending on the lenses and
measures used. This phenomenon is an illustration of a recognition/de-recognition
strategy to make race visible “(i.e. the racial identities of particular bodies) in order
to de-recognize or not see race (i.e. a structural system of group-based privileges
and disadvantages produced by socio-historical forces)” (Harris 2001, 1758). The
use of this strategy in legal and policy practices likely contributes to the engraving
of educational inequities in the experiences of these populations. This state of affairs
creates a significant challenge for researchers, namely to explain how the constructs
of learning, ability, and culture are increasingly intertwined with harmful conse-
quences that perpetuate historical injustices (Artiles 2011).
I focus this article on the construct of culture because of its centrality in con-
structing the notion of difference, which is commonly applied to populations – i.e. a
proxy for race or ethnicity (Harris 2001). However, as I will argue, the construct of
culture transcends population traits and it has deep connections to views of learning,
race, and disability. For instance, scholarship from the social sciences suggests that
the notion of culture travels across research, policy, and practice landscapes in unex-
pected and sometimes problematic ways (Lee 2009; Rosaldo 1993). Culture and dis-
ability, for example, are often intertwined as reflected in the high disability
prevalence among students of color, and moreover, alternative (even contradictory)
visions of culture permeate explanations and studies on this problem (Artiles et al.
2010). To complicate matters, cultural and ability differences in educational policy
have been regarded as ontologically distinct since cultural considerations purportedly
warrant exclusion from a disability diagnosis (Artiles et al. 2011).
Another example of the ways in which culture contributes to the construction of
difference across contexts is through the mediation of policies across scales, which
ultimately shapes local practices. Through these processes, it is possible that policies
and laws created to address inequities end up reifying the status quo. I documented,
for instance, how the convergence of multiple contemporary education policies,
including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA) regulations to
monitor and fix racial inequities in special education, perpetuates educational inequi-
ties for underserved students (Artiles 2011). As mentioned earlier, this is achieved
through “[m]echanisms such as transposition … Understandings of race and disabil-
ity as being wholly detached from one another enable a sleight of hand within the
policy that serves the dominant interest of maintaining the inequality” (Beratan
2008, 349). I argue that transposition rests on cultural strategies and processes that
include, among others, a biopolitical paradigm and categorical alignment (Epstein
2007). Briefly stated, racial and disability groups embrace political representation
agendas that ensure access to resources and entitlements, though these groups’ “defi-
nitions are partly embedded in assumptions about identity purportedly framed by
biological differences” (Artiles 2011, 436). A potential consequence of this para-
digm is that groups are essentialized, and thus, identity intersections fade away. In
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3. addition, “administrative, sociohistorical, and scientific [racial or disability] catego-
ries come to be overlaid as if they had the same meanings” (Artiles 2011, 436).
Hence, categorical alignment erases historical nuance and baggage, complexity, and
the longstanding interweavings of contested categories such as race and disability.
Categorical alignment, therefore, might be at work in narrow explanations of the ra-
cialization of disability that focus exclusively on technical aspects of the problem
(e.g. definitional and measurement issues), at the expense of accounting for socio-
historical influences and their attendant administrative practices.
Finally, the notion of culture has been summoned to fix some of these predica-
ments through ideas such as cultural learning styles and culturally responsive peda-
gogy. The underlying assumption in these efforts is that culture can be used for
intervention purposes because it is bounded within groups and has a direct effect on
people’s thinking and behavior. The role of culture to reproduce group beliefs and
practices is stressed, at the expense of people’s production of culture. The premise
of traditional interventionist uses of culture is that if we identify a group’s cultural
code, interventions can be designed to respond to its culture. Problems arise when
schools or teachers attempt to apply this logic in contexts in which multiple cultural
groups coexist. Furthermore, this perspective does not acknowledge diversity within
cultural groups and the mechanisms through which culture mediates learning or abil-
ity differences are not specified (Artiles et al. 2010). Despite such substantial limita-
tions, this is a favored perspective in educational research, policy, and practice.
The preceding discussion should make apparent that the notion of culture has
myriad meanings and morphs across contexts. Thus, the idea of culture functions as
a conceptual pivot around which difference markers such as race, learning, and abil-
ity get entangled. A problematic consequence of this state of affairs is that the semi-
otic uses, misuses, and conflations of the idea of culture may end up reifying
assumptions about difference that can have negative consequences for vulnerable
populations, such as racial minority and disabled groups. The purpose of this article,
therefore, is to reframe the idea of culture to transcend the favored focus on individ-
uals and groups, often with negative overtones, that have contributed to deficit
images of entire populations (Tuck 2009; Valencia 2010). I anchor this manuscript
in the context of the US education field because it is the setting in which I work,
with a particular emphasis on how the idea of culture is used to reinscribe differ-
ences, while it is recruited to change educational inequities that affect so-called cul-
turally different students. I target non-dominant1
students by virtue of racial and
ability differences as a case in point. Due to the multidimensional nature of these
constructs and the complexities of the issues involved, I rely on an interdisciplinary
perspective. Next, I set the context for the problem space of this article.
Forging consequential differences in the time of global norming
Globalization2
and other contemporary forces are molding the landscape of inequi-
ties in the United States, particularly as these influences intersect with the idea of
culture and its associated proxies (e.g. racial, social class, and language differences).
For instance, the massive immigration flows of the last three decades are posing
unprecedented demands and challenges to cities and school systems – in the United
States, these population movements have produced a substantial shift in the demo-
graphics of student populations; to wit: “one-quarter of all youth are of immigrant
origin (more than 16.6 million in 2010), and it is projected that by 2020, one in
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4. three of all children will be growing up in immigrant households” (Suárez-Orozco
et al. 2011, 313). Poverty, undocumented status, and segregated and transnational
lives characterize the experiences of these children and youth, which complicate
their education (Suárez-Orozco et al. 2011).
In addition to population flows across national borders, parallel changes in the
social and economic conditions of developed nations have deepened inequalities.
For example, the Center for American Progress recently reported that [e]conomic
security and losses during the recession and recovery exacerbated the already weak
situation for African Americans. They experienced declining employment rates, ris-
ing poverty rates, falling home-ownership rates, decreasing health insurance and
retirement coverage during the last business cycle from 2001 to 2007. The recession
that followed made a bad situation much worse (as cited in Bobo 2011, 19). An
enduring indicator of inequity in the United States is the White-Black wealth
inequality; Oliver and Shapiro (1995) reported that the wealth gap between African
American and White individuals was ten to one. The incarceration rate is another
unsettling contemporary sign of injustice for “cultural others” – e.g. Bobo (2011)
reported that one in nine African Americans (ages 20–34) was in jail or prison in
2007. Racial attitudes and stereotyping data also reflect a dismal situation – in the
1990s, “more than 60 percent of whites rated whites as more likely to be hardwork-
ing than blacks, and just under 60 percent rated blacks as less intelligent” (Bobo
2011, 27). Despite progress made, these attitudinal leanings hold at the time of writ-
ing this article.
