Gloria Ladson-Billings But Thats Just Good Teaching! Th.docx

Gloria Ladson-Billings
But That's Just Good Teaching! The Case
for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
FOR THE PAST 6 YEARS I have been engaged in
research with excellent teachers of African American
students (see, for example, Ladson-Billings, 1990,
1992b, 1992c, 1994). Given the dismal academic
performance of many African American students (The
College Board, 1985), I am not surprised that various
administrators, teachers, and teacher educators have
asked me to share and discuss my findings so that
they might incorporate them in their work. One usual

response to what I share is the comment around which
I have based this article, "But, that's just good
teaching!" Instead of some "magic bullet" or intricate
formula and steps for instruction, some members of
my audience are shocked to hear what seems to them
like some rather routine teaching strategies that are a
part of good teaching. My response is to affirm that,
indeed, I am describing good teaching, and to
question why so little of it seems to be occurring in
the classrooms populated by African American
students.
The pedagogical excellence I have studied is
good teaching, but it is much more than that. This
article is an attempt to describe a pedagogy I have
come to identify as "culturally relevant" (Ladson-
Billings, 1992a) and to argue for its centrality in the
academic success of African American and other
children who have not been well served by our

nation's public schools. First, I provide some
background information about
Gloria Ladson-Billings is associate professor of education at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
THEORY lNTO PRACTICE, Volume 34, Number 3, Summer
1995
Copyright 1995 College of Education, The Ohio State
University
0040-5841/95$1.25
other attempts to look at linkages between school
and culture. Next, I discuss the theoretical grounding
of culturally relevant teaching in the context of a 3-
year study of successful teachers of African

American students. I conclude this discussion with
further examples of this pedagogy in action.
Linking Schooling and Culture
Native American educator Cornel Pewewardy
(1993) asserts that one of the reasons Indian children
experience difficulty in schools is that educators
traditionally have attempted to insert culture into the
education, instead of inserting education into the
culture. This notion is, in all probability, true for
many students who are not a part of the White,
middle-class mainstream. For almost 15 years,
anthropologists have looked at ways to develop a
closer fit between students' home culture and the
school. This work has had a variety of labels
including "culturally appropriate" (Au & Jordan,
1981), "culturally congruent" (Mohatt & Erickson,
1981), "culturally responsive" (Cazden & Leggett,

1981; Erickson & Mohatt, 1982), and "culturally
compatible" (Jordan, 1985; Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp,
1987). It has attempted to locate the problem of
discontinuity between what students experience at
home and what they experience at school in the
speech and language interactions of teachers and
students. These sociolinguists have suggested that if
students' home language is incorporated into the
classroom, students are more likely to experience
academic success.
THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Summer 1995
Culturally Relevant Teaching

Villegas (1988), however, has argued that these micro-
ethnographic studies fail to deal adequately with the
macro social context in which student failure takes place.
A concern I have voiced about studies situated in speech
and language interactions is that, in general, few have
considered the needs of African American students.
1
Irvine (1990) dealt with the lack of what she
termed "cultural synchronization" between teachers and
African American students. Her analysis included the
micro-level classroom interactions, the "midlevel"
institutional context (i.e., school practices and policies
such as tracking and disciplinary practices), and the
macro-level societal context. More recently Perry's
(1993) analysis has included the historical context of the
African American's educational struggle. All of this
work--micro through macro level--has contributed to my

conception of culturally relevant pedagogy.
What is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy?
In the current attempts to improve pedagogy,
several scholars have advanced well-conceived
conceptions of pedagogy. Notable among these scholars
are Shulman (1987), whose work conceptualizes
pedagogy as consisting of subject matter knowledge,
pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content
knowledge, and Berliner (1988), who doubts the ability
of expert pedagogues to relate their expertise to novice
practitioners. More recently, Bartolome (1994) has
decried the search for the "right" teaching strategies and
argued for a "humanizing pedagogy that respects and
uses the reality, history, and perspectives of students as
an integral part of educational practice" (p. 173).
I have defined culturally relevant teaching as a
pedagogy of opposition (1992c) not unlike critical
pedagogy but specifically committed to collective, not

merely individual, empowerment. Culturally relevant
pedagogy rests on three criteria or propositions: (a)
Students must experience academic success; (b) students
must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; and
(c) students must develop a critical consciousness
through which they challenge the status quo of the
current social order.
Academic success
Despite the current social inequities and hostile
classroom environments, students must develop their
160
academic skills. The way those skills are developed
may vary, but all students need literacy, numeracy,
technological, social, and political skills in order to be
active participants in a democracy. During the 1960s

when African Americans were fighting for civil rights,
one of the primary battlefronts was the classroom
(Morris, 1984). Despite the federal government's failed
attempts at adult literacy in the South, civil rights
workers such as Septima Clark and Esau Jenkins
(Brown, 1990) were able to teach successfully those
same adults by ensuring that the students learned that
which was most meaningful to them. This approach is
similar to that advocated by noted critical pedagogue
Paulo Freire (1970).
While much has been written about the need to
improve the self-esteem of African American stu-dents
(see for example, Banks & Grambs, 1972; Branch &
Newcombe, 1986; Crooks, 1970), at base students must
demonstrate academic competence. This was a clear
message given by the eight teachers who participated in
my study.
2
All of the teachers demanded, reinforced,

