Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Enough? Toward Culturally “Real”-Evant Curriculum. A Response To "Democratic Foundations For Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy", James A. Gambrell

Democracy and Education

In this response to Lingley's (2016) article "Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy," the author invites the framework of (a)spiritually responsive curriculum to include a more direct engagement with a culturally relevant curriculum as well. The author agrees with Lingley's postulation that (a)spirituality is deeply embedded within the worldview of many students in K–12 classrooms, whether educators include this important aspect of their epistemology or not. Similar to the problems that come when we ignore identities of race, gender, (a)sexuality, (dis)ability, and social class, ignoring these important characteristics of students’ lived experiences is detrimental to learning outcomes and reinforces dominating …