Radical-Local Teaching and Learning: A Cultural-Historical Study

by Seth Chaiklin (Editor), Seth Chaiklin (Editor)

The cultural-historical approach started in the 1930s by Lev Vygotsky, who held that learning and instruction are the means to development, is the foundation for the Radical-Local Theory of Teaching and Learning formulated by Mariane Hedegaard and Seth Chaiklin in the first part of the book. The central concern in this approach to education is how to integrate particular historical and cultural conditions that the children encounter into educational practices. The second half of the book is an extensive case study of an after-school programme for Puerto Rican primary students in East Harlem, New York conducted in a radical-local perspective. This programme focussed on the history of the community and of Puerto Rican immigration, and the study describes how it helped students become both more positive and more critical about their backgrounds. By acquiring basic academic skills in a theoretical framework the children learn how to analyse their own local situation, addressing not only immediate issues (housing conditions, family life, community dynamics) but also historical issues. Unlike apparently similar culturally responsive approaches to teaching underprivileged children, radical-local teaching explicitly uses subject matter teaching to encourage children's development in relation to their social conditions. Hedegaard and Chaiklin detail how they developed concrete lesson plans in a radical-local perspective, and enumerate the accomplishments as well as the difficulties they encountered in implementing this approach.

250 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2005

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reads like a dissertation, right down to the theoretical frameworks and literature review. However, if you get past that, there's a bit of gold in the information on teaching academics through student research on their own communities, families, identities and more. The book emphasizes not just culturally responsive teaching, but ensuring that students ground the knowledge in models and process that can transfer to other subjects, to practical problem solving, and to conceptualization of how education can transform their lives and communities.