Compounding these trends are many negative educational outcomes affecting
cultural others. To illustrate, African American high school dropout rate doubles the
rate of Whites, and higher education completion rate is about 50% lower than White
students (Bobo 2011). “Culturally different” and disabled students trail behind their
non-minority and non-disabled peers on various key educational performance indica-
tors, and racial minority learners are disproportionately diagnosed as having high
incidence disabilities – i.e. learning disabilities (LDs), emotional/behavioral disabili-
ties (E/BDs), or intellectual disabilities (IDs) (Artiles, Trent, and Palmer 2004). At
the national level, African Americans are over twice as likely than White students to
be diagnosed with IDs and Native Americans are 24% more likely to be identified
with LDs. African Americans are overrepresented in the E/BD category (59% more
likely) (Donovan and Cross 2002). Predominantly negative visions of culture perme-
ate these socio-economic and educational trends, which are typically applied to stu-
dents with disabilities and the so-called “culturally diverse” learners (defined by
racial, ethnic, socio-economic, or linguistic traits).
Considerable resources have been devoted in the United States to understand
and untie the tight knot of culture, learning, and ability differences. This is often
articulated in research as a problem of “population cultural validity” or approached
in intervention studies as a matter of gauging differential treatment impact across
“cultural” groups (Donovan and Cross 2002). The trouble is that the idea of culture
is fraught with theoretical traps and ambiguities that permeate these well-intentioned
efforts. Culture also carries considerable historical baggage that permeates policy,
professional, and institutional practices that are not always taken into account in
research projects. For example, we know that so-called culturally diverse groups
have been historically under-served, and scholarship from economics, labor studies,
social psychology, urban planning, critical legal studies, sociology, public health,
and history, among other fields, reminds us of the spectra of discrimination and
4 A. J. Artiles
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5. oppression in the lives of these groups (Anyon 2005; Bobo 2011; Darity 2011;
Harris 2001; Krieger 2011; Scott 2007; Stiker 2009).
An urgent challenge for the research community, therefore, is nothing less than
producing knowledge that is mindful of the complexities of culture and equity as a
means to invest in a better future for this nation. For this reason, I argue that a first
step in addressing this multifaceted state of affairs is to examine critically how the
notion of culture is theorized in research that includes marginalized groups of stu-
dents, particularly racial, socio-economic, and linguistic minorities. Such a critique
can afford greater theoretical clarity in research design and dissemination, as well as
inform future policy and reform efforts. These are urgent projects considering the
rapid transformations taking place in US society and the education field. Two such
trends stand out.
First, educational reforms and policies are increasingly converging in a tangle of
new structures, demands, and expectations with substantial equity consequences for
marginalized learners (Artiles 2011). For instance, the traditional separation of gen-
eral and special education is being redefined as reforms like Response to Interven-
tion (RTI) gain momentum. RTI is a “multi-tier approach to the early identification
and support of students with learning and behavior needs … [It] is designed for use
when making decisions in both general education and special education, creating a
well-integrated system of instruction and intervention guided by child outcome data”
(RTI Action Network http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/what/whatisrti). This trend is
having an impact on several million children and youth with disabilities. As stated
earlier, many of these students are poor and come from racial minority backgrounds,
thus a direct consequence of this trend is the thickening of student heterogeneity in
the mainstream educational system. At the same time, accountability requirements
demand equal outcomes across groups, including culturally diverse and disabled
learners. This American trend is part of what anthropologist Ray McDermott and his
colleagues called “global norming,” in which “minority, poor, and disabled children
fill the bottom percentiles of test data around the world” (McDermott, Edgar, and
Scarloss 2011, 224).
Second, economist Sandy Darity (2011) recently noted that deficit oriented views
of culture are increasingly visible in the social sciences, with the renewed interest in
constructs such as “cultural disadvantage,” “cultural deprivation,” and “culturalist
hypotheses” to explain educational and other social outcome disparities. Race, lan-
guage, gender, and social class are entwined with these visions of culture, and
although talk about post-racialism has gained attention in some sectors of US soci-
ety, contemporary sociological evidence on racial inequalities (Bobo 2011), as well
as the rising tide of what critical geographer David Harvey (2003) described as
accumulation by dispossession, demonstrate compellingly that circuits of inequality
continue to be reproduced in racial minority communities (Fine and Ruglis 2009).
Embedded in these trends are problematic and often contradictory theoretical
assumptions about the notion of culture that mediate inequities affecting non-domi-
nant populations, which translate into educational segregation, limited opportunities,
and lower outcomes for these groups. Ironically, these trends are apparent despite
current educational accountability demands for all groups represented in school sys-
tems (Darling-Hammond 2007).
To reiterate, the purpose of this manuscript is to broaden the analytic spotlight
used to examine culture in educational contexts beyond individual and group traits
as a means to understand the intersections of learning and ability differences. I
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6. center my analysis in students of color and disabled learners (along with their inter-
sections) as a window into how culture can be used to reify deficit views of these
populations. Moreover, I reframe the idea of culture to include institutional and
social practices as a means to expand the unit of analysis beyond stereotyped groups
or individuals. I illustrate this framework in the context of RTI. As a means to con-
textualize the core argument of this manuscript, I outline the ways in which the idea
of culture has been traditionally taken up in educational research.
Culture in traditional research practices
Similar to other areas of social science research, the education field has treated the
construct of culture in problematic ways (Gutierrez and Rogoff 2003; Rosaldo
1993). A common practice has been to ignore culture. Careful reviews of empirical
knowledge bases in several disciplines and areas of inquiry have documented for the
last 20+ years the lack of attention, problematic conceptions of culture, or its proxies
(Artiles et al. 2010; Lamont and Small 2008). We found, for example, that less than
3% of special education and LD research published between the 1970s and the
1990s in visible specialized journals examined culture in systematic ways (Artiles,
Trent, and Kuan 1997). Graham (1992) and Santos de Barona (1993) found similar
patterns in the psychology literature. Influential reports such as the National Reading
Panel (2000) and the National Early Literacy Panel (2008) either ignored or did not
find evidence about the mediating role of culture and language in intervention
research. Lindo (2006) reviewed the intervention research published in prominent
reading journals between 1994 and 2004 and found that not a single study examined
outcomes by race, a common proxy for culture.
Similarly, the last National Research Council (NRC) report on minority students
in special education (Donovan and Cross 2002) concluded that intervention research
findings could not be disaggregated by cultural or ethnic group. Furthermore, it was
concluded that “[t]he committee is not aware of any published studies that compare
the quality of special education programs or the efficacy of specific instructional
practices among various racial/ethnic groups” (338). The lack of attention in
research reports to even indirect markers of culture, such as student ethnic/racial
backgrounds, suggests that culture is not deemed a relevant factor in the research
community. As the NRC (2002) report concluded, the “assumption is that the perfor-
mance of minority students with disabilities is comparable to majority students with
disabilities” (329).
