Navigating the Crooked Room: Portraits of Three African American K-12 Art Teachers Reconciling Multiple Identities

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Teachers’ Identities and Perspectives on Teaching

Abstract

In 2012, I began a life history research dissertation examining three Black art teachers in order to understand how they conceptualize and reconcile their social and professional identities as Black, artist, and teacher. In light of a problematic researcher gaze, which has focused on the underrepresentation of this understudied group, my aim was to provide a counter-narrative exploring the concept of fictive kinship as a sociocultural construct impacting their decisions to embrace “artist” as an identity, consider art as an academic pursuit, and subsequently choose a career as an art(s) teacher. Applying methods of life history research and portraiture, I utilized social identity theory as a means of examining the complex lives of this group.

Author

• Gloria J. Wilson, Middle Tennessee State University