and produced academic ex-cellence in their students.
Thus, culturally relevant teaching requires that teachers
attend to students' academic needs, not merely make
them "feel good." The trick of culturally relevant
teaching is to get students to "choose" academic
excellence.
In one of the classrooms I studied, the teacher,
Ann Lewis
3
, focused a great deal of positive attention
on the African American boys (who were the numerical
majority in her class). Lewis, a White woman,
recognized that the African American boys possessed
social power. Rather than allow that power to influence
their peers in negative ways, Lewis challenged the boys
to demonstrate academic power by drawing on issues
and ideas they found meaningful. As the boys began to
take on academic leadership, other students saw this as
a positive trait and developed similar behaviors. Instead

of entering into an antagonistic relationship with the
boys, Lewis found ways to value their skills and
abilities and channel them in academically important
ways.
Cultural competence
Culturally relevant teaching requires that students
maintain some cultural integrity as welt as academic
excellence. In their widely cited article, Fordham and
Ogbu (1986) point to a phenomenon called "acting
White," where African American
Ladson-Billings
But That’s Just Good Teaching!
students fear being ostracized by their peers for dem-
onstrating interest in and succeeding in academic and

other school related tasks. Other scholars (Hollins, 1994;
King, 1994) have provided alternate explana-tions of this
behavior.
4
They suggest that for too many African
American students, the school remains an alien and
hostile place. This hostility is manifest in the "styling"
and "posturing" (Majors & Billson, 1992) that the school
rejects. Thus, the African American student wearing a
hat in class or baggy pants may be sanctioned for
clothing choices rather than specific behaviors. School is
perceived as a place where African American students
cannot "be themselves."
Culturally relevant teachers utilize students' culture
as a vehicle for learning. Patricia Hilliard's love of
poetry was shared with her students through their own
love of rap music. Hilliard is an African American
woman who had taught in a variety of schools, both
public and private for about 12 years. She came into

teaching after having stayed at home for many years to
care for her family. The mother of a teenaged son,
Hilliard was familiar with the music that permeates
African American youth culture. In-stead of railing
against the supposed evils of rap music, Hilliard allowed
her second grade students to bring in samples of lyrics
from what both she and the students determined to be
non-offensive rap songs.
1
Students were encouraged to
perform the songs and the teacher reproduced them on
an overhead so that they could discuss literal and
figurative meanings as well as technical aspects of
poetry such as rhyme scheme, alliteration, and
onomatopoeia.
Thus, while the students were comfortable us-ing
their music, the teacher used it as a bridge to school
learning. Their understanding of poetry far exceeded
what either the state department of education or the local

school district required. Hilliard's work is an example of
how academic achievement and cultural competence can
be merged.
Another way teachers can support cultural
competence was demonstrated by Gertrude Winston, a
White woman who has taught school for 40 years.
6
Winston worked hard to involve parents in her
classroom. She created an "artist or craftsperson-in-
residence" program so that the students could both learn
from each other's parents and affirm cultural knowledge.
Winston developed a rapport with parents and invited
them to come into the classroom for I or 2 hours at a
time for a period of 2-4 days. The parents, in
consultation with Winston, demonstrated skills upon
which Winston later built.

For example, a parent who was known in the
community for her delicious sweet potato pies did a 2-
day residency in Winston's fifth grade classroom. On
the first day, she taught a group of students
7
how to
make the pie crust. Winston provided supplies for the
pie baking and the students tried their hands at making
the crusts. They placed them in the refrigerator
overnight and made the filling the following day. The
finished pies were served to the entire class.
The students who participated in the "seminar"
were required to conduct additional research on var-
ious aspects of what they learned. Students from the pie
baking seminar did reports on George Washing-ton
Carver and his sweet potato research, conducted taste
tests, devised a marketing plan for selling pies, and
researched the culinary arts to find out what kind of
preparation they needed to become cooks and chefs.

Everyone in Winston's class was required to write a
detailed thank you note to the artist/crafts-person.
Other residencies were done by a carpenter, a
former professional basketball player, a licensed prac-
tical nurse, and a church musician. All of Winston's
guests were parents or relatives of her students. She did
not "import" role models with whom the students did
not have firsthand experience. She was deliberate, in
reinforcing that the parents were a knowledgeable and
capable resource. Her students came to understand the
constructed nature of things such as "art," "excellence,"
and "knowledge." They also learned that what they had
and where they came from was of value.
A third example of maintaining cultural com-
petence was demonstrated by Ann Lewis, a White
woman whom I have described as "culturally Black"
(Ladson-Billings, 1992b; 1992c). In her sixth grade
classroom, Lewis encouraged the students to use their

home language while they acquired the secondary
discourse (Gee, 1989) of "standard" English. Thus, her
students were permitted to express themselves in
language (in speaking and writing) with which they
were knowledgeable and comfortable. They were then
required to "translate" to the standard form. By the end
of the year, the students were not only facile at this
"code-switching" (Smitherman, 1981) but could better
use both languages.
161
Critical consciousness
Culturally relevant teaching does not imply that it

