The Criticisms of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy have been widely broadcast in the first half of the 2020s. The culture wars waging over Anti-Woke rhetoric and equitable human rights are not burning out anytime soon. This will be addressed, however, before this, there are also criticisms existing within the theory regarding its implementation within the classroom. 

Misappropriations

In "'Good Teachers” with “Good Intentions': Misappropriations of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy'", Evans, Turner, and Allen (2020) discuss the arrival of equity frameworks for culturally relevant pedagogy as a means to bridge the divide that grew between educators and their learners and society and its marginalized populations. In the article, Evans and others outline three Misappropriations of Culturally Relevant Pedagogical Practices:

• The Smokescreen of Good Intentions
• Culture as a Hook to Gain Attention
• CRP as a Tool of Assimilation

As I read through these Misappropriations, I was nervous. What if I was guilty of these practices? As a white teacher of mostly Black and Brown students, I know the work of unlearning biases indoctrinated into me from my cultural upbringing is crucial to building relational capacity with my students. My coursework for obtaining an English as a Second Language Endorsement on my license bolstered a growing passion for cultural competency. What if I was guilty of making culturally relevant pedagogy just about the food, flags, and fun of another culture? What if I have ignored the heart of being a culturally competent educator? 

The Smokescreen of Good Intentions

Evans, Turner, and Allen refer to DiAngelo's White Fragility (2018) wherein she explains that when culturally relevant practices appear important, white people can maintain their privilege by ignoring cultural relevancy outside of the classroom. When culturally responsive pedagogy is a smokescreen, educators do not contemplate their own biases.

Culture as a Hook to Gain Attention

The use of culture to engage students in content area curriculum is the second in the list of Misappropriations of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. The criticism is that educators incorporate culture by using a trick (i.e., hip-hop song lyrics) to build interest in a topic, only to tie the student into the lesson from the official curriculum. In doing so, the educator (possibly unknowingly) continues to perpetuate systems of oppression.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy as a Tool of Assimilation

When the teacher, school, district, board of education, and the educational system view the student’s life experiences as stumbling blocks and challenges that need to be overcome, culturally responsive pedagogy is used as a tool of assimilation. Pedagogically we base perspectives on the predominant culture, often a white, middle-class “standard” of what success looks like. Evans, Turner, and Allen call for preservice teachers to be trained in Culturally Responsive Pedagogical methods to be more adequately prepared to tackle the oppressive systems at work within the classroom of students in their charge.

Criticism of Culturally Relevancy

To reiterate an earlier statement, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (for this work, I view Culturally Responsive Pedagogy as a tenet of Cultural Relativism) has numerous critics within the modern War on Wokeness launched in the political arena of the United States. Kanarek (2013) argues that the theory and its practice are detrimental to American society. He further claims the theory denies reason and cannot be carried out objectively in the real world. Furthermore, Cultural Responsiveness is deemed a contradiction in that it promotes one culture over another. Kanarek describes “enculturation” as an “empirical delusion” that cannot be truly measured (p.8). He reasons that children are not sponges, simply able to absorb cultural competency.

References

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White Fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.

Evans, L. M., Turner, C. R., & Allen, K. R. (2020). “Good Teachers” with “Good Intentions”: Misappropriations of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, 15(1), 51–73. https://doi.org/10.51830/jultr.3

Kanarek, J. (2013). Critiquing Cultural Relativism. The Intellectual Standard, 2(2). https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=tis