To complicate matters, evidence suggests potential biases in research funding
decisions in certain fields with direct relevance to education and disabilities, like med-
icine – e.g. a recent study showed that [a]fter controlling for the applicant’s educa-
tional background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication
record, and employer characteristics, we find that Black applicants remain 10 percent-
age points less likely than Whites to be awarded [National Institutes of Health]
research funding (Ginther et al. 2011, 1015). Although investigators’ race does not
necessarily determine attention to culture or its proxies in study design, the question
arises as to whether greater minority representation in the research community might
be associated with a more systematic attention to the production of knowledge that is
mindful of culture. Given this state of affairs, the question raised by historian Vanessa
Siddle Walker (2005) is more urgent than ever, “[W]hat happens to the scholarship
when some voices are privileged and some are silenced, or worse, ignored?” (35).
6 A. J. Artiles
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7. An alternative way to address culture in research is to account for it, though in
such a way, that it creates substantial theoretical and methodological challenges. In
this perspective, only certain groups have culture, specifically, non-dominant groups,
while mainstream society does not. This view is often framed from the vantage point
of “culture as a way of life” in which culture is regarded as an independent variable
(Eisenhart 2001). It is assumed these groups’ cultures are monolithic and static; that
is, all members of a given non-dominant group share the same cultural codes and
act accordingly in predictable ways, and their cultural practices do not change over
time. This framing of culture, therefore, has a strong deterministic flavor, and con-
tributes to the social construction of populations. As political scientists Anne Schnei-
der and Helen Ingram (1993) explained, the social construction of populations
refers to the cultural characterizations or popular images of the persons or groups
whose behavior and well-being are affected by public policy. These characterizations
are normative and evaluative, portraying groups in positive or negative terms through
symbolic language, metaphors, and stories … . Social constructions become embedded
in policy as messages that are absorbed by citizens and affect their orientations and
participation patterns. (334)
This use of culture as located in the “other” has important implications for research
question posing practices, sampling decisions, and intervention designs, among other
matters. Awareness of this point marks the difference in research between a focus on
“body counts” across populations vis-à-vis a concern with the “embodied conse-
quences of social positions” (Krieger and Smith 2004, 97); that is, the acknowledg-
ment that researchers need to be concerned with understanding “embodied selves
[that are] simultaneously and historically contingent social beings and biologic
organisms (Krieger and Smith 2004, 99).
Another implication of the view of culture “as a way of life” is found in the
attention to cultural issues grounded in a “special case” logic in which research stud-
ies and reports are published in journal special issues or separate chapters. Following
this logic, some commentators argue for “group-specific” treatments or “responsive”
approaches, such as behavioral interventions for African American learners or liter-
acy approaches for Native American students. The socio-historical status of groups
in society and its mediating effects on these people’s lives and performance are
rarely taken into account. The role culture plays in learning processes is underspeci-
fied in this perspective. As an example, my colleagues and I found in a recent analy-
sis of the views of culture underlying research on the racialization of disability that
culture is linked to learning either through assumed socialization or deprivation pro-
cesses (Artiles et al. 2010). Both explanations are framed from a deficit standpoint.
The argument goes as follows:
The premise in the cultural deprivation hypothesis is that living under certain condi-
tions (e.g., poverty) exposes children to cultural practices that limit the acquisition of
normative bodies of knowledge, dispositions, as well as skills, and limits access to
experiences that are valued by the dominant society. In this view, “the culture of pov-
erty” deprives children of sound developmental experiences and becomes destiny. A
significant limitation of these views is that the processes or mechanisms through which
culture enters learning to mediate socialization or cultural deprivation are not specified.
Hence, these two understandings of the roles of culture in learning are problematic on
two counts: they rely on limited definitions of culture and lack theoretical specificity.
(Artiles et al. 2010, 291)
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8. A negative consequence of deficit thinking in educational research is what Eve Tuck
(2009) described as “damage-centered” research – this is inquiry that “intends to
document people’s pain and brokenness to hold those in power accountable for their
oppression … [a key limitation of this perspective is that it] reinforces and rein-
scribes a one-dimensional notion of these people as depleted, ruined, and hopeless”
(409).
In summary, the construct of culture occupies a problematic space in educational
and social science research, particularly in scholarship concerned with the intersec-
tion of consequential differences (e.g. race, ability) and their attendant equity chal-
lenges. Researchers cannot afford to continue ignoring or studying culture in
problematic ways at a time when socio-economic inequities are deepening particu-
larly for groups considered “culturally different,” and the cultural variability that
defines life in our global society is becoming the norm. For these reasons, I reframe
the notion of culture to help us address some of the aforementioned shortcomings
and inform future research concerned with the intersections of learning and ability
differences.
More than identity badges: mapping the layers of culture
I ground this discussion in cultural historical research and theory, which has deep
roots in cultural psychology, but it is also informed by an interdisciplinary knowl-
edge base (Cole 1996). The advantage of this lens is that it places culture at the cen-
ter of human experiences (Cole 1998). In this view, culture is defined as the social
milieu in which the life of the people is embedded. [That is, culture is understood as
an] “accumulation of the social experiences of humanity in the concrete form of
means and modes, schemes and patterns of human behavior, cognition, and commu-
nication” (Stetsenko, as cited in Moll 2001, 115). This means that culture is a multi-
dimensional construct that encompasses (Artiles 2003; Erickson 2004):
a regulative dimension: culture embodies rules and prescriptions that offer af-
fordances and constraints to human behavior;
interpretive and instrumental dimensions: culture is located in the minds of
people as they interpret the world through values, beliefs, and knowledge
structures, as well as in material practices in which people participate every-
day;
a (re)productive dimension: culture embodies a dialectical relationship between
the reproduction of traditions and legacies, and the production of cultural prac-
tices which allows people and groups to renew and innovate those practices,
a cohesion dimension: culture is cohesive as reflected in groups’ and communi-
ties’ shared ways with words, thoughts, feelings, and actions; but we find con-
siderable heterogeneity within cultures as indexed in within-group variability.
These theoretical premises enable us to transcend the limits of traditional analytical
approaches and re-frame the study of culture to account for several interdependent
layers. This conceptualization of culture affords a broader unit of analysis that
bridges agency and structure. For instance, a re-framing of culture in the study of
“diversity” in classrooms would entail broadening the analytic spotlight past “the
demographics represented IN the classroom,” which is exclusively concerned with
“what people bring,” such as their background traits (e.g. race, gender, social class,
8 A. J. Artiles
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9. language background) along with distinctive (and often assumed static) group
beliefs, values, linguistic practices, participation repertoires, and the like (Gallego,
Cole, and LCHC 2001). In the traditional view of “demographics IN the classroom,”
people are exposed to one culture which enculturates them to ways of thinking, feel-
ing, and acting. Many efforts to address cultural differences in education have
embraced this perspective; thus, it is assumed that people carry and use cognitive,
affective, and behavioral codes learned in their communities. We must update and
add to this perspective.
First, the traditional view of groups’ static cultural traits has been challenged by
evidence showing that group members not only rely on the cultural practices learned
in their own communities, but also cross cultural boundaries in fluid and dynamic
ways (Gutierrez and Rogoff 2003). The evidence on globalization and transnational-
ism supports this point. It is estimated that “220,000, students being educated in
Mexico are in fact U.S. citizens living transnational lives” (Suárez-Orozco et al.