is enough for students to chose academic excel-lence and
remain culturally grounded if those skills and abilities
represent only an individual achievement. Beyond those
individual characteristics of academic achievement and
cultural competence, students must develop a broader
sociopolitical consciousness that allows them to critique
the cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that
produce and maintain social inequities. If school is about
preparing students for active citizenship, what better
citizenship tool than the ability to critically analyze the
society?
Freire brought forth the notion of "conscienti-
zation," which is "a process that invites learners to
engage the world and others critically" (McLaren, 1989,
p. 195). However, Freire's work in Brazil was not
radically different from work that was being done in the
southern United States (Chilcoat & Ligon, 1994) to
educate and empower African Americans who were

disenfranchised.
In the classrooms of culturally relevant teach-ers,
students are expected to "engage the world and others
critically." Rather than merely bemoan the fact that their
textbooks were out of date, several of the teachers in the
study, in conjunction with their students, critiqued the
knowledge represented in the textbooks, and the system
of inequitable funding that allowed middle-class students
to have newer texts. They wrote letters to the editor of
the local newspaper to inform the community of the
situation, The teachers also brought in articles and
papers that rep-resented counter knowledge to help the
students develop multiple perspectives on a variety of
social and historical phenomena.
Another example of this kind of teaching was
reported in a Dallas newspaper (Robinson, 1993). A
group of African American middle school students were
involved in what they termed "community problem

solving" (see Tate, this issue). The kind of social action
curriculum in which the students participated is similar
to that advocated by scholars who argue that students
need to be "centered" (Asante, 1991; Tate, 1994) or the
subjects rather than the objects of study.
Culturally Relevant Teaching in Action
As previously mentioned, this article and its
theoretical undergirding come from a 3-year study of
successful teachers of African American students.
162
The teachers who participated in the study were ini-
tially selected by African American parents who be-
lieved them to be exceptional. Some of the parents'
reasons for selecting the teachers were the enthusiasm
their children showed in school and learning while in
their classrooms, the consistent level of respect they

received from the teachers, and their perception that the
teachers understood the need for the students to operate
in the dual worlds of their home community and the
White community.
In addition to the parents' recommendations, I
solicited principals' recommendations. Principals'
reasons for recommending teachers were the low
number of discipline referrals, the high attendance
rates, and standardized test scores.
8
Teachers whose
names appeared as both parents' and principals' rec-
ommendations were asked to participate in the study.
Of the nine teachers' names who appeared on both lists,
eight were willing to participate. Their partici-pation
required an in-depth ethnographic interview (Spradley,
1979), unannounced classroom visitations, videotaping
of their teaching, and participation in a research

collective with the other teachers in the study. This
study was funded for 2 years. In a third year I did a
follow-up study of two of the teachers to investigate
their literacy teaching (Ladson-Billings, 1992b; 1992c).
Initially, as I observed the teachers I could not see
patterns or similarities in their teaching. Some seemed
very structured and regimented, using daily routines
and activities. Others seemed more open or
unstructured. Learning seemed to emerge from stu-dent
initiation and suggestions. Still others seemed eclectic-
very structured for certain activities and unstructured
for others. It seemed to be a researcher's nightmare-no
common threads to pull their practice together in order
to relate it to others. The thought of their pedagogy as
merely idiosyncratic, a product of their personalities
and individual perspectives, left me both frustrated and
dismayed. However, when I was able to go back over
their interviews and later when we met together as a

group to discuss their practice, I could see that in order
to understand their practice it was necessary to go
beyond the surface features of teaching "strategies"
(Bartolome, 1994). The philosophical and ideological
underpinnings of their practice, i.e. how they thought
about themselves as teachers and how they thought
about others (their students, the students' parents, and
other
Ladson-Billings
community members), how they structured social
relations within and outside of the classroom, and how
they conceived of knowledge, revealed their similarities
and points of congruence.
9

All of the teachers identified strongly with
teaching. They were not ashamed or embarrassed about
their professions. Each had chosen to teach and, more
importantly, had chosen to teach in this low-income,
largely African American school district. The teachers
saw themselves as a part of the community and teaching
as a way to give back to the community. They
encouraged their students to do the same. They believed
their work was artistry, not a technical task that could be
accomplished in a recipe-like fashion. Fundamental to
their beliefs about teaching was that all of the students
could and must succeed. Consequently, they saw their
responsibility as working to guarantee the success of
each student. The students who seemed furthest behind
received plenty of individual attention and
encouragement.
The teachers kept the relations between them-

selves and their students fluid and equitable. They
encouraged the students to act as teachers, and they,
themselves, often functioned as learners in the class-
room. These fluid relationships extended beyond the
classroom and into the community. Thus, it was com-
mon for the teachers to be seen attending community
functions (e.g., churches, students' sports events) and
using community services (e.g., beauty parlors, stores).
The teachers attempted to create a bond with all of the
students, rather than an idiosyncratic, individualistic
connection that might foster an unhealthy
competitiveness. This bond was nurtured by the teachers'
insistence on creating a community of learn-ers as a
priority. They encouraged the students to learn
collaboratively, teach each other, and be responsible for
each other's learning.
As teachers in the same district, the teachers in this
study were responsible for meeting the same state and

