CRSE is an approach to teaching and learning that is inclusive of diverse cultures, histories, lived experiences, and world views. It builds on the work of Gloria Ladson-Billings, who pioneered the idea of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and articulated three aspects of student development: academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 1995). CRSE builds on the foundational work of CRP to include ideas of culturally responsive teaching (Gay, 2018) and culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris, 2012). CRSE is grounded in asset-based relationships between educators and the communities they serve.
Drawing on our understanding of research-practice partnerships and communities of practice, the AIMS Facilitation Team set out to design engagement opportunities that would leverage the collective expertise across our community and accelerate transformation in terms of how teams conceptualized and integrated CRSE into their work. We propose that it is not sufficient to simply bring teams together and let them share ideas and resources and assume that magic will happen.
Instead, as the hub facilitators, we needed to center equity and belonging in our own work; have or bring in expertise on CRSE to push the envelope on teams’ thinking; and design and facilitate collaborative opportunities with certain key features that promote action. In this roundtable discussion, we highlight experiences and evidence-based findings from our work facilitating a community of practice built around advancing mathematics education opportunities for Black and Latinx students and students experiencing poverty.