2011, 316). Multiple separations and reunifications characterize the lives of millions
of transnational children and youth in North America. These experiences compel
these children and youth to cross identity borders in flexible and adaptive ways that
defy the cultural categories of “Mexican” and “American” citizens. As Bauman
(2011) reminds us, “identity” though ostensibly a noun, behaves like a verb, albeit a
strange one to be sure: appears only in the future tense. Though all too often hypos-
tasized as an attribute of a material entity identity has the ontological status of a pro-
ject and a postulate (19).
Aydin Bal (2009) documented how Russian immigrants of Turkish descent in
the south-western United States engaged at times in the use of linguistic practices
more closely associated with Chicano students’ ways with words, or used African
American linguistic expressions often found in popular culture, while at other times,
they identified with Russian cultural practices. Yet, in other contexts, they exhibited
a strong affiliation with Turkish mores (Bal 2009). Similar patterns of fluid ethnic
and linguistic identity adoption and changes have been documented with students of
Pilipino, African American, and Latino backgrounds in other regions of the United
States (Paris 2009). Pilipino students, for instance, would sometimes adopt African
American English when interacting with peers in particular contexts and for specific
goals. These studies compel us to re-examine what we assume about “what students
bring” to schools, for children and youth act and react across situations using cul-
tural toolkits that embody, not only their primary cultural affiliation, but also a stra-
tegic and situated approach to cultural boundary crossings and identity affiliations
(Holland, Lachicotte, Jr, Skinner, and Cain 1998). The empirical evidence on how
these cultural practices of affiliation and language use mediate students’ learning
processes (e.g. literacy acquisition) is only beginning to emerge (Nasir and Hand
2006). These findings also offer evidence about the interface between people’s iden-
tity intersections and the structural conditions under which they live. As public
health scholars Nancy Krieger and George Smith (2004) explain:
a person is not one day a woman, another day Latina, another day heterosexual,
another day single mother, another day living in a relatively poor neighborhood,
another day working as a data processor, and still another day caring for both a small
child and aging parents. The body does not neatly partition these experiences … [and
researchers must conceptualize and examine empirically the] embodied consequences
of social position. (97)
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10. The fluidity of identity and the strategic ways in which people adopt and perform
identities have important implications for the study of culture and its mediating roles
in learning and ability differences. Specifically, this perspective compels researchers
to be analytically concerned with documenting collective cultural identities (includ-
ing their practices and memories), as well as with discerning within-group differ-
ences in cultural communities. In other words, research must aim to understand how
the strategic and sometimes idiosyncratic identity performances of individuals coex-
ist with the work they do to build and maintain collective cultural identities. The
evidence outlined in the preceding paragraphs illustrates the former. Recent evidence
from anthropology and cultural studies shed light on the construction of collective
identities and memories that exemplify the latter (French 2012).
Cultural traditions and memories, for instance, are invoked and forged in the
present through complex processes in which discursive connections are made
“among moments presumed to be differently located in time and space” (French
2012, 346). Wirtz described these processes as “telescoping” in her study of Santería
religious practices, showing how “registers of speech index distinct historical voices
from different African and Afro-Cuban pasts and the concomitant sacred power
associated with them among contemporary practitioners … The result is a temporal
‘telescoping’ through which transcendent and ancestral voices not only speak in the
present ritual moment but temporarily inhabit it, conveying their historicity” (as
cited in French 2012, 346–347). An implication of this research for education is that
we must see learners in classrooms as active agents that strategically perform vari-
ous identities across moments of the day, as opposed to the traditional view of cul-
ture that regards children and youth as mere enacters of the cultural codes of their
communities. It also suggests that these individuals actively invoke and align in the
present multiple voices, traditions, and beliefs from their pasts, sometimes to forget,
other times to contest, and even to affiliate with collective identities (French 2012;
Theidon 2012). This way, cultural identities and traditions result, to a significant
extent, from semiotic work (French 2012).
These insights defy traditional educational research’s proclivity to essentialize
what students acquire in their cultural communities and carry around with them.
Therefore, two other cultural layers must be accounted for so that we can understand
the complexities of the idea of culture, namely institutional and interactional (Cole
1996; Rogoff 2003). The institutional layer of culture can be illustrated with what has
been described as “the canonical classroom culture,” and the interactional layer with
the notion of “cultureS produced in the classroom” (Gallego, Cole, and LCHC 2001).
There is indeed a “canonical classroom culture” in American schools, which has
been described in the sociology of education, educational anthropology, sociolin-
guistic studies of classrooms, and other educational research communities (Gallego,
Cole, and LCHC 2001). The classroom culture encompasses the assumptions, prac-
tices, beliefs, and values that characterize routines, and rituals, in American class-
rooms. These include the physical layout of classrooms and school buildings –
which mold the kinds and modes of participation for students and teachers – and the
structures of activities and discourses that take place every day. Physical layouts also
reflect particular arrangements to organize, stratify, and control students and teachers
– e.g. groupings by age, ability levels, cafeteria, gym, labs, etc. In fact, the canonical
classroom culture purportedly indexes social and cultural themes of mainstream
society, and ultimately define conceptions of competence that are applied to students
(Gallego, Cole, and LCHC 2001). Doyle (1986) identified in a seminal review of
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11. research three canonical segments of classroom life, namely (in order of emphasis)
seatwork, whole class/recitation work, and transitions and housekeeping activities.
In turn, the dominant discourse that characterizes the canonical classroom culture
has been labeled the recitation script of Initiation–Response–Evaluation (IRE). The
teacher typically Initiates the script with a question or a statement, students
Respond, and the teacher closes the cycle with an Evaluation of such response
(Mehan 1979). These canonical patterns have endured across generations and have
also been documented in many other school settings outside of the United States
(Gallego, Cole, and LCHC 2001). These aspects of the canonical classroom culture
“are already there” when students arrive, and students are expected to be socialized
and abide by the rules, assumptions, and routines embedded in the canonical culture.
It has been assumed that the canonical culture collides with the cultures of non-
dominant students, thus, contributing to their school failure if they do not acquire or
fit in the canonical culture. Nevertheless, the preceding discussion of cultures in the
classroom and advances on the idea of student identities complicate this longstand-
ing assumption. Gallego, Cole, and LCHC (2001) argued that classrooms have
hybrid cultures of “the local and the socio historical levels of analysis” (957). This
last point foregrounds the notion of classroom cultureS, which I outline next.