local curriculum guidelines. 10 However, the way they
met and challenged those guidelines helped to define
them as culturally relevant teachers. For these teachers,
knowledge is continuously recreated, recycled, and
shared by the teachers and the students. Thus, they were
not dependent on state curriculum frameworks or
textbooks to decide what and how to teach.
For example, if the state curriculum framework
called for teaching about the "age of exploration,"
they used this as an opportunity to examine conven-
tional interpretations and introduce alternate ones. The
content of the curriculum was always open to critical
analysis.
The teachers exhibited a passion about what they
were teaching-showing enthusiasm and vitality about
what was being taught and learned. When students

came to them with skill deficiencies, the teachers
worked to help the students build bridges or scaffolding
so that they could be proficient in the more challenging
work they experienced in these classrooms.
For example, in Margaret Rossi's sixth grade
class, all of the students were expected to learn alge-
bra. For those who did not know basic number facts,
Rossi provided calculators. She believed that by us-ing
particular skills in context (e.g., multiplication and
division in the context of solving equations), the
students would become more proficient at those skills
while acquiring new learning.
Implications for Further Study
I believe this work has implications for both the
research and practice communities. For researchers, I
suggest that this kind of study must be replicated again
and again. We need to know much more about the

practice of successful teachers for African American
and other students who have been poorly served by our
schools. We need to have an opportunity to explore
alternate research paradigms that include the voices of
parents and communities in non-exploitative ways.
11
For practitioners, this research reinforces the fact
that the place to find out about classroom practices is
the naturalistic setting of the classroom and from the
lived experiences of teachers. Teachers need not shy
away from conducting their own research about their
practice (Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1991). Their unique
perspectives and personal investment in good practice
must not be overlooked. For both groups-researchers
and practitioners alike-this work is designed to
challenge us to reconsider what we mean by "good"
teaching, to look for it in some unlikely places, and to
challenge those who suggest it cannot be made

available to all children.
Notes
1. Some notable exceptions to this failure to consider
achievement strategies for African American students
are
163
Ways With Words (Heath, 1983); "Fostering Early Liter-
acy Through Parent Coaching" (Edwards, 1991); and
"Achieving Equal Educational Outcomes for Black Chil-
dren" (Hale-Benson, 1990).
2. I have written extensively about this study, its meth-
odology, findings, and results elsewhere. For a full dis-

cussion of the study, see Ladson-Billings (1994).
3. All study participants' names are pseudonyms.
4. At the 1994 annual meeting of the American Educa-
tional Research Association, King and Hollins presented
a symposium entitled, "The Burden of Acting White
Revisited."
5. The teacher acknowledged the racism, misogyny, and
explicit sexuality that is a part of the lyrics of some rap
songs. Thus, the students were directed to use only those
songs they felt they could "sing to their parents."
6. Winston retired after the first year of the study but
continued to participate in the research collaborative
throughout the study.
7. Because the residency is more than a demonstration
and requires students to work intensely with the artist or
craftsperson, students must sign up for a particular artist.
The typical group size was 5-6 students.
8. Standardized test scores throughout this district were

very low. However, the teachers in the study
distinguished themselves because students in their
classrooms consistently produced higher test scores than
their grade level colleagues.
9. As I describe the teachers I do not mean to suggest
that they had no individual personalities or practices.
However, what I was looking for in this study were ways
to describe the commonalties of their practice. Thus,
while this discussion of culturally relevant teaching may
appear to infer an essentialized notion of teaching prac-
tice, none is intended. Speaking in this categorical man-
ner is a heuristic for research purposes.
10. The eight teachers were spread across four schools in
the district and were subjected to the specific admin-
istrative styles of four different principals.
11. Two sessions at the 1994 annual meeting of the
American Educational Research Association in New Or-
leans entitled, "Private Lives in Public Conversations:

Ethics of Research Across Communities of Color," dealt
with concerns for the ethical standards of research in
non-White communities.
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Students’ Journal
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Caring and Understanding “As
Nearly as Possible”: Towards
Culturally Responsive Caring
Across Differences
James C. Eslinger
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto
Although teachers claim that caring for students is their main
reason

for entering the profession, research indicates that many urban
students
describe their teachers as uncaring. This article delineates a
culturally
responsive form of caring that juxtaposes Nel Noddings’ theory
of care
and Gloria Ladson-Billings’ theory of culturally relevant
pedagogy.
Responding to the demographic imbalance between teacher and
student
populations in urban schools, culturally responsive caring is
facilitated
by three factors: White teachers need to (1) develop a culturally
diverse
knowledge base; (2) interrogate their identity, position, and
privilege;
and (3) critically examine curriculum and pedagogy. These
factors can
potentially influence White teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and
practices,
which may enable racialized minority students to accept, rather
than
reject, their attempts to care.
Keywords: teacher-student relationships, urban schooling, care
theory
My teacher last year yelled at us all the time, but I don’t think
he cared about
us because all he did was yell, and he never said the good things
that we did,
only the bad things. I don’t think he liked us. (Howard, 2002, p.
438)

