Exploring the Tensions Between Teacher Professionalism and Students’ Rights During the Civil Rights Era

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session will examine the tension between teachers’ professionalism and students’ civil rights in the United States during the 1960s and 70s. Throughout this time, teachers’ assertions of professional prerogative and practice sometimes conflicted with community beliefs or policy practice aimed at promoting and protecting students’ rights. That the professional teaching force was overwhelmingly White exacerbated these tensions. Through historical case studies examining community schools, teacher integration, and accountability practices, the authors found that the discourses of students’ rights and teachers’ professionalism grew in opposition to each other.

Sub Unit

• Division F - Historical Inquiry in Education

Chair

• Dionne Danns, Indiana University

Papers

• Framing Accountability as Schools Versus Families - Sherman Dorn, University of South Florida

• Challenging White Teacher Professionalism - Shaunna Harrington, Northeastern University

• Teacher Integration, Labor, and Civil Rights in the Los Angeles Unified School District, 1962-1982 - Teresa Frizell, University of Washington

• Rights and Care Discourses Among Southern Teachers During School Desegregation - Barbara Joseph Shircliffe, University of South Florida

Discussant

• Jackie M. Blount, The Ohio State University