Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 1

Placing the classroom back into the hands of those it belongs to and who know it best: Reality

pedagogy as a potential solution to the critical issues surrounding urban education

Students within urban schools are hit by the double burden of inequitable distribution of resources

and a toxic, prevailing belief that they cannot be academically successful without sacrificing elements of

their identities. The term “urban”, when used in relation to education, does not refer to geographical location,

but instead metonymically represents socioeconomically disadvantaged communities that have historically

been underserved by schools and where members of the community have certain “unspoken qualities”

(rooted in risk-laden and deficit-based discourse) that are used to justify their placement in that space and the

injustices that continue to be perpetuated upon them (Gadsden, 2017). As a result of these discriminatory

beliefs about urban spaces and the populations residing within them, including urban youth, current urban

schooling practices exhibit a “pedagogy that privileges obedience over commonality” and prioritizes keeping

urban student populations “in their physical and psychic space” instead of addressing and working against

the root causes of inequity and injustice (Coulby & Harper, 2012, cited in Emdin, 2019, p. 949).

Urban youth have been silenced, oppressed, and mistreated within school systems and are

“perpetually seen as undergoing some sort of decay but have some potential- if they can be other than who

they are” (Balridge, 2014, cited in Emdin, 2019, p. 950). In order to be academically successful, urban

students must be “improved” by relinquishing their natural cultural expressions. Robbed of their voice,

agency, and humanity by educational institutions and inescapable labels, students must either give up their

identities or endure the damage to their self-identity and identity as students that results when they internalize

the belief that “being themselves is not being academic” (Emdin, 2029, p. 953). Traditional pedagogical

practices described as objective and “culture free” further harm the youth embedded within marginalized

cultures by turning what is supposedly an inclusive system into one that pushes marginalizes students out by

stripping of their identity, and then uses their alienation as justification for persistent achievement gaps and

inequities. One-size-fits-all pedagogy that turn a blind eye to students’ cultures function similarly to

colorblind ideology and acts as a “silencing mechanism” that “leaves no space for [students’] lived
 Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 2

experiences” and allows educational systems and institutions to escape accountability by locating the blame

and dysfunction within students themselves (Vue, et al. (2017).

All teachers, regardless of experience, intent, or background, (though this phenomenon commonly

occurs when white, middle-class educators teach within urban schools), can harm urban youth and youth of

color when they use traditional normative pedagogical, acting as what Emdin terms “white folks” in that

“they maintain a system that doesn’t serve the needs of youth in the hood” (Emdin, 2017, p. viii). Emdin

(2017) describes this issue and its connection to larger issues within urban education:

As long as white middle- class teachers are recruited to schools occupied by urban youth of color,

without any consideration of how they affirm and reestablish power dynamics that silence students,

issues that plague urban education (like achievement gaps, suspension rates, and high teacher

turnover) will persist. (p. 9)

U.S. public schools are built on “an imaginary white middle-class ideal”, leading to “savage inequalities”

between the schooling experiences of white middle class students and marginalized students (Emdin, 2017,

p. 11; Kozol, 1993). When educators teach without self-reflection, criticality, or critique of the system they

place the needs of black and brown students secondary to maintaining the status quo, leading to the

protection of a system that does not serve students in urban communities and prioritizes controlling students

over educating them (Emdin, 2017).

At the root of this further marginalization of urban youth stands uncritical educators experiencing

what Emdin terms “cultural agnosia” (Emdin et al., 2021). Agnosia, a medical condition that leaves sufferers

unable to see or perceive things accurately, describes many teachers’ inability to see marginalized students

who institutions have positioned as valueless, a willful blindness that detrimentally impacts students’ view of

their capabilities and potential (Emdin et al., 2021). Much like those who resort to colorblindness narratives

to excuse their complicity within oppressive systems, teachers experiencing cultural agnosia do so from a

position of power, and their blindness results in the silencing of urban youth’s voices, experiences, and

genius. These teachers, who may not even know that they are suffering from the malady, desperately need to
 Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 3

implement pedagogy of discomfort to examine and critique their own values (Boler & Zembylas, 2003). In

the current educational landscape, underserved and minority students continue to be hurt by standard

practices of curriculum and pedagogy, and schools and teachers need to change to remedy this injustice

(Nieto, 1999).

To address oppressive educational practices and inequity in both opportunity and outcome,

Christopher Emdin proposes using reality pedagogy, “an approach to teaching and learning that has the

primary goal of meeting each student on his or her own cultural turf” (Emdin, 2017, p. 27). Reality pedagogy

pushes teachers to unpack their privilege and take accountability for their complicity in perpetuating

institutional oppression so that they can “reimagine the urban classroom as one where students’ cultural

differences, languages, stories, and histories are not erased, but valued” (Mania-Singer, 2017, p. 67). In

essence, reality pedagogy works to directly counter teachers’ cultural agnosia by pushing them to see

students’ realities, experiences, and culture, which thy have previously chosen not to see.

