Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) defines culturally relevant pedagogy as teaching that enables students to be confident and successful in school by building bridges between their lived cultural experience at home and the imposed or constructed cultural experience at school. To this end, teachers utilize the cultural backgrounds of the students to inform curriculum design and instructional methods, choosing to explore themes and content that validate and connect to the home culture of the students. The justification for culturally relevant pedagogy is based on the research of Cornel Pewewardy (1993), who sought to explain why so many Native American students struggle in school. He concluded that these students suffer from a cultural disconnect