The teaching force in the province of Ontario is comprised
overwhelmingly of educators
who are White, female, middle-class, and who speak English as
a first language. This is
in stark contrast to the majority of students enrolled in urban
schools, who are
predominantly racialized minorities and immigrants from poor
and working-class
J. C. Eslinger
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2
families whose first and home languages are not English (Gerin-
Lajoie, 2008).
Consequently, scholars have raised concerns regarding the
effectiveness of pre-service
teacher education programs to adequately prepare White
teachers to work with racialized
minority students (Solomon, Portelli, Daniel, & Campbell,
2005).
A number of recent studies have shown that students
consistently cite caring
teachers as the most important factor contributing to their
successful experiences in
school (Garrett, Barr, & Rothman, 2009; Noblit, Rogers, &
McCadden, 1995). For
students from racialized minority groups, who often experience
schools as alienating and
disempowering—as the epigraph that opens this paper reveals—
the need for caring

teachers is even more critical than for their more privileged
peers (Howard, 2002). Data
from the Toronto District School Board, for example, reveals
alarmingly disproportionate
push-out rates for racialized minority students: 37% to 40% of
students who speak
Spanish and Somali, as well as English-speaking Caribbean
students, leave school before
graduating from high school. These student groups also have the
lowest EQAO test
scores, the lowest rates of school attendance, and the highest
suspension rates in the
Board (Brown, 2006, 2009; McKell, 2010).
So how should White teachers care and understand across
differences? In this
paper, I aim to address this important yet difficult question by
bringing together Nel
Noddings’ ethic of care (1984) and Gloria Ladson-Billings’
theory of culturally relevant
pedagogy (1995). I argue that White teachers will never be able
to completely understand
the lived realities and systemic conditions of racism that people
from racialized minority
groups experience. However, they need to cultivate a deeper
knowledge and experiential
base and interrogate their own identities and privileges in order
to bridge differences “as
nearly as possible” (Noddings, 1984, p. 16). While teachers will
never be able to fully put
themselves in the shoes of “others,” a deep understanding of the
roots, processes, and
effects of individual and institutional racism—as well as an
ongoing self-examination of
how racism operates and how it benefits them—is crucial if
White teachers are to work

effectively with students from racialized minority groups.
Schools as Oppressive and Uncaring Spaces
I contend that teachers not only occupy positions of authority in
schools, but also become
gatekeepers of the dominant society. Schools are powerful
institutions that privilege
Eurocentric and middle-class values and norms, which reflect,
and are reinforced by, the
dominant mainstream. Teachers have the power to transmit and
reinforce school and
societal norms to their students. Many stress the acquisition and
practice of normalized
and universalized ideas, beliefs, and behaviours, which are
based on the ideology of the
dominant sectors (i.e., White and middle-class). Since these
knowledges and practices are
valued by the dominant mainstream, some scholars and
educators maintain that teachers
ought to impart them and students ought to acquire them
(Payne, 2005).
For many students from racialized minority groups, what often
ensues is a process
of assimilation in which they are expected to conform to White,
middle-class worldviews
and ideologies. Racialized minority students experience a
cultural conflict between their
home and school contexts, and feel that their home and cultural
backgrounds are
minimized and devalued in schools (Dei, 2010; Delpit, 2006;
James & Saul, 2007).

Caring and Understanding “As Nearly as Possible”:
Towards Culturally Responsive Caring Across Differences
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3
Schools, then, become oppressive agents and sites of social
reproduction that uphold the
racial and socio-economic status quo, rather than agents and
sites of liberation and
emancipation. As a result, many poor, immigrant, and racialized
minority students
become disengaged and unsuccessful academically in school.
In response to the educational crisis for students from racialized
minority groups,
various reform initiatives have been developed and
implemented. At the macro-level, the
push for “teacher quality” (Darling-Hammond, 2005) and
“research-based instructional
strategies” (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2004) highlights
responses to critiques of
teacher preparation, ability, and pedagogy. School districts have
created alternatively
themed-schools, such as Afrocentric and boys-only schools,
have put a cap on class sizes,
and have expanded Head Start and early learning programs
(Elmore, 2004) in an effort to
better support struggling students. Schools have also turned to
pre-packaged curriculum
programs, which promise to provide the ‘silver bullet’ to

waning academic achievement
(Garan, 2002). What is sorely missing from school reform
efforts and discourses,
however, is the affective domain of teaching and learning. I
contend that without
considering and cultivating culturally responsive caring
relationships between teachers
and students, the academic success for many students from
racialized minority groups
will remain, in the words of Langston Hughes (1990), as a
“dream deferred” (p. 221).
Noddings’ Ethic of Care
Feminist philosopher Nel Noddings (1984) calls for educators to
re-imagine schooling as
a moral enterprise through an ethic of care. She argues that the
main aim of education
should be to “nurtur[e] the growth of competent, caring, loving,
and lovable persons” (p.
vii). For Noddings, both caring and being cared for are basic
human needs and are
fundamental to human relationships. From the moment we are
born into the world, we are
engaged in the process of caring. As infants, care is vital to our
very survival and, during
each stage of human life, there is a need to be cared for,
understood, received, respected,
and recognized. Noddings extends her notion of caring to
animals, plants, things, and
ideas. However, for this article, I focus on her concept of caring
relationships between the
one-caring and the cared-for. More specifically, in the context
of schooling, I situate
teachers as the one-caring and students as the cared-for.