Neither the classroom culture nor the cultures in the classroom determine the
processes and outcomes of classroom life. These two layers of culture certainly
afford, but also constrain, what can be achieved, reproduced, challenged, or inno-
vated in classrooms (Erickson 2004). The interplay of these cultural layers mediate
the creation of the so called “classroom cultureS” mainly through interactional pro-
cesses in everyday classroom life. In this vein, it is worth citing Erickson (1996) at
length:
as teachers and students interact in classrooms, they construct an ecology of social and
cognitive relations in which influence between any and all parties is mutual, simulta-
neous, and continuous. One aspect of this social and cognitive ecology is the multi-
party character of the scene – many participants, all of them continually “on task,”
albeit working on different kinds of tasks, some of which may be at cross purposes
with others. Although teachers in group discussion may attempt to enforce a participa-
tion framework of successive dyadic teacher–student exchanges, often the conversation
is more complicated than that. The conversations that take place are multiparty ones,
and they may be ones in which various sets of speakers and auditors are engaged
simultaneously in multiple conversational floors [Reciprocal and complementary pro-
cesses (e.g. body posture, gaze) mediate the organization of interactions, which are
characterized by successive and simultaneous verbal and non-verbal actions]. (33)
The situated nature of these processes reminds us that students enter interactions
with multiple “attributes of social identity [e.g. gender, social class, disability, race]
than actually become relevant in any particular encounter” (Erickson 2004, 149).
What aspects of these identities become relevant during interactions are negotiated
in situ, which suggests that cultures in the classroom or the classroom culture can be
either reproduced or innovated in social encounters (Erickson 2004). Timing and
contextualization cues contribute to the coordination and navigation of interactions,
which explain the situated and negotiated nature of interactional processes; neverthe-
less, patterns emerge over time that forge “classroom cultureS” in which learning
processes and outcomes are embedded, and ultimately define student competence,
particularly during “gatekeeping situations” (i.e. “those in which the social mobility
of one or more of the participants was at stake,” Erickson 2004, 156).
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12. This perspective also implies that interventions to facilitate engagement and
improve learning rates of non-dominant students cannot rely solely on the alignment
of students’ cultural backgrounds with the classroom culture. Learners can challenge
or ignore the classroom culture, and as I explained earlier, they also cross cultural
boundaries on a regular basis. Moreover, cultural boundaries carry learning potential
that can be leveraged to design learning interventions (Akkerman and Bakker 2011).
I will return to these issues in the next section of the article.
I argue that future research on learning and ability differences will benefit from
examining the interplay of these three layers of culture in the educational experi-
ences of various groups of students, including racial minority learners and students
with disabilities. This will enable researchers to disentangle conceptual confusions
about the idea of culture and the limiting ways in which it has been examined to
understand the role of culture in disability. Shifting the analytic focus in the way I
have suggested will allow us to understand how culture is produced and reproduced
at the intersections of what people bring and what is already there; how children’s
and teachers’ actions, reactions, and improvisations nurture within-group diversity,
and how historical sedimentations of institutional practices shape participation
opportunities in schools. In other words, this unit of analysis will assist us to avoid
the theoretical traps of traditional understandings of culture. As a case in point, I
draw from core ideas of the framework I outlined in the preceding sections to cri-
tique the work on RTI, with the hope that this discussion will illustrate the potential
applicability of this standpoint on culture.
A second look at RTI through a cultural lens
RTI aspires to reframe how educational systems respond to the needs of all students,
with an emphasis on the prevention of school failure. A clear implication of this
focus is the strengthening of the interface between general and special education,
particularly for students with LDs and to a lesser extent with E/BDs (Vaughn and
Fuchs 2003). It offers nothing less than re-framing responses to struggling learners,
using a public health logic in which prevention, early intervention, and ongoing data
based performance monitoring are the hallmarks. Levels of increasing intensity and
individualization are built in the educational system as students’ responses to inter-
ventions are tracked. Although there is considerable variability in how the RTI para-
digm is operationalized, a few key features can be identified.
Several levels comprise RTI models, typically three (Fuchs, Fuchs, and Compton
2012). Level 1 encompasses instructional strategies for all students, with the use of
systematic screening and ongoing monitoring of performance to identify struggling
learners who might need attention in Level 2 – which entails a more intense form of
intervention in small group formats, ranging between eight and 16 weeks of treat-
ment. The last step in the ladder (i.e. Level 3) is special education. In order to work,
RTI must be delivered with a high level of fidelity. “A central assumption is that
responsiveness to treatment can differentiate between two explanations for low
achievement: poor instruction versus disability” (Fuchs 2002, 521). RTI also prom-
ises to reduce special education identification rates and the longstanding racialization
of disability through better (and instructionally valid) identification technologies.
The available research evidence on this point, however, is not conclusive. To illus-
trate, a recent RTI study conducted in seven school districts in south-western United
States reported “there were no changes in the percentages of students representing
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13. various ethnic groups over time” (Wanzek and Vaughn 2011, 173). VanderHeyden,
Witt, and Gilbertson (2007) concluded that “before and after [RTI] implementation,
the proportion of evaluated minority students deviated substantially from the
expected proportion but no particular pattern emerged” (250) (see also
Linan-Thompson 2010).
The analysis of RTI’s attention to the cultures represented IN classrooms and
schools shows intriguing patterns. First, RTI is generally conceptualized to stress
only one aspect of a student’s identity, namely a learner of academic content in
which learning is defined as a cognitive phenomenon. After all, RTI’s logic is that
students learn (or fail to learn) due to either instructional quality or disability. Thus,
intersections with other student identity dimensions are not accounted for, with one
exception. There is a small set of RTI studies that have included English Language
Learners (ELLs) or Dual-Language Learners.3
In these studies, the intersection of
language acquisition with learning academic content purportedly receives attention,
though it is not clear whether there is consensus on the theoretical tenets that should
inform this line of research. Moreover, there are substantial gaps and limitations in
this research. For instance, Gutierrez, Zepeda, and Castro (2010) concluded that
Dual-Language Learners “remain largely understudied, often excluded from studies
of early learning and among the least understood from a policy perspective. When
included, these children often are subsumed under a broader ‘at-risk’ category, mak-
ing it difficult to understand underlying learning processes or to tease out relevant
differences and factors” (334). Moreover, there is considerable heterogeneity in this
population that tends to be erased in many studies – e.g. social class differences, lit-
eracy levels in either language, uses of L1 and L2, and even citizenship (79% of
children of immigrant families are US citizens) (Gutierrez, Zepeda, and Castro
2010). At the same time, the increasing governmentality of immigration (Fassin
2011) likely impinge upon immigrant families’ participation in research projects.
These are important considerations as these limitations pose substantial barriers
to the generation of knowledge with this population. Lack of theoretical consensus
on the intersections of language and disability could render RTI studies that merely
sampled students with district-sanctioned labels (e.g. ELL, Limited English
Proficient [LEP]) and applied instructional interventions that were simply translated
from research on early literacy development with monolingual English speakers.
RTI studies could also be produced in which sampling of ELLs is carefully done to
account for generational differences, proficiency levels in English and L1, literacy
development in L1 and L2, and other key demographic markers such as social class
and ethnicity. RTI studies with Dual Language Learners will need to account for key
aspects that have been neglected in prior investigations with this population, such as
the role of opportunities to learn (beyond exposure to tier 1 interventions) in literacy
learning, how L1 supports the acquisition of L2, how literacy skills in L1 transfer to
L2, and the mediating effects of socio-emotional development in L2 and literacy
acquisition across languages (Gutierrez, Zepeda, and Castro 2010). Having an RTI
knowledge base with such disparate theoretical and methodological characteristics
complicates the aggregation of knowledge on this population. In addition, interven-
tions could be designed to account for the “connected” nature of learning in which
some key design principles are included, such as interventions that leverage peer
supports, are interest-powered, openly networked, and production-centered (Ito et al.
