Situating “Othering”: Teachers Making Meaning of Cultures and Challenges Beyond Their Own

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Issues of Race, Class, and Gender in the Classroom

Abstract

“I remember being called a Spic… Imagine me, with a Taiwanese wife, with a Black step-dad, with a Black younger sister… I don’t even want to know what some folks thought.” Using a grounded theory perspective, this paper explores how PK-12 in-service teachers in a graduate program navigate between their beliefs on inequity and justice when confronted with scenarios of social, economic, sexual, ethnic, racial, physical, and emotional difference in classrooms, schools, and communities. This paper presents perspectives promoting the notion of teacher empowerment and offers new insights into the development and implementation of a more socially just curriculum while exploring the changes that emerge over time when teachers are provided a space to engage in such conversations.

Authors

• Supriya Baily, George Mason University

• Maria Katradis, George Mason University