Reality pedagogy builds upon the theoretical underpinnings of multicultural education, including

culturally relevant pedagogy (see Ladson-Billings, 1995), culturally responsive pedagogy, and critical

pedagogy and addresses hindrances that have prevented these theories from transforming education. Reality

pedagogy closely resembles what Gibson (1984) terms education for cultural pluralism, as both aim to

counter institutional and societal pressures that push marginalized students to acculturate and assimilate.

They are both also built on a belief that when minority students are given more power over the educational

process, their motivation for learning will increase, and they will have the power to create an educational

environment that meets their needs. In the same way the education for cultural pluralism targets the group

with power as those who need to change, Edmin’s reality pedagogy places the burden of shifting toward

equity on teachers on school systems.

In framing reality pedagogy, Emdin considers how the above approaches do not provide teachers

with tangible tools they can use to transform their practice, the classroom space, and schooling institutions,

comparing this gap to “providing [teachers] with a boat without a paddle” (Emdin, 2011, p. 286). Emdin also
 Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 4

recognizes that despite the potential reality pedagogy holds to changing the educational landscape for the

better, the principles of reality pedagogy must first be accepted into teacher preparation programs and

professional development to truly allow educators and institutions to evolve (Emdin, 2011). Emdin also

avoids essentializing culture and employs the term to mean “the values one holds dear, or the way one looks

at and interacts with the world” (Nieto, 1999, p. 77), and does not tie culture to race or ethnicity. Instead,

Emdin views urban youth as having overlapping cultures due to their positioning and subsequent

marginalization within urban spaces. He homogenizes urban youth culture for the purpose of emphasizing

the need for teachers’ radical pedagogical shift while acknowledging variation within that label. Reality

pedagogy prevents teachers from essentializing or making assumptions about students by centering the need

to constantly listen and learn from students, empowering them to teach you who they are and what is

important to them.

In his book For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, … and the Rest of Y’all Too, Emdin outlines

the “7 C’s” of reality pedagogy (in previous works, Emdin frames reality pedagogy using 5 C’s, but in For

White Folks, he adds the seventh C “Curation” and splits what was previously one C of context/content into

two separate C’s), rooted in Emdin’s experiences as a teacher in urban schools, his knowledge of cultures

such as hip-hop culture, Pentecostal culture, and community barbershop culture. The 7 C’s provide teachers

with tools to transform their practice to mitigate the harmful impact of punitive, deficit-laden, and stifling

educational practices common in urban schools while creating a space where both teachers and students can

critically examine, and ultimately transform, the educational environment around them.

By implementing the 7 C’s of reality pedagogy, Emdin envisions an educational climate where

“teaching isn’t about managing behavior…it’s about reaching students where they really are” (Emdin, 2020).

Reality pedagogy addresses critiques of previous frameworks and theories of multicultural education by

providing concrete tools and examples for teachers to implement within their classrooms. Emdin’s framing

of reality pedagogy takes a bottom-up instead of top-down approach to teacher education, as it is rooted in

Emdin’s experiences as a student, teacher, and teacher educator within urban schools. In our current reality
 Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 5

where so many of those critiquing the education system are removed and ignorant of its realities, Emdin’s

positioning as a coparticipant in creating this new model of pedagogy allows him to understand the

classroom environment and students as having endless complexity. Emdin’s first-person perspective into the

issues of urban education allows reality pedagogy to provide a frameless window into teacher actions and

interactions, resisting the tendency Roth et al. (2002) notices of new constructs for understanding learning

environments to simplify the classroom ecology and focus selectively on certain aspects.

Reality pedagogy, due to Emdin’s positioning, focuses on teachers as those with the power to

immediately and tangibly transform classroom spaces for the benefit of urban youth, reimagining

pedagogical practices and providing a promising theoretical and practical framework for addressing some of

the current issues in urban schools. Since reality pedagogy emerged fairly recently, only a limited amount of

research has examined its impact and effectiveness within school spaces, but preliminary studies suggest

positive results. Sirrakos Jr. & Fraser (2017) conducted a cross-national study of reality pedagogy in 8-10th

grade science classrooms in the Bronx and Germany. They found evidence of increased student cooperation

and engagement, a classroom environment where students gained confidence and agency in expressing their

critical voice, and an increase in students’ perception of the personal relevance of instruction. Moskal (2019)

