Much of the literature on culturally relevant pedagogy will use the terms culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and culturally responsive teaching (CRT) interchangeably. 

Culturally relevant pedagogy is a style of teaching in which teachers purposefully use academic content and the learning process to affirm diversity and empower students to challenge the status quo (Ladson-Billings, 2000). 

In contrast, the term culturally relevant teaching was originally coined for teachers to engage “African American and other children . . . not served well by public schools” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 159). However, culturally relevant teaching is synonymous with culturally relevant pedagogy in much of the current research and literature. You will also see both terms used on this site, depending on the author cited.

Culturally relevant pedagogy prevails as a framework in which educators build all students’ critical thinking and sense of democratic citizenship and humanity by applying the content of what they are teaching to uncover a hidden curriculum, rules of the status quo, and societal injustices (Ladson-Billings, 2000). CRP empowers students to:

• Evaluate new knowledge by creating solutions to societal problems in a way that can uniquely motivate students from dominant and nondominant groups toward academic performance at the highest cognitive levels

• Build higher order thinking skills through the collective empowerment of all students toward the deconstruction of societal inequity.