Teacher Education
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2025
Publisher
Sage
Abstract
Historically, educators and policymakers have viewed Black students from a deficit lens, often presuming they lack the necessary skills needed to become academically successful. Today, teachers have countered deficit framing of Black students by learning more about and incorporating Black students’ assets and critical views of the world into their learning. One issue teachers run into, however, is knowing how to incorporate Black students’ cultures in their classroom learning. Using an embedded case study, this study analyzes how one white teacher draws on Black students’ cultural capital and the ways it impacts students’ classroom experiences. Findings reveal that disconnecting Black students’ cultural capital from their classroom learning is still an issue for teachers, resulting in simplistic assignments for Black students. This study also reveals that teachers may not know enough about Black students to draw on their cultural capital. Implications share that understanding Black students’ cultural capital is another way to expand what more teachers need to know about students to deepen their practice and aid in Black students’ academic success.
Recommended Citation
Quince, C. L. (2025). Missing the Mark: The Cost of Overlooking Black Students’ Cultural Capital. Journal of Black Studies, 56(6), 451–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219347251335003
Comments
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).