implemented cogens and co-teaching in the design of literature circles in her 10th grade ELA class and

concluded that as a result, students were more open to tackling new challenges and fostering a sense of

mutual respect that valued all individual voices within the classroom. Taher, Mensah, and Emdin’s (2017)

exploration on reality pedagogy’s impact on urban immigrant students found that it led to increased

participation, increased opportunities to voice concerns, and increased access to social capital that could be

used by students to increase their educational outcomes. While further research is needed about the impact

and implementation of reality pedagogy, these early studies show the theory’s potential to transform urban

education. The above findings are also promising since each study included the implementation of only two

or three of the 7 C’s, leaving open the possibility that the application of all of reality pedagogy’s principles

could yield more positive results and creating space for teachers to start to impact change even by utilizing
 Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 6

only a few of the & C’s. In addition, researcher’s enthusiasm in studying the effects of reality pedagogy

within different content area classes and diverse student populations suggests support for the new

pedagogical framework and the potential for its benefit outside of the context of urban schools in the U.S.

While early examinations of reality pedagogy seem promising, it is important to note that these early

studies, as Sirrakos Jr. & Fraser (2017) point out, tend to focus on reality pedagogy’s impact on small

samples from large urban areas. Studies also concentrate primarily on science classrooms and on older

students. In addition, there does not yet seem to be conclusive evidence that reality pedagogy is strongly

correlated to improved grade performance, an observation supported by Ramirez’s (2017) findings that

reality pedagogy did not result in statistically different academic performance among seventh grade physics

students in the Philippines.

In addition to reality pedagogy’s potential to improve students’ experiences within urban schools, its

theoretical approach also offers new ways of examining and theorizing urban youth, urban schools, and

educational environments where teachers are unable or unwillingly to see their students’ true and complete

identities (one could argue that this occurs in all classrooms). Reality pedagogy frames urban youth as

neoindigenous, explaining that they resemble indigenous groups in that both have been marginalized by

schools, silenced by teachers, colonized by educational institutions, and seen as in need of saving (or even

beyond help) (Aydarova, 2017). Emdin’s use of urban youth culture to denote a group united by their shared

experiences in urban spaces instead of other categories of identity pushes back against earlier theories which

situate language, ethnicity, or race as the definitive factors in students’ experiences. Reality pedagogy’s roots

in out-of-school practices such as hip-hop draw attention to spaces and practices traditionally viewed as

wholly separate and unrelated to education as potential sites of theorizing, opportunity, and inspiration (even

if, as Aydarova (2017) points out, the sexism and heteronormativity common in hip hop culture could

alienate some students).

The variable theoretical underpinnings in reality pedagogy could be seen as another example of

“conceptual confusion” seen in literature on multicultural education (see Grant, Elsbree, & Fondrie, 2004, p.
 Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 7

198, cited in Aydarova, 2017), but I suggest that the profuse theories and frameworks Emdin uses to

construct reality pedagogy simply add to the “available designs” that are accessible for future work aimed at

tackling educational inequality and the issues within urban education (New London Group, 1996). Reality

pedagogy may not directly call for the institutional shifts that are needed for lasting educational reform but

adopts a bottom-up approach to school reform that rightly places pedagogy and curriculum back into the

hands of educators and researchers and supports teachers in creating educational environments that could

make systems and institutions more open to reform (Ravitch, 2010).

Alongside its affordances to radically transform urban youth’s educational experiences for the better,

reality pedagogy also offers a new way of viewing the purpose of education, a topic that continues to be

debated, especially with regards to current volatility of education in the U.S. Emdin’s theory explicitly views

the purpose of education as “empowering youth and their communities” and creating conditions for the

redistribution of power and “enactment of agency to young people” (Emdin et al., 2021). However, reality

pedagogy’s suggestion of providing students with points and grade-connected rewards for co-teaching,

engaging in cogens, working to maintain cosmopolitanism in the classroom, and supporting the curation of

cultural artifacts suggests a purpose for education connected to critical multicultural citizenship (Park, 2016)

and cultural citizenship (King, 2006, cited in McCarty, 2018). Reality pedagogy, therefore, frames student

agency, action, and voice alongside awareness, acknowledge, and value of difference as the primary purpose

of education. Reality pedagogy supports students in “creating a classroom that serves as an example of what

the world should look like,” acknowledging that students likely have more knowledge and expertise on how

to fight systems of oppression and inequity than adults do (Emdin, 2020). As a result, the theoretical

implications of reality pedagogy place the classroom, society, and ultimately the world, back into the hands

of those will inherit it and best know what to do with it.

 Final Synthesis Paper: Option 2 Klein 8

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