Book Chapters
Following an introduction and context for the work, Transformative Teacher Education is organized into three main sections: making sense of culturally relevant and sustaining education (CRSE), system-level implementation of CRSE, and course-level implementation of CRSE. Each section is followed by reflection questions and suggested activities for a variety of audiences.
Introduction and Context for the Work
Donna-Marie Cole, Juliet Curci, & Luca Poxonpp. 1-21
Introduction
Chapter 1: Origins of CRSE in Pennsylvania and the Community of Practice
Donna-Marie Cole, Juliet Curci, Kelly McGinn, & Luca Poxonpp. 23-37
This chapter provides context about education in Pennsylvania, official state policies related to CRSE and how they have changed over time and informed our work, and the community of practice whose members are the authors of this text’s chapters. The information included in this chapter illuminates the backdrop from which the authors of subsequent chapters tell their stories.
Sense-Making Chapters
Chapter 2: What Happens When You Mandate a Revolution? Navigating Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education
This chapter explores the revolutionary history of the mandate requiring Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education Competencies, the ways in which a small liberal arts education department in Pennsylvania navigated CRSE integration, the importance of grounding teacher education in collective racial literacy, and how approaches to curriculum and instruction change as a result. In response to the historical moment ignited by the murder of George Floyd, increased AntiAsian violence, and anti-immigrant policies in 2020, the authors’ department launched a multi-year collective self-study of their antiracist practice (Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2016). In doing this work together as a department, and inspired by racial literacy scholars including Sealey-Ruiz, Stevenson, Matias, and Gorski, the investigation resulted in what the chapter authors have begun to conceptualize as a process of Collective Racial Literacy Development (CRLD). In this chapter, they put the CRLD model into conversation with the CRSE Competencies, focusing on: reflecting on one’s own cultural lens, addressing bias, facilitating culturally relevant classroom experiences, and disrupting microaggressions. Using duoethnographic methods (Burleigh & Burm, 2022), the authors reflect upon the departmental process of integrating the CRSE Competencies. In sharing theory, stories, and concrete examples of what this process looked like in their own practice, the authors hope this chapter serves as a story of antiracist praxis in higher education that readers can use to inform the work they do within their own contexts.
Edwin Mayorga and Jen Bradleypp. 45-67
Chapter 3: From Playground to Pedagogy: How My Lived Experiences Cultivated Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Educational Practice
This chapter explores the author's journey towards culturally relevant and sustaining education. Drawing on personal experiences and research, the author discusses how social forces, cultural identity, and personal choices shape pedagogical choices. The account highlights concrete actions and commitments that embody culturally relevant and sustaining education, and illustrates the benefits for marginalized students, including strong self-efficacy and scholarly and cultural identity development.
Rochelle Peterson-Ansaripp. 69-83
Chapter 4: Moments Worth Pondering: Critically Storying to Find Culturally Sustaining Ways Forward
In this chapter, the authors explore the relationship between learning about CRSE Competency 6, “Collaborate with Families and Communities through Authentic Engagement Practices,” and actually implementing it within schools and communities. To explore this complex relationship, the authors draw upon the methodological tools of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP) to uncover what collaborative reflection reveals about how they have come to understand CRSE as professional educators. In addition, they identify how collaborative reflection might help them and other teacher educators to further evolve their own understandings of CRSE and to more effectively facilitate others’ CRSE understandings. The authors present foundational vignettes from their PK-16+ teaching experiences; collective reflection on these vignettes; and implications for teacher educators to support conclusions about the importance of collaborative and critical reflection on teaching stories. Critical storying is also a way to reposition teacher educators as learners, educators who are actively considering what culturally relevant choices can look like in different places and different moments, demonstrating to teacher candidates that in any situation there are multiple possibilities to demonstrate culturally relevant and sustaining educator commitments. Finally, the authors discuss how an awareness of tensions--both internal to the educator and within the situational context--is a disposition that those striving to be culturally relevant educators and teacher educators should identify, value, and nurture. Holding space for tension when analyzing a learning experience amounts to taking on a position of cultural humility, making way for multiple perspectives to be seriously considered and honored.
