Black Male Educators and STEM

• In Event: 72.057 - Critical Academic and Public Policy Issues Affecting Minorities in STEM

Abstract

Evidence suggests Black Minority Ethnic (BME) participation in STEM in the UK has outpaced participation of white students. Analyses indicate that although BME graduates are more likely to have eligible degrees, for entry to teaching they are less likely to become STEM teachers compared to entrants from white backgrounds (Singh, 2009).
This paper explores the experiences of BME male STEM teachers undertaking the Teach First programme in the UK (analogous to Teach for America). In England, little is known about why BME men enter teaching or of their experiences (Roach, 2005), even less is known about their identities as STEM educators. Teach First recruits from elite universities to a two year Leadership Programme where participants serve deprived communities. This marks them as well qualified graduates and identifies them as amongst a small proportion of BME undergraduates who choose to teach.
Intersectionality the main theoretical lens to explore the ways wherein race, gender and class form the backdrop to experiences of black male STEM educators, provides a unique insight to how their social and professional identities are created, (re)constructed and positioned. By explicating these experiences, a nuanced analyses of the ways in which black male educators are characterised by their complex multiple identities is established (Brah and Phoenix, 2004; Hill Collins, 1998). Intersectionality reveals subtle, hidden and structural systems of power which produce ‘intersectional invisibility’, and illustrates how such systems impact black male teachers in UK schools.
Life history interviews capture the complex and multiple ways in which the social construction of identity evolves over time whilst also being cognisant of the social and structural context within which the individual (re)shapes their life (Goodson, 2008; 2013). The study examines lives as lived, experienced, told and as capable of being reconstructed (Dhunpath and Samuel, 2010). Analyses of transcripts are informed by the knowledge that race and ethnicity are in a constant state of intersectional production other forms of difference. Nvivo is used to assist coding and the organisation of themes and thematic analyses.
Data comprises 10 qualitative interviews with participants (i.e. those in the 1st or 2nd year of the programme) or Ambassadors (those who have completed the 2 year leadership programme). Contextual data linked to prior educational experience and qualification level are also utilised.
Themes examined include: identity (re)formation and shift and, embodied and disembodied intersectionality. This study sheds light on how social and professional identities are (re)constructed and illuminates the complex ways that black men navigate and negotiate their identity/ies to ‘fit in’ to education spaces where their authenticity is often questioned, seen as alien and where their bodily presence represents a ‘space invader’ (Puwar, 2004). This study brings fresh insight to the UK literature whilst adding a comparative element to a broader discussion of black male teachers in North America. It potentially offers unique comparative perspectives that contribute to new areas of research in the UK and facilitate international dialogue.

Author

• Christine Callender, UCL Institute of Education - London