2013). These developments in instructional design from the learning sciences could
make a substantial contribution to interventions used in RTI, even if a standardized
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14. protocol is used. Let us also remember that student identity intersections are not fos-
silized demographic markers; indeed they are fluid and dynamic. Information about
these intersections could be used to inform or enrich RTI screening practices or
intervention components. The focus for screening and intervention measures would
be the unique sociocultural circumstances of the communities served in schools,
instead of stereotypical assumptions about various groups.
Research methods are critical in this discussion. Qualitative studies about stu-
dents’ identity kaleidoscopes promise to offer us insights about how learners borrow,
trade, and transform linguistic, cognitive, and social tools from their peers, popular
culture, and school knowledge cultures. This means that screening and interventions
will not target exclusively the mapping of skill sets from pre-defined “diverse
groups” or “high or low performers;” rather this mapping process should also be
concerned with documenting “repertoires of practices and tools” that do not have
neatly delineated language, ethnic, or other traditional boundaries (Gutierrez and
Rogoff 2003). The selection of research methods should also take into account the
interpretive layer of culture and the situated nature of data collection efforts since
study participants actively try to make sense of what researchers are trying to do
when presenting tasks, questions, or other data collection procedures. An interesting
lesson on this point is illustrated in a recent study. Viruell-Fuentes et al. (2011)
found that language of interview makes a difference in the quality and accuracy of
data collected about the health status of Latinos(as). Although public health mea-
sures of Latino health show an equal or stronger condition than Whites, Latino self-
reports show the opposite pattern. Viruell-Fuentes et al. (2011) found that “transla-
tion of the English word ‘fair’ to ‘regular’ induces Spanish-language respondents to
report poorer health than they would in English” (1306). The word “regular” in
Spanish has a more negative connotation in some Latin American countries than the
word “fair.”
Let us now shift our attention to the second layer of the framework I have out-
lined, namely the canonical classroom culture. There is a wealth of research on the
canonical classroom culture that dates back to at least the middle of the twentieth
century. Historical, institutional, and technical aspects interlace in the constitution of
the canonical classroom culture. As explained earlier, the canonical culture regulates
teacher QA practices, preferred narrative styles, turn-taking procedures, compe-
tence criteria, and behavioral rules. Although there is variability in the number and
types of classroom activity segments, the preeminence of the IRE recitation script is
increasingly apparent as students move to higher grades. Indeed, the “range of class-
room activities is greatly reduced and the recitation script is fully implemented as
the normative cultural order of the classroom” (Gallego, Cole, and LCHC 2001,
964). Moreover, “becoming a student is a process of cultural conditioning in which
children are pressed to adopt the way of life of the classroom (the classroom culture)
as their own” (965).
RTI aspires to become a central component, if not, the canonical classroom cul-
ture, as teachers set up and orchestrate conditions to provide instruction to all stu-
dents. This includes (a) the core program, (b) classroom routines that are meant to
provide opportunity for instructional differentiation, (c) accommodations that in
principle permit virtually all students access to the primary prevention program, and
(d) problem-solving strategies for addressing students’ motivation and behavior
(Fuchs, Fuchs, and Compton 2012, 265). Potential for trouble arises, however, due
to several issues. First, as I explained, RTI addresses the cultures IN the classroom
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15. in a narrow fashion. This shortcoming could impinge upon the motivational and rel-
evance power of interventions because learners’ capabilities, resources, and needs
would be defined in limited ways, most likely missing sets of abilities, practices and
skills that these learners bring or develop in the classroom, but that are not within
the perception or attention fields of traditional RTI practices.
Second, researchers have identified several issues with screenings and assess-
ments used in primary and secondary interventions. For instance, studies have found
“unacceptably high rates of false positives (or students who appear at risk but are
not) with one-stage screens, particularly in the early grades” (Fuchs, Fuchs, and
Compton 2012, 266). Similarly, Linan-Thompson (2010) identified RTI assessment
problems with ELLs; she concluded that
relying on a single measure as a benchmark is misguided. If teachers rely on this mea-
sure to make decisions about who needs instructional support, they may over identify
students in the early grades for Tier 2 interventions denying them the opportunity per-
haps, to develop higher levels of academic language if they are tracked needlessly into
a Tier 2 reading intervention rather spending time in content areas. They may also miss
those students who read fluently but do not comprehend what they read. (973)
This means that students are not only narrowly defined by the range of acceptable
responses built into specific assessment tasks, but they are also susceptible to being
misclassified by the very tools of this paradigm. The view of culture in which this
manuscript is grounded implies that knowledge, level of development, or expertise
is a situated notion that vary depending on what people do and who is involved in
such performance (Cole 1996; French 2012). Thus, the challenge for RTI is to
develop assessment procedures and tools that are sensitive to these cultural
considerations.
Moreover, the conditions and contexts of the traditional canonical culture of
classrooms have been transformed substantially in the last 20 years, too often for the
worse. As I alluded to briefly in the introduction of this article, societal inequalities
have deepened in the last generation, which affect the kinds of educational opportu-
nities available to so-called culturally different learners (Harvey 2003). Lower
school funding, lower teacher quality, low level curricula, mounting accountability
pressures at a time of depleting resources for teachers and administrators, high child
poverty rates, and an unprecedented influx of immigrant students and ELLs in urban
and rural districts are only a few examples of the conditions under which the canoni-
cal classroom culture is being enacted in many public schools today. In addition,
many policies have created paradoxical situations for school personnel as these man-
dates exert pressure to create and maintain equitable conditions with no supply of
resources to achieve these laudable goals. This state of affairs has deepened inequal-
ities for non-dominant learners as the canonical classroom culture has shrunk its nor-
mative scope through a curriculum driven by testing results and coercive practices
that aim to erase professional judgment and maintain total control of student behav-
ior. Unfortunately, we do not have research data on how RTI is interfacing with this
contemporary version of the canonical classroom culture, though there is some evi-
dence about how schools are appropriating RTI in the midst of the current historical
conditions of the canonical classroom culture. For example, Doug Fuchs and
colleagues (2012) described implementation variability surrounding RTI that speaks
to this point. They said RTI
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16. can include one tier or as many as six or seven tiers. Tiers designated by the same
number may represent different services in different schools. In School A, for example,
Tier 2 may involve peer tutoring in the mainstream classroom; in School B, it signifies
adult-led small-group tutoring in the auxiliary gym. Varying criteria define “responsive-
ness”; varying measures index student performance … Similar inconsistency extends
to the role of special education. In Jenkins et al.’s survey of RTI-implementing teachers
and administrators in 62 schools across 17 states, 12 separate approaches were
described for serving students [with disabilities] … reflecting different views about
whether special education should exist within or outside RTI frameworks, and what
services it should provide. One constant among the many variants of RTI is that, as an
early intervention and prevention system, it is costly in time and resources. (264)
Orosco and Klingner (2010) also reported that RTI implementation with ELLs seems
to be mediated by a constellation of factors that included teacher factors (e.g. beliefs,
knowledge, dispositions about L2), institutional constraints (e.g. opportunities and
resources for professional development, negative school culture), and misalignments
in assessment and between instruction and assessment. The implications of these
trends for educational equity are obvious. My point is that at a time when the cul-
tures IN schools are increasing their complexity and fluidity, and the canonical cul-
ture of the classroom is increasingly fraught with structural inequities, RTI seems to
be oblivious to these trends for it ignores kids’ intersectional identities and requires
considerable amounts of support.
