Partnerships for Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Pedagogies Through Community Walks and Mapping

Abstract

Culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies seem like “just good teaching” (Ladson-Billings, 1995) but challenge in-service and pre-service teachers’ practice. Walking tours and community mapping become tools to highlight community assets through the voices of its members, and they may help teachers in bringing the lived experiences of their students into the classroom. In this research-practice partnership with novice urban teachers, they have begun to see the community in a new light but still struggle to shift their practice - a future goal for the partnership.