Fear, Visibility, and Emotionality: Understanding the Classroom Impacts of the Right Shift in State Power

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Emotion and Discipline Within "Civil" State Discourse

Abstract

The 2016 presidential election has produced significant impacts on U.S. classrooms, yet there exists little research documenting educator experiences as they navigate these impacts. Drawing on survey and interview data, the study attempts to understand how the election has influenced educators’ pedagogical practice and experiences in K-12 and higher education classrooms. Three salient themes emerged—fear of retaliation, racial visibility, and neutering emotionality--capturing the ways the election has created/continues to create intense pedagogical moments for classroom teachers. Our study suggests that, given the intensification of white supremacy today, educators increasingly have little choice in attending to complex issues of race and power in their work. Teacher education can respond by prioritizing teachers’ racial and intersectional literacies.

Authors

• Erin Lee Dyke, Oklahoma State University

• Jennifer Job, Oklahoma State University

• Sarah R. Gordon, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater