| This instrumental, multi-case study was designed to identify tactical strategies of activating and using student power to promote the achievement of low-income African American (LIAA) learners. While student power is an implication of culturally relevant teaching, in its connection to critical pedagogy and its conception as a "pedagogy of opposition" (Ladson-Billings, 2001, p. 160), it does not have an operationalized treatment in the literature reviewed. Based on tenets for effective teaching and learning in and beyond critical education, the Empowerment Framework (Dye, 2012), created by this study's principal researcher, was used to operationalize student power. It was then used to investigate the practices of three teachers (coincidently all White, all male, and all teaching at Christian schools) who were identified as successfully serving LIAA students. In light of the critical tenets used for operationalization, it was presumed that a basic form of student power would be present in their practice; therefore, any strategies used to activate such power would be recommended for strengthening the tactical deployment of culturally relevant teaching. Contrary to these expectations, the study found that no basic form of student power was located in their practice. However, in light of the framework used, this study did find that 20% of the nuances required for the student power construct were present. Instead of making recommendations to culturally relevant teaching advocates on tactical strategies that activated this partial state of power, this study probed the rigor of teaching and learning when student power in its complete form is missing. Based on the successful standing of its participating teachers, this study concludes that academic achievement is complex in nature and challenges multiple stakeholders of LIAA children and other marginalized learners to question the etymological construct of achievement-based rhetoric. Twenty-first century living requires more than compliance and consumerism-- the end result of a student powerlessness schooling model. It requires the educated to have the capacity to think critically and creatively, to work autonomously and cooperatively, and to understand information that is rapidly advancing and changing. Achievement grounded in student powerlessness simply does not make room for such development. |