Let us also consider the third dimension of the proposed framework called
“classroom cultureS” (Gallego, Cole, and LCHC 2001). I published with my col-
league Elizabeth Kozleski a sociocultural critique of this aspect elsewhere that
examined what counts as “response” and “intervention” in RTI (Artiles and Kozleski
2010). Rather than repeating those points, I share a few reflections about this third
dimension of culture.
Classsroom cultureS refer to the spaces between the canonical classroom culture
and the cultures IN the classroom. Classroom cultureS emerge out of the everyday
interactions among people that share an institutional space. Through multiple and
recurrent interactions, rules are formulated and set (resisted or negotiated), expecta-
tions are communicated and challenged, goals are set and redefined, and activities
get completed or boycotted. As I explained earlier, kids rely on peer and pop cul-
tures that defy stereotypical renditions of what students bring to schools from the
ethnic, linguistic, social class and other communities in which they are immersed.
Thus, classroom cultureS represent hybrids of the canonical classroom culture and
the cultures IN the classroom. Through participation in these classroom cultureS,
individuals become new kinds of people. A great deal of interpretive work goes into
forging classroom cultureS, though not all of it is done explicitly or deliberately.
Efforts have been made to engineer classroom cultureS that are based on a
mixed model in which the overall ethos of the classroom satisfies the goals of diversity
and student agency, while it recognizes that self-discipline, excellence, and tradition
play essential roles. The desired mix is attempted by distributing the power, goals, and
activities throughout different participation structures that constitute the learning-teach-
ing experience in an effort to change, rather than perpetuate, educational inequities
among students along ethnically, economically, or medically defined lines. (Gallego,
Cole, and LCHC 2001, 983)
Examples of these efforts include Mike Cole’s work at the Lab for Comparative
Human Cognition on design experiments and mutual appropriation interventions,
Kris Gutierrez’ social design experiments, Luis Moll’s and Norma Gonzalez’ work
16 A. J. Artiles
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17. on funds of knowledge, and Carol Lee’s cultural modeling research. These programs
of research are grounded in a sociocultural perspective on learning largely influenced
by (neo)Vygotskian approaches, and rely on interdisciplinary premises that fore-
ground the social origins of learning, the cultural mediation of mental activities, and
a primary interest in the study of developmental processes in transition (Moll 2001).
Moreover, these programs of research rest on the premise that “individual develop-
ment constitutes and is constituted by social and cultural-historical activities and
practices … [In this perspective] culture is not an entity that influences individuals.
Instead, people contribute to the creation of cultural processes and cultural processes
contribute to the creation of people” (Rogoff 2003, 51, emphasis in original). There
is also recent work on “connected learning,” which is described as a theoretical para-
digm and an intervention framework. Digital media tools play a central role in the
design and analysis of learning environments grounded in this perspective.
Connected learning is described as
socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or
political opportunity. Connected learning is realized when a young person is able to
pursue a personal interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults, and
is in turn able to link this learning and interest to academic achievement, career suc-
cess, or civic engagement. This model is based on evidence that the most resilient,
adaptive, and effective learning involves individual interest as well as social support to
overcome adversity and provide recognition. (Ito et al. 2013, 4)
Other examples are found in intervention approaches based on neo-Vygotskian and
activity theory perspectives that promise to offer viable framings in the organization
of learning that draw from the complex model of culture described in this article
(Downing-Wilson, Lecusay, and Cole 2011; Engestrom 2011; Engestrom and
Sannino 2010).
The challenge is that RTI creates classroom cultureS that are circumscribed
around the roles and participation rules prescribed by the interventions conducted at
its different levels and that target specific isolated skills or skill sets, particularly in
the early grades. This is particularly the case when RTI models rely on standardized
protocols that depend upon scripted participatory frameworks. But we should also
expect that multiple classroom cultureS emerge in each level of an RTI system that
do not necessarily align with the intervention protocols; these cultureS might be
related to what Scott (1990) labeled hidden transcripts, the “discourse that takes
place ‘offstage’, beyond direct observation by powerholders” (4). This is an interest-
ing consideration since it means that interventions could be conducted with high
fidelity, but with weak ecological validity.4
(Arzubiaga et al. 2008, 320). By the
same token, children’s “offstage” cultural activities may not be aligned either with
the behaviors, skills, or practices ostensibly mapped in intervention protocols.
Indeed, there is a scarcity of research on these “unofficial” classroom cultureS at
any of the RTI levels, and how they could afford or constrain the impact of interven-
tions. Given the issues I raised, a key challenge is to reconfigure RTI (or any class-
room intervention) as a mixed model that integrates strategically the dimensions of
culture I outlined in this manuscript. These ideas also raise complex questions, such
as, what would be required for the design of future interventions, for coding types
of student responses, and for the scalability and sustainability of this approach?
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18. Conclusion
A key message of the analysis presented in this article is that researchers need to be
mindful of the ubiquity of culture, as indexed not only in the psyche and routine prac-
tices of children and their families, but in the beliefs and theories of educators about
competence that mediate referrals and eligibility decisions, the school practices and
assumptions about normal development and behavior, and the cultural codes embed-
ded in assessment tools and instructional strategies. This standpoint helps us tran-
scend the assumption that culture equals identity badges; instead, it compels us to
account for the role of culture in learning, and challenges us to question longstanding
dominant assumptions about difference. In short, this proposal enables us to rely on a
view of culture that honors its dynamic, historical, and dialectical nature.
The challenge to use more complex notions of culture, given the historical
moment in which we live, will contribute to pursue what Luke (2011) described as a
“cultural science of education.” This science is informed by research that builds on
solid theoretical insights about human development, learning, and teaching, as well
as on the latest developments in research methodologies. This research has an inter-
disciplinary nature and systematically takes into account the notion of culture.
Whether our research focuses on RTI, inclusive education, learning opportunities, or
accountability of educational systems, a “cultural science of education” calls for an
approach that Alan Luke (2011), paraphrasing Dell Hymes described as “a science
with the requisite theoretical humility to represent communities’ and cultures’ every-
day practices and rights, not to override and overwrite them” (368).
