Cultivating Teachers of Color as Change Agents: A Model of Critical Race Professional Development

• In Event: 69.039 - Portraits of Critical Alternative Teacher Development: Framing Teacher Development for Community, Justice, and Visionaries

Abstract

Bridging Critical Race Theory (CRT) to critical professional development, the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice (ITOC) is an intensive critical race professional development program. Through the case studies of three participants, we explore how ITOC positions teachers of Color as racial justice leaders for urban schools, guiding their own and their peers’ critical growth. This study reveals that for teachers of Color to engage in racially transformative work, they must be provided with tools, opportunities and encouragement to use their critical consciousness and deep, personal understanding of oppressive institutions to lead racial justice interventions. When this is formalized and collectivized, teachers of Color feel self-efficacy as leaders to transform education, and in the case of these case studies, the capacities of their peers. Programs like ITOC represent a critical alternative teacher development approach that should be part of the broader educational narrative about how to recruit and support Teachers of Color.

Authors

• Josephine Pham, University of California - Los Angeles

• Rita Kohli, University of California - Riverside