High School Teachers Working Toward Justice for (Some) Students

• In Event: 52.041 - Working Toward Justice: Examining Different Contexts in Educational Research and Praxis

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes:
While not explicitly stated, equality is inextricably interwoven into he conference theme “Towards Justice: Culture, Language, and Heritage in Education Research and Praxis”. Today’s educators constantly (re)negotiate what justice means at the classroom and societal levels. Their understandings of justice and equality are informed by local and global contexts. This symposium paper seeks to answer two questions: (1) How do teachers of African American students conceptualize justice and (2) What actions do they take toward justice?

Theoretical Framework:
To examine the symposium’s objective, the researcher applies a critical race in education theoretical framework (CRT) and its analytical lens of expansive and restrictive views of equality. CRT’s expansive and restrictive views of equality analytical lens have not been as widely utilized as some of the other CRT constructs (Dixson & Rousseau, 2006). An expansive view of equality strives to combat the material conditions Blacks faced and concentrated on “equality as a result” (Crenshaw, 1988). However, the restrictive view adheres to equality as a process.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry:
The researcher utilizes a year-long ethnographic (Emerson et al, 2011) study of a predominantly African-American high school in an urban, Midwestern city. The school has a long-established and revered International Baccalaureate-diploma program and has been consistently ranked as one of the best high schools statewide and nationally.

Data sources, evidence, objects or materials:
For this empirical paper, the researcher relies on in-depth interviews with and classroom observations of four (4) high school teachers.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view:
The data illuminate a complex picture of teachers’ beliefs about justice for African-American student success and actions they take within the classroom towards enacting those beliefs of justice. A finding is that teachers work toward justice for some Black students, not all and in doing so, they simultaneously entrench disadvantages for Blacks and other students. Another finding that is integral to comprehending how high school teachers of Black students understand and work toward justice is that these teachers aver that their ability to benefit some Black students is predicated upon the failure of other students in the school.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work:
While much research has examined how teachers help foster African American student success, through diverse approaches (Ladson-Billings, 1994/2009; Milner, 2010; Morris, 2009), this empirical study highlights dialectical tensions that teachers create when attempting to work toward justice for Black students. Although studies exist that address classroom discord when teachers favor some students over others (e.g., Rist, 1970/2000, Booher-Jennings, 2005), this study points out how this symbiosis between Black student success and failure fosters an approach to justice that rewards a few at the expenses of many others.

Author

• Shameka Nija Powell, Tufts University