Art, advocacy and critical exploration of content: reflections of art and literacy teachers and a school administrator

Over the last 30 years, the racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity of school-aged children in grades PK-12 has drastically changed in the United States. This demographic shift in the student population has prompted a concern among teacher educators about how to best prepare teachers to meet the needs of Black and Latino student populations in the classroom. Training teachers to be culturally responsive educators is an especially pressing need given that 86 percent of teachers (Kena et al., 2015) are White, and student demographics continue to become more racially, ethnically and culturally diverse. With research revealing that racially, ethnically and linguistically diverse students, particularly those of African and Latino decent, continue to experience an inequitable education and show large discrepancies in academic achievement when compared to their White peers despite the availability of resources in their academic communities, alternatives have been explored to meet their needs, engage them further, encourage student advocacy, build critical consciousness and provide a more equitable education. One alternative to the traditional pedagogical practices of teachers is the integration of culturally relevant arts across content areas. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop a notion of culturally relevant arts and compare how literacy and teachers of the arts from a district in “need of improvement” in New Jersey may integrate culturally relevant arts in their classrooms to create an environment that lends itself to student achievement, student advocacy and the critical exploration of content for their students who are predominately Black and Latino. Specifically, I explored how an administrator, an English literature teacher and a teacher of the arts understood, defined and implemented culturally relevant practices across the curriculum. Centered in arts and culturally relevant pedagogy, a major finding that emerged from the interviews was the importance of connecting with students. Being from the community, a similar community or having a deep understanding of the community; being someone that the students could identify with; building caring relationships with students; keeping content relevant and making connections to their lives, staying current with pop culture; ensuring that art and content areas are integrated; allowing students to question and think out of the box are examples of the ways in which teachers are able to make genuine connections with students. Through the use of educational strategies, teachers saw that they were able to engage and empower their students, even in an era when the district is undergoing a lot of change that makes it difficult to effectively educate students through the visual and performing arts and liberal arts ideology.Ed.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Jhanae E. Wingfiel