Black Architects of Education for Freedom Dreams: Teaching and African-Descent Students in the American South

• In Event: Best Practices Throughout Black Education: Evidence From Multiple Perspectives

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the pedagogies of Black educators and the broad historical and contemporary contexts that influence their educational philosophies, teaching practices, and school and community involvement. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this paper uses a Critical Race Theory methodology to examine the theorizing of Black teachers and principals from Alabama and Mississippi on the role of race, racism, and other markers of difference in structuring their lives and work and the lives and schooling experiences and outcomes of their African American students. This chapter aims to extend the literature on culturally relevant pedagogy by investigating what it means to be a Black educator today and how that meaning has changed over time given officialdom’s shift toward race-neutral discourses.

Authors

• Brenda Gayle Juarez, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Cleveland Hayes, University of La Verne