In cultivating caring relationships as a reciprocal progression,
the process begins
with the “engrossment” by the one-caring towards the cared-for.
Engrossment does not
refer to infatuation or obsession, but instead highlights how the
one-caring becomes
receptive and attentive to the cared-for. In doing this, the one-
caring attempts to “grasp
one’s reality” by “stepping out of one’s own frame of reference
and into another’s”
(Noddings, 1984, pp. 14, 24). The one-caring becomes
engrossed with the cared-for in
order to “feel what he feels as nearly as possible” (p. 16). He
acts in a way that signals to
the cared-for that he is making an “attempt to care” (p. 37). The
word “attempt” is crucial
to highlight because, unless the cared-for chooses to receive and
accept the caring, such
an interaction cannot be considered caring. The relationship is
only complete when the
cared-for receives the attempt and signals to the one-caring that
it has been accepted. In
this regard, the one-caring’s needs and interests become
secondary to those of the cared-
for through what Noddings calls “motivational displacement.”
Therefore, Noddings’
J. C. Eslinger
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ethic of care is relational, reciprocal, and dependent upon the
actions of both the one-
caring and the cared-for.
Noddings’ care theory has received a number of criticisms from
educational
theorists. Some contend that it is too soft or feminine
(Hoagland, 1990). Noddings
counters this criticism by saying that “there is nothing mushy
about caring. It is the
strong, resilient backbone of human life” (1992, p. 195). Others
suggest that Noddings’
theory of care is problematic because it does not take into
account diverse ethno-racial
and cultural differences between the one-caring and the cared-
for (Thompson, 1998;
Wilder, 1999). I want to build on this critique by raising a
question: Can teachers who are
not members of racialized minority groups “grasp the reality” or
feel what members of
those groups feel? More directly, can White teachers truly
become engrossed with their
racialized minority students? Noddings urges teachers as the
one-caring to “feel with” or
see through the eyes of their students as the cared-for (1984, p.
30). But the question
remains: What would this look like? Is such a relational
aspiration even possible?
Ladson-Billings’ Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Critical race scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994, 1995)
developed the theory of
culturally relevant pedagogy as an intervention to the ongoing
academic

underachievement of students from racialized minority groups
generally, and of African
American students in particular. Culturally relevant pedagogy
(CRP) works to minimize
the cultural mismatch that students experience between home
and school by urging
teachers to utilize their students’ home and cultural
backgrounds as resources and bridges
for school curriculum, teaching, and learning. CRP is based on
the assumption that, when
teachers integrate and employ their students’ frames of
references, lived realities, and
interests, student learning becomes more personally meaningful.
Consequently, students
become more engaged and perform better academically. Ladson-
Billings draws on Paulo
Freire’s (1970) work by honouring students’ cultural
backgrounds and ways of knowing,
thereby transforming classrooms into spaces of liberation. CRP
has become “useful for
teaching students of any race or ethnicity” (1994, p. 15), and
has been utilized with
Latino/a, indigenous, and Asian students in the United States,
and with Aboriginal and
Black students in Canada (Aguilera, Lipka, Demmert, &
Tippeconnic, 2007; Braithwaite
& James, 1996; Gay, 2000; Good, Masewicz, & Vogel, 2010;
Maina, 1997).
Although education scholars have convincingly demonstrated
the positive impact
of utilizing culturally relevant and anti-racist pedagogy for
teacher and student
empowerment (Dei, 2010; May & Sleeter, 2010), many White
teachers remain reluctant
to address race and racism in their classrooms. They see

conversations about race as
political, uncomfortable, and not classroom appropriate (Young,
2010; Troyna & Rizvi,
1998). Rather than recognizing the operations and effects of
systemic racial privileging
and discrimination, many White teachers adopt what they see as
a ‘colour-blind’
mentality, arguing that they “do not see race, just kids.” These
teachers fail to account for
how race and racism are embedded in school and society,
thereby privileging some
groups and marginalizing others. Patrick Solomon and his
colleagues (2005) frame this
resistance as a “discourse of denial” that is embedded in
“ideological incongruence;
liberalist notions of individualism and meritocracy; and
negating white capital” (p. 153).
When asked to confront the issue and to interrogate their taken-
for-granted privileges,
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5
some become angry and frustrated. As a result, race and racism
“are regarded as realities
and sites of contention that would best be addressed by ignoring
it” (Solomon et al.,