Ashley Patterson & Emily Wenderpp. 85-101
Chapter 5: Swimming in Rip Tides: A Critical Race Feminist Analysis of Resistance to Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education Competencies in Teacher Education
This chapter explores the complexities of leading faculty professional development of CRSE Competencies as a Black woman teacher educator working at predominately white institution (PWI) in Pennsylvania. Using the metaphor of swimming in a rip tide, the author chronologizes her experiences navigating resistance to both the content and her leadership of this curricular reform effort. Drawing from critical race feminism and critical autoethnography, she interrogates the phenomena of resistance to deepening cultural competence and initiating curricular revision. Connections to concepts including dysconscious racism, colorblind ontologies, and the marginalization of racialized faculty highlight the emotional toll of epistemic violence experienced during the author’s leadership of CRSE implementation. The role of the CRSE Community of Practice, which served as a counterbalance to these challenges through strategic and affective support, is also examined. The chapter concludes with questions for racialized educators, higher education leaders, and policymakers to consider as they plan and engage CRSE implementation in teacher preparation.
Amber Jean-Marie Pabonpp. 103-120
System-Level Implementation of CRSE
Chapter 6: Insights on Implementing Anti-Racist and Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Practices in Higher Education
This chapter reflects on the journey of two educational leaders in implementing Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Practices (CRSP) as a cornerstone of their anti-racism efforts in higher education. They discuss how they incorporated CRSP during significant institutional change in addressing systemic racism. This chapter spans the founding of the Center for Urban Education, Equity, and Improvement (CUEEI) in 2017 and the authors’ work in 2021-2022 on the DEI Task Force at Cabrini University. The Task Force launched in 2020 during the national racial reckoning with systemic anti-Black racism sparked by the murder of George Floyd and transitioned into the DEI Advisory Council in 2021. The chapter highlights the authors’ reflections on their use of CRSP in their anti-racism efforts prior to the formal development of the Pennsylvania Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education Competencies. The authors reflect on their use of CRSP to advance anti-racism efforts, starting with creating a space for BIPOC community members to support each other in the work of anti-racism as they dealt with effects of racial microaggressions, racial battle fatigue, and attrition of Black faculty and staff. They conclude by reiterating how CRSP provided impactful tools and important reflections on how to combat anti-Blackness and realize racial equity in higher education. This chapter illuminates the challenges of and possibilities for system-level change when working to integrate culturally relevant and sustaining education.
Angela Campbell & Ronald Whitaker II pp. 131-155
Chapter 7: A Dean and Faculty "Doing the Work" of CRSE: How We Built a Wall and a Plan to Deconstruct It
This chapter tells the story of the author, a dean at a small Catholic liberal arts college, working with education faculty to integrate CRSE Competencies into an undergraduate certification program. The author expresses her frustration as she confronted faculty resistance to this effort. In this chapter, the author reflects over her first four years as dean and recognizes that for some faculty members, the expectation to do the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) felt like an imposition being mandated by their boss. The result of her efforts to integrate the CRSE Competencies was to construct a wall that got in the way of the work and silenced dialogue related to DEIJ. Through her work with colleagues in the CRSE CoP, the writing of this chapter, and reflection on DEIJ work with faculty, however, the author has identified strategies to begin to deconstruct the wall and provide support for faculty and staff ready to lead the work for equity and justice in education. The author sees opportunities for faculty to take leadership roles and engage their colleagues in conversations and actions that promote equity and inclusion. Rather than imposing DEIJ work from above, the author recognizes opportunities to model hope and provide resources for faculty who choose to do the work and who will invite others to join them as they integrate social justice and CRSE Competencies in their teaching, curriculum, and in their relationships with students and colleagues.
