Mediators, Family Members, and Culture Brokers: The Role of Teacher Identity in the Teaching of Multicultural Literature in Rapidly Changing Rural Contexts

• In Event: Lifelong Identity Work: Examining Identity Formation From Preschool to Adult Teachers in a Range of Local Contexts

Abstract

This paper examines how English teachers in a rapidly changing, rural Midwestern county positioned their identities with regard to their roles as teachers, their relationships with students, and their goals and purposes in teaching multicultural literature.
Research has highlighted the complexity of teachers’ identities and attitudes toward teaching multicultural literature in urban and suburban schools and with both White students and students of color (e.g. Glenn, 2012; Hollingworth, 2009; Mosley, 2010). However, few studies have been conducted the rural states of Middle America (Lewis & Ketter, 2008). This study builds on past research by examining how teacher identity influences the teaching of multicultural literature in the diverse, rapidly changing contexts of today’s rural, Middle-American states.
This paper is guided by social and historical theories of identity that suggest that, while changeable, identities become “sedimented” (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 2002) as people repeatedly perform identities in particular contexts or figured worlds.
Research for this study was conducted during one academic year in a teacher research group. Data for this paper include transcriptions of video-recordings of multicultural literature lessons from each of the three focal teachers, related lesson plans and student work, and transcribed video-recordings of all research group meetings.
Focal participants include three White, female teachers. Wanda taught at a small, working-class school with a 60% Hispanic/Latino population. Steph taught at a small, working-class school with a nearly 100% White student body. Alexis taught at a socioeconomically diverse school that included a majority White population with 20% Hispanic/Latino students, and small segments of African-American and Asian students.
Drawing on the theories of identity qualitative coding for this paper focused:
- what teachers said about their instruction
- what they did in their classrooms
- how they positioned themselves in relation to students and other members of their school communities
- the roles (coach, mentor, authority, co-learner, parent, friend, etc.) they took on within their classrooms and schools.
Findings suggest that three teachers adopted distinct identities – those which we characterize as mediator, family member, and culture broker – linked to their perceptions of their communities and their roles within those communities. Those identities, in turn, influenced teachers’ distinct instruction on multicultural literature. These findings point to a need for further research in teacher identity and multicultural literature instruction that takes into consideration the changing landscapes of rural America.
References:
Glenn, W. J. (2012). Developing Understandings of Race: Preservice Teachers' Counter
Narrative (Re)Constructions of People of Color in Young Adult Literature.
English Education, 44(4), 326-353.
Holland, D.C., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (2002). Identity and agency in cultural worlds (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lewis, C., & Ketter, J. (2008). Encoding Youth: Popular Culture and Multicultural
Literature in a Rural Context. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 24(3), 283-310.
Mosley, M. (2010). "That Really Hit Me Hard": Moving beyond Passive Anti-Racism to
Engage with Critical Race Literacy Pedagogy. Race, Ethnicity And Education,
13(4), 449-471.

Authors

• Amanda Haertling Thein, University of Iowa

• Mark Sulzer, The University of Iowa