One White Teacher's Struggle for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: The Problem of the Community

This is a case of one novice White teacher whose strong commitment to becoming a culturally relevant teacher was hindered by her struggle to develop meaningful connections to the home community of her mostly African American students. Using a hybrid methodology of action research, discourse analysis, and critical interpretive analysis of qualitative data collected over two years, I examine the practical, ideological, and discursive barriers this teacher faced while attempting to enact culturally relevant pedagogy. The deficit discourse of the school, the work life pressures on new teachers, and assumptions about Black families were significant barriers for this teacher.