Educating from Difference: Black Cultural Art Educators' Perspectives with Culturally Responsive Teaching

The 2009 Ontario Ministry of Education’s Equity Action plan called for school boards to implement culturally relevant teaching in their strategic plans. As senior administration and educators work towards inclusive classrooms, a perspective that remains absent is that of the arts educator and their relationship to culturally responsive pedagogy. This qualitative study uses Critical Race Theory to examine the work and experiences—including the successes and challenges—of Cultural Art Educators using African diasporic artforms. The narratives from semi-structured interviews with eight Black Canadian artists, uncover that while successes occur, cultural art educators navigate the politics of institutional unpreparedness, Anti-Black racism, delegitimization of their cultural artistry and cultural appropriation. Institutional recommendations are made to understand the artists’ role, improve the working relationship and recognize Black art content supporting a Canadian education mandate. This is a valuable contribution to the topic of cultural relevance that counters the historical exclusion of race-based data of artists involved in education.