Displacement, Marginalization, and Sabotage: Examining the Implications of Contemporary Teacher Tracking

• In Event: 41.063 - Disrupting Whiteness in the Practice of Leadership for Social Justice

Abstract

America’s schools continue to struggle with a teacher workforce dominated by white females, while the marginal minority population experience heightened displacement. This conceptual paper highlights the need for contemporary school leadership to increase their “presence of mind” and acknowledge how their practices could have a negative influence on teacher workforce diversity. This paper utilizes Lipsitz’s concept, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness to illuminate the Teacher Tracking phenomenon that can have profound impacts on Black teachers specifically as they struggle to increase their presence in the field. The author suggests that a possessive investment in whiteness can lead to oppressive tracking practices that sabotage, marginalize and ultimately displace an already limited minority teacher workforce.

Author

• Darrius Stanley, Michigan State University