Pedagogical Approaches

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Also Known As Culturally Responsive Teaching

Citation Formats

General Reference

Education Atlas. "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-education.interactiveatlas.org/approaches/culturally-relevant-pedagogy.

APA Style

Education Atlas. (n.d.). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-education.interactiveatlas.org/approaches/culturally-relevant-pedagogy

BibTeX

@misc{educationatlas-culturally-relevant-pedagogy,
  author = {Education Atlas},
  title = {Culturally Relevant Pedagogy},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-education.interactiveatlas.org/approaches/culturally-relevant-pedagogy},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Culturally relevant pedagogy, also called culturally responsive teaching, treats a student's own culture as a strength to build instruction on rather than expecting the student to assimilate into an unfamiliar school culture. Education scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings popularized the term and its framework in the early 1990s from observational research on teachers whose African-American students were recognized by parents and peers as both academically successful and confident in their own identity. The approach is built on validating and affirming a student's cultural heritage, using it comprehensively as a teaching resource across the classroom's methods and environment, and pursuing a liberating, transformative practice meant to empower students to question, rather than simply accept, the educational status quo.

Facts

Central Question

Can building instruction on a student's own cultural strengths, rather than asking the student to assimilate into an unfamiliar school culture, raise both achievement and cultural and critical consciousness together? 1

Most Effective For

Classrooms serving students whose home culture differs from the dominant school culture, where the approach was first documented and developed. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections