What do you think?
Rate this book
Language and Literacy
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World
Prominent educators and researchers propose that schooling should be a site for sustaining cultural practices rather than eradicating them. Chapters present theoretically grounded examples of how schools can support Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander, South African, and immigrant students as part of a collective movement towards educational justice in a changing world.
304 pages, Paperback
Published May 5, 2017
97 people are currently reading
716 people want to read
About the author
Django Paris
8 books4 followersDjango Paris is the James A. and Cherry A. Banks Professor of Multicultural Education and director of the Banks Center for Educational Justice at the University of Washington. His research and teaching focus on understanding and sustaining languages, literacies, and lifeways among youth of color in the context of demographic and social change. Along with H. Samy Alim, he is the coeditor of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 29, 2025
Perhaps this is closer to a 2.5⭐️ rating ... I'm undecided. I really think this one could be awesome and 5⭐️ worthy if it did not feel so accusatory to the reader and repetitive with introducing the practice of CSP into the curriculum. Because it really does have such valuable data and postulations but it feels like they are very angry with me personally as the reader and it made it harder to be receptive to what they had to say.
July 29, 2025
Perhaps this is closer to a 2.5⭐️ rating ... I'm undecided. I really think this one could be awesome and 5⭐️ worthy if it did not feel so accusatory to the reader and repetitive with introducing the practice of CSP into the curriculum. Because it really does have such valuable data and postulations but it feels like they are very angry with me personally as the reader and it made it harder to be receptive to what they had to say.
July 22, 2019
Very insightful.
March 24, 2022
English departments seem to have been overtaken by strange reluctance to expect their community college students to learn academic English. What a strange thing to find in the very department the college depends on to prepare students for academic work. It is now a social faux pas in the English department to talk about a student needing to address a deficit in writing ability. You will be told that they are just writing in a different English, and that expecting a college student to learn academic English is creating unfair barriers to student success, which you will be told is the real reason for the achievement gap between white and non-white students. There is a sense in which the teachers have come to see academic English as oppressive and harmful to students in a deeper way than, say, calculus. Unlike calculus, English is a matter of culture and culture is the battleground of the current moment.
I came to this book because a colleague who is more in tune to what is going on in the English department, suggested this book on CSP as a way to understand what's going on. To borrow from Bob Dylan, something is going on here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (CSP) was not an enjoyable read. It seems to have been written by and for progressive social-justice minded educators in a sort of progressive cant that makes reading it a slog. It brings to mind the Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere and Ira Shore. You can definitely see the influence of those writers in CSP. You can also see that this older style of social activism is now an offshoot of or perhaps a graft onto the identity politics and anti-racism that has taken higher education by storm.
Here is what the editors write in the introductory first chapter:
"What is the purpose of schooling? In the context of the United States and other nation-states living out the legacies of genocide, land theft, enslavement, and various forms of colonialism, the answer to the question for communities of color has been rather clear: The purpose of state-sanctioned schooling has been to forward the largely assimilationist and often violent White imperial project, with students and families being asked to lose or deny their languages, literacies, cultures, and histories in order to achieve in schools."
This passage is typical of the style of writing and of the claims that will be made in the book, although the volume consists of chapters by various CSP academics. CSP itself seems allied with an earlier incarnation called Culturally Relevant Pedagogies (CRP), which I gather focused on bringing materials into the curriculum/classroom from the marginalized cultures of the students in the classroom. That sure seems like a good thing to do. Making education relevant is key to learning. But CSP seems to go beyond CRP. Now these writers share, more or less, a belief that assimilation into the mainstream (dominant) society is harmful because mainstream culture will undermine ones own prior culture and identity.
I can see how English departments who accept this premise would have a crisis of identity. Again and again the authors speak about the need for teachers to nurture the student's identity and culture in order to prepare them for the fight for a more just world in which white people are not privileged and neither is the language they speak and write. This is in line with the pedagogy of the oppressed from fifty years ago, of course, but now instead of focusing on economic inequality based on class, the conflict is now reframed in terms of marginalized cultures and identity politics.
In the end, though, I think that most professors will eventually come to realize that academic English is not going to whither away any time soon and that the best thing they can do for their students is to teach them how to read it, write it, and through that be connected to a whole wider world that their own culture might not have had access to. Without academic English, one could not even read about CSP, for example, and what a shame that would be. The fight for social justice will go on, and that is a good thing, but it really doesn't belong in the English 101 classroom.
I came to this book because a colleague who is more in tune to what is going on in the English department, suggested this book on CSP as a way to understand what's going on. To borrow from Bob Dylan, something is going on here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies (CSP) was not an enjoyable read. It seems to have been written by and for progressive social-justice minded educators in a sort of progressive cant that makes reading it a slog. It brings to mind the Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere and Ira Shore. You can definitely see the influence of those writers in CSP. You can also see that this older style of social activism is now an offshoot of or perhaps a graft onto the identity politics and anti-racism that has taken higher education by storm.
Here is what the editors write in the introductory first chapter:
"What is the purpose of schooling? In the context of the United States and other nation-states living out the legacies of genocide, land theft, enslavement, and various forms of colonialism, the answer to the question for communities of color has been rather clear: The purpose of state-sanctioned schooling has been to forward the largely assimilationist and often violent White imperial project, with students and families being asked to lose or deny their languages, literacies, cultures, and histories in order to achieve in schools."
This passage is typical of the style of writing and of the claims that will be made in the book, although the volume consists of chapters by various CSP academics. CSP itself seems allied with an earlier incarnation called Culturally Relevant Pedagogies (CRP), which I gather focused on bringing materials into the curriculum/classroom from the marginalized cultures of the students in the classroom. That sure seems like a good thing to do. Making education relevant is key to learning. But CSP seems to go beyond CRP. Now these writers share, more or less, a belief that assimilation into the mainstream (dominant) society is harmful because mainstream culture will undermine ones own prior culture and identity.
I can see how English departments who accept this premise would have a crisis of identity. Again and again the authors speak about the need for teachers to nurture the student's identity and culture in order to prepare them for the fight for a more just world in which white people are not privileged and neither is the language they speak and write. This is in line with the pedagogy of the oppressed from fifty years ago, of course, but now instead of focusing on economic inequality based on class, the conflict is now reframed in terms of marginalized cultures and identity politics.
In the end, though, I think that most professors will eventually come to realize that academic English is not going to whither away any time soon and that the best thing they can do for their students is to teach them how to read it, write it, and through that be connected to a whole wider world that their own culture might not have had access to. Without academic English, one could not even read about CSP, for example, and what a shame that would be. The fight for social justice will go on, and that is a good thing, but it really doesn't belong in the English 101 classroom.
December 17, 2020
I appreciated so much about this book. It's accessible while still engaging in relevant scholarship, it provides a range in representation of students of color as well as different educational settings, and it's a great resource for people who are beginning to learn about CSP and people who are looking to enhance their understanding.
My favorite chapter was San Pedro's on sacred truth spaces. I loved the images, the narrative analysis, and the concept.
My one qualm with this book was it doesn't provide enough concrete examples or specific curricular advice for teachers to easily transfer into their practices. There could have at least been some questions to guide the readers to think about that.
My favorite chapter was San Pedro's on sacred truth spaces. I loved the images, the narrative analysis, and the concept.
My one qualm with this book was it doesn't provide enough concrete examples or specific curricular advice for teachers to easily transfer into their practices. There could have at least been some questions to guide the readers to think about that.
December 21, 2020
A pivotal book for teachers early in their career and/or teachers that expanding on their pedagogy. The work of Paris & Alim as well as Gloria Ladson-Billings contribution to their new frameworks offered within the book. Chapter 3 completely changed how I saw my students and their linguistic skills - it made my respect and awe for them grow even further when I had context for their daily ability to move through linguistic worlds. This book would also do well as a professional development tool for social justice and/or multicultural schools / school programs.
September 29, 2018
The textbook for how to teach CSP. Chapter 1 offers a concise summary of the problematic state of education we are facing and introduces hope via a culturally sustaining approach. Each chapter is written by invited guest authors, including Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings herself. They're all strong and discuss a different take of CSP in the classroom/in practice.
August 12, 2025
This has tons of ideas and experiences from people trying to teach in a culturally sustainable way. Each chapter is a different author and area of application for using cultural sustainability in the classroom. It shows various grades, cultures, and interactions between students, teachers, and researcher.
April 11, 2019
The essays in this book cover a tremendous amount of intellectual ground. Together they act as both a useful introduction to CSP and as a deep dive into the meanings, entailments, and possibilities of taking up CSP in educational research and praxis.
August 27, 2022
a helpful book for educators today, but also insightful for others too because we need to recognize how it shapes students' thinking
moving beyond responsiveness and cultural competence to even more powerful sustaining culture.
moving beyond responsiveness and cultural competence to even more powerful sustaining culture.
March 27, 2018
Emotionally loaded words and hot air. Or academic paper pushers at work.
October 13, 2018
I needed this book for my research studies. I am hoping to do research in this area.
Read
August 1, 2019370.117 C9686 2017
August 17, 2020
A very powerful book that all educators should read.
September 21, 2020
Lots of good empirical studies here surrounding CSP.
July 23, 2022
This is just an amazing book that unpacks how to sustain pedagogies focuses on indigenous epistemologies and critical race theory.
May 6, 2023
A compelling set of classroom exercises to build a welcoming and inclusive classroom.
March 22, 2025
Dr. Paris has incredible insight into the life of a teacher and how to naturally include culturally sustaining elements into the classroom.
November 17, 2021
An insightful book with the power to change our educational system for good, for good.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews