Culture and Developmental Education

Pedelty, M. H., & Jacobs, W. R. (2001). The place of "culture" in developmental education's social sciences. In D. B. Lundell, & J. L. Higbee (Eds.), Theoretical perspectives for developmental education (pp. 75-90). Minneapolis, MN: Center for Research in Developmental Education and Urban Literacy, General College, University of Minnesota. Retrieved July 4, 2004, from: http://www.gen.umn.edu/research/crdeul/publications.htm
The authors state in the preface to the article that a new trend within developmental education is to view students in their full complexities, rather than as "deficits" to be fixed. This position can be actualized in the social sciences by retheorizing "culture". The authors use a cultural studies framework to combine anthropological and sociological groundings into a model of culture that demands that first the students' pre-c0llege lived experiences and understandings be accessed, and then work with them to expand, rather than replace, their knowledge with the formal discourses that they must master to negotiate academic spaces.