2005, p. 161). Thus the colour-blind mentality and the affective
discomfort of White
teachers, lead to minimal, if any, meaningful anti-racist work in
schools (Carr & Lund,
2007). Such a situation leads me to ask: If White teachers do
not confront race and
racism, how will they truly care about, and understand, students
from racialized minority
groups?
Towards Culturally Responsive Caring
Teachers often cite caring for students as a main reason why
they joined the profession,
yet many students from racialized minority groups report
feeling that teachers do not care
(Dei, Mazzuca, & McIsaac, 1997; Grant & Sleeter, 2007). I
intend to address the
disconnect between teachers and students by bringing together
insights from Nel
Noddings’ ethic of care and Gloria Ladson-Billings’ culturally
relevant pedagogy. I do
this through what I am calling “culturally responsive caring”
which expands upon what
another scholar frames as “culturally relevant caring” (Parsons,
2005). I want to put
forward the idea that White teachers may be attempting to
become what Noddings calls
the one-caring toward students from racialized minority groups.
However, they may not
be adequately conveying their attempts in a way that encourages
students as the cared-for
to accept their intentions. A substantial part of White teachers’
inability to adequately
convey their care, I contend, is their resistance to addressing

issues of race and racism. It
is my hope that by juxtaposing Ladson-Billings’ CRP with
Noddings’ ethic of care, we
might have a framework through which White teachers can learn
to care in a much more
culturally responsive way that will assist them to become more
engrossed with their
students “as nearly as possible” (Noddings, 1984, p. 16).
Culture consists of “values, traditions, social and political
relationships, and
worldviews created, shared, and transformed by a group of
people bound together by a
common history, geographic location, language, social class,
religion, or other shared
identity” (Nieto, 2004, p. 146). It shapes how one views and
interacts with the world at
large. Hence, how teachers demonstrate their caring is
intricately tied to culture. Before
moving forward, it’s important to recognize the following
concerning White teachers
working with students from racialized groups: First, culture is
neither static nor
monolithic. It changes and varies between groups and within
groups. However, it is
important to respect the broad patterns that emerge when
examining populations. Second,
while there are many exemplary White teachers who forge
caring relationships with
students from racialized groups, research indicates that there are
barriers and limitations
to whiteness (Marx, 2008). Rather than dismissing these
barriers as inevitable and
insurmountable, teachers who employ culturally responsive
caring must acknowledge and
work within and through these limitations. Teachers who do this

are demonstrating
commitment not only to their students, but also to themselves as
they interrogate their
own taken-for-granted norms, assumptions, and practices.
Culturally responsive caring is facilitated by three factors.
White teachers need: 1)
to develop a rich, and culturally diverse knowledge base; 2) to
interrogate their identities
and the privileges associated with them; and 3) to critically
examine curriculum and
pedagogy. These factors are necessary for White teachers to
fulfill Noddings’
J. C. Eslinger
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6
requirement of engrossment in a way that will hopefully lead
students to accept, rather
than reject, their attempts to care.
Developing a Culturally Diverse Knowledge Base
Teachers can develop a culturally diverse knowledge base in
part through community
immersion as a means to better understand students’ values,
traditions and worldviews,
learning and communication styles, relational patterns, and
gender role socialization

(Delpit, 2006; Gay 2000; Irvine, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1995;
Paley, 1979). A culturally
diverse knowledge base is important, especially in urban areas,
because the majority of
teachers do not live in the neighborhoods where they work
(Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, &
Wyckoff, 2005). The race and class differences between
teachers and students in urban
settings can compound the difficulty of developing caring
relations. Since White teachers
“can’t teach what [they] don’t know,” to borrow from Gary
Howard (2006, p. xv), they
must seize opportunities to know their students meaningfully.
By developing a rich
knowledge base, teachers can move beyond the position of
cultural voyeurs and engage
with the communities in which they work.
Teacher immersion in the lived realities of their students can be
a powerful
catalyst for developing caring relations. Since the vast majority
of White teachers have
not been victims of systemic racism, community immersion can
provide them with
deeper insights into the various manifestations and impacts of
oppression and
marginalization on the students and their communities. Lopez,
Scribner, &
Mahitivanichcha (2001) conducted a study of successful
teachers in “migrant impacted”
schools in the United States. Although a substantial number of
teachers in these schools
were White, they sought opportunities to build relationships
with students and families
and to become actively involved in the communities. Home
visits provided an avenue

through which teachers learned about their students’ life stories
and gained knowledge
about their families on a more personal level. Aside from home
visits, teachers may
choose to shop at stores, eat at restaurants, and attend religious
services in their students’
communities. Attending students’ after-school events and
community meetings can offer
insights not only into student interests and community concerns,
but also into individual
and institutional racism.
Identity Interrogation
Fundamental to understanding the detrimental and lasting
effects of racism is White
teachers’ interrogation of power and privilege and, more
specifically, their participation
and complicity in an educational system that has pushed out
many students from
racialized minority groups. While unpacking issues of power,
difference, and inequity
can be quite difficult for many White teachers, it is essential if
we are to understand
racially marginalized students. Specifically, White teachers
must become conscious of
whiteness and the unearned privileges that accompany
whiteness. According to Peggy
McIntosh (1993), whiteness offers numerous privileges that one
can “count on cashing
each day … like an invisible, weightless knapsack of special
provisions, maps, passports,
codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks” (p. 61).

