Race and Emotions in the Researching of Teachers and Teaching

• In Event: Methodologies of Researching Emotions in Teaching and Teacher Education

Abstract

A growing body of literature in the area of education research has focused on the intersection of race and qualitative research (Author; Dixson, 2014, 2006; Milner, 2007; Hopson & Dixson, 2006). Concurrently, scholars have also noted how emotion operates in both qualitative research and in the teaching and learning process, particularly for teachers (Schutz & Zembylas, 2009; Zembylas, 2003). In this presentation I explore the critical role that race and emotions play in qualitative research conducted with teachers. To do this I critically reflect on two U.S. based research studies that I, an African American/Black woman, conducted in two different spaces with practicing and preparing teachers who were both White and of color. In foregrounding my critical reflections on race and emotions, I draw from the notions of critical emotional reflexivity (Zembylas, 2008) and a bricolage lens of critical race reflexivity that is informed by critical theories of race (Dixson, 2006; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), Black political thought (DuBois, 2007[1903]) and researcher racial and cultural positionality (Milner, 2007).

I draw from and include data I collected across two qualitative research studies, in which the first was part of a larger multi-sited ethnographic study and the second a case study. The first study included with a group of White inservice teachers and the second, a group of preservice teachers in which some of the participants were both White and of color. The data included in the presentation from the first study was collected through interviews and field observations, while the data included from the second study was collected through interviews. Critical reflections of the data from both studies inform my discussion of how race and emotions operated in my research process. Race and emotions operated concurrently in the research process, with race serving as a lens in which my participants and I interacted with each other and how we collectively and individually approached the study itself. Rather than emotions remaining at bay during the research process, they were always present. Fundamentally they served as a guidepost, providing not only critical insights into my research inquiries around sociocultural knowledge and teaching, but also how I might engage my work as a teacher educator for both preparing and practicing teachers.

By foregrounding race in my analysis of two research spaces, I illustrate the often unacknowledged, yet fully emotional work of conducting qualitative research and its unique manifestations when attending to the always-present sociocultural context of race. I argue the need to place more targeted attention on the role race plays when conducting qualitative research on teachers, while also considering how we might better prepare teacher educators and researchers to do this emotionally charged and challenging work.

Author

• Keffrelyn D. Brown, The University of Texas - Austin