Toward a Community Centric Pedagogy: How Teachers’ Conceptions of the Urban Community They Work in Shapes Bidirectional Learning

This paper explores three high school teachers’ conceptualizations of their school’s surrounding community in the South Bronx, and how those conceptions shape their pedagogy. Current literature regarding teacher conceptions of urban communities are largely based on preservice teachers’ trepidation of working class communities of color. Through an ethnographic case study, this paper examines teachers who hold sociopolitical and asset-based conceptions of the surrounding community. Findings suggest that the teachers in this study take up community centric pedagogy, where community is embedded in learning goals as bidirectional to advance students academically and also sustain and uplift the surrounding community.