A Model of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Physics

There has been a surge of interest in the United States recently in culturally relevant/responsive/sensitive teaching in physics and similar disciplines. Two brief examples: In his call for papers addressing race for The Physics Teacher, Gary White lists "culturally responsive teaching" as the first topic, and one of the two aims of a $4.9 million grant received by the American Association of Colleges and Universities is to "empower STEM faculty to adopt culturally sensitive pedagogies." So the question is: What is culturally relevant physics teaching? How would we even know it if we saw it? I argue that a framework for culturally relevant pedagogy developed by Gloria Ladson-Billings is a useful model for university physics faculty.