Amy Gratch Hoylepp. 153-171
Chapter 8: Building a Culture of CRSE: Lessons Learned from Millersville University's Implementation Journey
In this chapter, three Millersville University faculty members reflect on their journey to building a culture of CRSE in their College. Millersville University was awarded a $56,000 Prep2Practice grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) as part of the Prep2Practice initiative. The grant aimed to build a culture of Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) awareness, assessment and implementation within the College of Education and Human Services and amongst local LEA partners. All invested partners—faculty, administration, undergraduate and graduate students, and school partners—were engaged in this transformative endeavor. The grant had several key objectives: (1) supporting school partners in reaching the PDE Chapter 49 mandate, (2) data collection and analysis on student perceptions of their preparedness to demonstrate the CRSE Competencies, and (3) educating college faculty and administrators about the CRSE Competencies and facilitating an assessment of all education programs in the College. Informed by the data collected, programs and curricula were revised to better integrate these Competencies within teacher preparation programs. The ultimate goal of the Prep2Practice grant was to bring awareness and support to both pre-service and in-service teachers regarding the implementation of the CRSE Competencies. By fostering a stimulating learning environment that values cultural differences, educators can engage and honor all students. Furthermore, this approach encourages students of color to view teaching as a viable and rewarding career path which may ultimately improve the teacher shortage and help to diversify the educator workforce.
Miriam Marguerita Gomez Witmer, Aileen Hower, & Abdulsalami Ibrahimpp. 173-198
Chapter 9: Nurturing Growth in Teacher Preparation: Cultivating Social-Emotional Skills for Culturally Responsive Teaching
This chapter details the author’s experience of incorporating CRSE Competencies into a teacher preparation program whose foundation was built on Applied Developmental Psychology, Child and Adolescent Development, and the use of a Social-Emotional Learning Framework for instruction and advising. This foundation supported intentional efforts to build relationships and a community with each new cohort of students, as well as building relationships across cohorts. Each year, as relationships developed, the community strengthened and the opportunity for deep reflection — via writing assignments and classroom discourse — supported the growth of critical consciousness in students and faculty. When given the time to build trust in each cohort, students and faculty engaged in the work of unpacking their own implicit biases. This, along with purposeful sequencing of CRSE Competencies across the program curriculum, augmented experiences throughout each student’s teacher preparation work. Included in the chapter are descriptions of core courses in the program that focus on CRSE Competency content. Ideas for intentionally sequencing coursework, class discussions, assignments, and extracurricular activities are included as a resource for anyone wishing to utilize this framework in a teacher preparation program.
Anna Arlotta-Guerreropp. 199-217
Chapter 10: Leading Program Level Change: Reflections on the Development of a CRSE-aligned Fieldwork Rubric
This chapter presents a reflection on the leadership challenges associated with the implementation of CRSE Competencies within a Master’s level teacher education program that has a program mission and focus that is largely in-line with the CRSE Competencies. The two authors joined the program as a new leadership team shortly before the CRSE Competencies were introduced. The program has a historical social justice focus and recent efforts by the program staff and faculty had focused on building a vision for the program around this focus. The authors embraced the announcement of the Competencies as an opportunity to operationalize the program vision through the creation of a tool to support field work that would allow the assessment of student teacher progress in the enactment of the CRSE Competencies and other program values. This chapter describes the process we engaged in to develop this tool and the leadership challenges we faced as we engaged in this process.
Christopher Pupik Dean & Tawanna Jonespp. 219-233
Course-Level Implementation of CRSE
Chapter 11: Understanding and Embedding Culturally Relevant Teaching through the Use of CRSE Competencies at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU)
In this chapter, the authors provide a reflective exploration of what it means to implement Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) practices in higher education, particularly within Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). Through their insightful experiences, they challenge the assumption that being Black or a person of color automatically equates to practicing cultural relevance. Instead, they emphasize that cultural relevance is an ongoing, intentional effort requiring continuous reflection and growth, regardless of one’s background. Focusing on one author’s experience applying CRSE practices at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), the second author offers thoughtful reflections on the lessons drawn from this journey. Together, they illustrate that becoming a CRSE-aligned leader or educator necessitates vulnerability, self-awareness, and a commitment to transforming one’s teaching practices to better serve diverse student populations. Their narratives demonstrate that fostering cultural relevance is a deliberate and evolving process, essential for creating inclusive and responsive educational environments.