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stan-
ford University and Universidad Rafael Landívar (Guatemala) for the support and hospitality
that allowed the ideas presented in this article to be developed and articulated. Earlier ver-
sions of this manuscript were presented as the 2011 Educational Review Lecture presented at
the University of Birmingham (UK), the 2011 Edward L. Meyen Distinguished Lecture at
the University of Kansas, and the 2013 Bowen Fellows Lecture Series at Claremont Graduate
University. The author is grateful to Kris Gutierrez, Elizabeth Kozleski, Stan Trent, and the
Sociocultural Research Group for their comments and recommendations. The author assumes
responsibility for the limitations of the article.
Notes
1. I use the term “non-dominant” instead of the traditional labels “minority” or “students of
color.” Following Gutierrez (2008), I use the term “non-dominant” to emphasize the
oppressive role of power and power relations in the lives of these individuals. Note, how-
ever, that this term does not imply that non-dominant students are passively subjected to
oppression; indeed, agency and active participation play key roles in the lives of these
individuals.
2. Globalization is defined as “the integration and disintegration of markets, characterized
by the post-nationalization of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and
services” (Suárez-Orozco et al. 2011, 312).
3. “[L]earners who are acquiring two languages simultaneously or who are developing their pri-
mary language as they learn a second language” ( Gutierrez, Zepeda, and Castro 2010, 334)
4. “[T]he extent to which behavior sampled in one setting can be taken as characteristic of
an individual’s cognitive processes in a range of other settings” (Cole 1996, 222). This
can be the case because “intervention tasks, procedures, or situations [may not be aligned
with the study] participants’ routine ways to perform or use the cognitive, linguistic, or
social strategies purportedly tapped by the intervention”.
18 A. J. Artiles
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![Beyond responsiveness to identity badges: future research on
culture in disability and implications for Response to Intervention
Alfredo J. Artiles*
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
I critique in this article the construct of culture because of its centrality in creat-
ing the notion of difference, which has been commonly applied to marginalized
populations. I examine critically how the notion of culture has been theorized in
educational research as a means to obtain theoretical clarity in research design
and reporting, as well as inform future policy and reform efforts. I reframe the
idea of culture to transcend the favored focus on background markers and
include institutional and social practices to expand the unit of analysis beyond
stereotyped groups or individuals. This perspective will enable us to understand
how the constructs of learning, ability, and culture get increasingly intertwined
with damaging consequences that perpetuate historical injustices. I illustrate the
framework with a critique of Response to Intervention (RTI) by outlining the
ways in which the idea of culture has been taken up in this research. The pro-
posed standpoint empowers us to rely on a view of culture that honors its
dynamic, historical, and dialectical nature.
Keywords: construct of culture; Response to Intervention (RTI); disability
Learning, ability, and culture. These are notions educational researchers, practitio-
ners, and policy-makers grapple with in this time of differences often described with
various keywords that range from post-racial age to the globalization era. Unprece-
dented trends characterize this time of difference that include overwhelming popula-
tion flows across national borders, unparalleled compression of time and space,
deepening inequalities, and extraordinary access to technological tools (Artiles and
Dyson 2005; Suarez-Orozco 2001). These trends continue to converge at an incalcu-
lable speed, thus creating conditions for multiple populations that differ along socio-
economic, linguistic, gender, religious, national origin, racial, and ethnic lines come
into proximal/distal and prolonged contact in ways never seen in the histories of
developed nations. The ideas of culture and difference are generally used to describe
sizable segments of these populations (Artiles 1998; Rosaldo 1993). Thus, the glob-
alization age has reaffirmed the age-old idea that difference is indexed in cultural
others; a concomitant assumption is that these groups differ in their ways of learning
and (often) their ability levels (Valencia 2010). The problem with this logic is that
the designation of difference comes with consequences for those groups that impinge
upon educational and other key opportunities; in short, being different heightens
one’s vulnerability to injustices. An enduring example of these entanglements of dif-
ference is found at the historical intersections of race, disability, social class, and
*Email: aartiles@asu.edu
© 2014 Educational Review
Educational Review, 2014
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![gender (Stiker 2009). In this vein, Baynton (2001) concluded that, “not only has it
been considered justifiable to treat disabled people unequally, but the concept of dis-
ability has been used to justify discrimination against other groups by attributing dis-
ability to them” (33, emphasis in original).
Given the historical sedimentations of these intersections of difference, it is not
surprising that a number of what Foucault (1986) called “dividing practices” in edu-
cational systems blend their meanings, thus producing different populations in which
low educational performance, race, social class, gender, language background, cul-
tural habits, and impairments overlap in intricate ways, depending on the lenses and
measures used. This phenomenon is an illustration of a recognition/de-recognition
strategy to make race visible “(i.e. the racial identities of particular bodies) in order
to de-recognize or not see race (i.e. a structural system of group-based privileges
and disadvantages produced by socio-historical forces)” (Harris 2001, 1758). The
use of this strategy in legal and policy practices likely contributes to the engraving
of educational inequities in the experiences of these populations. This state of affairs
creates a significant challenge for researchers, namely to explain how the constructs
of learning, ability, and culture are increasingly intertwined with harmful conse-
quences that perpetuate historical injustices (Artiles 2011).
I focus this article on the construct of culture because of its centrality in con-
structing the notion of difference, which is commonly applied to populations – i.e. a
proxy for race or ethnicity (Harris 2001). However, as I will argue, the construct of
culture transcends population traits and it has deep connections to views of learning,
race, and disability. For instance, scholarship from the social sciences suggests that
the notion of culture travels across research, policy, and practice landscapes in unex-
pected and sometimes problematic ways (Lee 2009; Rosaldo 1993). Culture and dis-
ability, for example, are often intertwined as reflected in the high disability
prevalence among students of color, and moreover, alternative (even contradictory)
visions of culture permeate explanations and studies on this problem (Artiles et al.
2010). To complicate matters, cultural and ability differences in educational policy
have been regarded as ontologically distinct since cultural considerations purportedly
warrant exclusion from a disability diagnosis (Artiles et al. 2011).
Another example of the ways in which culture contributes to the construction of
difference across contexts is through the mediation of policies across scales, which
ultimately shapes local practices. Through these processes, it is possible that policies
and laws created to address inequities end up reifying the status quo. I documented,
for instance, how the convergence of multiple contemporary education policies,
including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA) regulations to
monitor and fix racial inequities in special education, perpetuates educational inequi-
ties for underserved students (Artiles 2011). As mentioned earlier, this is achieved
through “[m]echanisms such as transposition … Understandings of race and disabil-
ity as being wholly detached from one another enable a sleight of hand within the
policy that serves the dominant interest of maintaining the inequality” (Beratan
2008, 349). I argue that transposition rests on cultural strategies and processes that
include, among others, a biopolitical paradigm and categorical alignment (Epstein
2007). Briefly stated, racial and disability groups embrace political representation
agendas that ensure access to resources and entitlements, though these groups’ “defi-
nitions are partly embedded in assumptions about identity purportedly framed by
biological differences” (Artiles 2011, 436). A potential consequence of this para-
digm is that groups are essentialized, and thus, identity intersections fade away. In
2 A. J. Artiles
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