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7
White people have benefited in schools and in a society that has
granted them
privileges through dysconscious racism, or an “uncritical habit
of mind (including
perceptions, attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs) that justifies
inequity and exploitation by
accepting the existing order of things as given” (King, 1991, p.
135). This uncritical habit
legitimates the myth of meritocracy that permeates neoliberal
discussions of academic
underachievement. White teachers need to seriously unpack
such uncritical assumptions
in order to understand the historical and contemporary dynamics
of race and racism that
privilege Whites and marginalize people from racialized
minority groups. Unpacking
dysconscious assumptions entails having White teachers
examine their own values,
biases, and stereotypes. Genuine self-reflexivity is necessary for
White teachers so that
they can challenge their own, as well as other people’s,
perceptions, attitudes,
assumptions and beliefs.
Critical Examination of Curriculum and Pedagogy

Lastly, White teachers must examine curriculum and pedagogy
through a critical lens.
This includes carefully scrutinizing textbooks and other
teaching resources for
implications that are not only racist, but classist, sexist,
heteronormative, and ableist as
well. Scholars have criticized curricular materials for
reinforcing stereotypes and failing
to adopt diverse cultural perspectives. Their research reveals
that textbooks and other
teaching supplements mainly focus on White and Eurocentric
worldviews. By privileging
curriculum about, and for, the dominant mainstream, students
who represent diverse
perspectives and ways of knowing are marginalized (Aikenhead
& Michell, 2011; May &
Sleeter, 2010). Teachers need to incorporate learning materials
that represent student
diversity and lived experiences because such curriculum will
contribute to their students’
cultural competence. In other words, students will see
themselves represented in the
curriculum in a more inclusive and positive light, thereby
preserving their cultural
integrity (Ladson-Billings, 1994).
The acquisition of cultural knowledge, such as developing an
understanding of
student language and communication style, is imperative if
teachers are to craft their
pedagogy in a way that is congruent to their students’ lives. For
example, Hefflin (2002)
found that teachers who utilized their African American
students’ home language

interaction patterns in the classroom with them saw increased
academic success for these
students. Similarly, critical scholars such as Christopher Emdin
(2011) and Ernest
Morrell (2008) argue for the use of hip-hop music in the
classroom. They posit that the
verbal and gestural language inherent in hip-hop can be
leveraged as powerful
pedagogical tools for teaching urban youth.
Conclusion
At the heart of culturally responsive caring are affective,
reciprocal relationships based
on mutual understanding, respect, and trust. Admittedly, for
White teachers working with
students and families from racialized minority groups,
developing these relationships can
be challenging. Many racialized minority students and parents
experience schools as
Eurocentric, and the White teachers who work in them as
oppressive and uncaring,
ostensibly operating on racist assumptions and practices that
devalue their cultural
J. C. Eslinger
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8
backgrounds (Vaught, 2011). Since schools and teachers
become sites of social

reproduction and assimilation into the dominant mainstream,
they fail to utilize the
cultural capital that students from racialized minority groups
already have. Consequently,
many students from racialized minority groups deem schools
subtractive and
disempowering (Valenzuela, 1999).
At the same time, some White teachers have internalized what
Enid Lee (2011)
calls a “Columbus or Christ mentality.”i Rooted in a deficit
model of thinking (McMahon
& Portelli, 2004), this mentality is underpinned by a White
supremacist and colonial
notion that White teachers are needed to rescue racialized
minority students who require
salvation from their living conditions. Culturally responsive
caring is the antithesis to
such a notion because it establishes understanding and respect
across differences as
essential. It also positions teachers and students as co-
constructors of knowledge in a
Freirian way, in which teachers become learners and students
become the instructors of
school and society (Freire, 1970).
Teaching is a moral endeavour, and caring relationships are a
prerequisite to the
success of many racialized minority students. In agreement with
Noddings’ position on
the ethic of care, I do not believe that culturally responsive
caring needs a checklist or
recipe for implementation. Noddings herself states that caring is
a “way of being in
relation, not a set of specific behaviours” (1984, p. 17). My
goal in bringing Nel

Noddings’ thinking into relation with the work of Gloria
Ladson-Billings has not been to
provide a list of subsequent steps to more caring, inclusive
teaching, but rather to offer a
broad framework that can stimulate and enhance discussions
about the development of
caring relationships through a cultural lens. Culturally
responsive caring is an ethical
ideal by which White teachers can strive to build and strengthen
relationships with
racialized minority students. In order to realize the potential of
caring relations, students
must be convinced that teachers care and must agree to accept
their caring efforts. As
such, culturally responsive caring is a reciprocal dynamic
between teachers and students
that is not always guaranteed, yet is extremely necessary for the
improvement of teaching
and learning across differences.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Roland Sintos Coloma for feedback on an
earlier version of this
paper.
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Notes
1 By “Columbus or Christ mentality” Lee is referring to
colonial efforts that have used the
Christian faith as rationale and justification for imperialism,
domination, and forced
assimilation on members of minority status groups. The use of
faith to justify oppressive
and violent acts has been examined by numerous postcolonial
scholars (see Loomba,
2005; Pui-Lan & Donaldson, 2001; Young, 2001).
James C. Eslinger is currently a lecturer and a PhD student in
Curriculum, Teaching and
Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto,
Ontario, Canada. He can be contacted at [email protected]

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