Teresa Powell & Shalander "Shelly" Samuelspp. 245-258
This chapter presents a case study rooted in the author’s personal experience of integrating Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) Competencies into a secondary methods course. Parsed into three phases and a final reflection, the author uses the instructional design process with reflection for the course redesign: Phase 1, Reflection before Action; Phase 2, Reflection on Design; Phase 3, Reflection on Implementation; and Final Thoughts. The phases detail the author’s learning process by using the tools of self determination theory and force field analysis to provide a transparent study of change that puts words into authentic action. Different learning duets occur between the author’s interactions in the CRSE Community of Practice, her own internal thoughts, and students’ voices so that both the author herself and her students can continue to grow in their competence with CRSE.
Beth Rajan Sockmanpp. 259-279
Chapter 12: Learning Duet: Navigating a Professor’s Reflection with Student Voice when Integrating CRSE into a Secondary Education Methods Course
Chapter 13: Bridging the Gap: Transforming an Early Literacy Methods Course with Sustained Culturally Responsive Practices
This chapter discusses the importance of culturally relevant literacy education methods in improving literacy outcomes for all students, particularly Black and Brown students. The author argues that early literacy teachers must have a deep understanding of culturally relevant and sustaining literacy instructional practices to effectively meet the needs of the diverse American student population. The chapter outlines how the author revised an early literacy methods course to incorporate culturally relevant teaching methods with the goal of supporting pre-service literacy educators in providing quality literacy instruction for all learners.
Michelle Sobolakpp. 281-294
Chapter 15: Welcome or Watch Out! The Role of the Syllabus in Setting up an Inclusive and Culturally Relevant Student Course Experience
This chapter examines strategies for embedding Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) competencies within teacher preparation programs, with particular attention to the design and supervision of field experiences. While conventional approaches to culturally relevant preparation often emphasize candidate placement in diverse school contexts, such opportunities are increasingly constrained by geographic and institutional factors. Drawing on a course redesign that foregrounds CRSE, the chapter illustrates how programmatic adjustments can expand candidates’ opportunities to engage with these competencies, even when placements are limited. Strategies include aligning course objectives with CRSE frameworks, incorporating structured and instructor-guided reflection, employing curated video-based observations to simulate diverse classroom contexts, and integrating CRSE into culminating assessments to ensure transfer of theory into practice. Attention is also given to persistent challenges, particularly the uneven understanding and enactment of CRSE among mentor teachers, which underscores the necessity of consistent faculty involvement in shaping candidate learning. By highlighting both practical strategies and ongoing tensions, the chapter advances the argument that preparation for CRSE cannot depend solely on the contingencies of field placement, but must instead be embedded systematically through deliberate course design and active instructor mediation.
Sarah Anne Eckertpp. 295-308
The course syllabus is more than just a document. It is a source of inclusive and supportive communication with students and sets the tone for the entire course. While the syllabus does not guarantee action, it can be a tool that promotes culturally relevant experiences in higher education. In this chapter, the author describes the process of reflecting on her own course syllabi and the changes she made. She discusses examples from past and current syllabi on themes including accessibility, the role and responsibility of the professor, resources for student support, the importance and value of student voice in a course, and the tone of writing.
Caroline DiPipi-Hoypp. 309-321
Chapter 14: The Realities of Imperfect Field Placements: Fostering Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education in Pre-Service Field Experiences
Conclusion
Donna-Marie Cole, Juliet Curci, & Luca Poxonpp. 329-335
Epilogue
Donna-Marie Cole, Juliet Curci, & Luca Poxonpp. 337-345