Creating Troops for the Front Line: Developing Black Scholars Dedicated to Social Justice

• In Event: Black to the Future:  Afro-Futuristic Approaches to Teacher Education for Students in the Urban South

Abstract

Black communities have historically used schooling as a tool to manifest their dreams for educational, economic, social, and political equity. Social justice has been described as the meaningful pursuit of the creation of a just and equitable society for all (Brennan & Naidoo, 2008).  Arcing from a historical period during which Black educators sought to explicitly draw connections between democracy and community empowerment, we now find ourselves in a contemporary period where trends in high-stakes testing and school-choice narrow curricular and the educational experiences of marginalized youth in ways that make social justice work increasingly important (Kaiser, 2005).

In response, this study endeavors to explore how teacher educators might be deliberately socialized towards a social justice orientation that is aligned with the historical traditions of Black educators in the Urban South. Specifically, this paper will discuss how Black Cultural Ethos coupled with this historical trajectory informed the development of particular group of Black faculty dedicated to equal opportunities in education for urban youth and might be used to imagine a future where teacher education can be shaped through a deliberate consideration of Black cultural ethos.

The concept of Black Cultural Ethos (BCE) is based on inherited West African values, ideas, and beliefs and is comprised of nine dimensions including:  spirituality, harmony, movement, verve, affect, communalism, expressive individualism, orality, and social perspectives of time (Boykin, 1986; Nobles, 1980). For the purposes of this paper, our emphasis will rely on communalism and expressive individualism.

This qualitative study consisted of a tripartite literature review with a focus on BCE, Black educational history, and the graduate experiences of Black faculty.  Emergent themes identified during this review have been triangulated with data culled from scholarly personal narratives  (Heildebeger & Uecker, 2009; Janesick, 2015) produced by a particular group of Black scholars to engage the following question:  “How do the graduate experiences of Black academics shape their social justice work?”.

Taken as a whole, the data reveal intentional efforts to uplift urban communities as part of participants’ work in graduate school and beyond. Our participants report creating and participating in spaces dedicated to expanding educational opportunities for urban youth. Data also suggest that participants remain connected to the informal cohorts with which they had matriculated through their graduate programs.  These connections were reported to be both social and scholarly and heavily influenced by the community formed by the participants during their doctoral programs.  These connections also serve as a foundation from which the participants’ current social justice and equity work continues.

Social justice work is about the deliberate disruption of systems built to marginalize and exclude certain people (Adams & Bell, 2016; Clark, Heaven, & Shaw, 2016; Dolby, 2012; Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2015).  Accordingly, a commitment to social justice among Black faculty requires--at least-- an active participation in work meant to disrupt the existing narratives, structures, and/or policies that have been used to exclude and marginalize the full participation of particular groups of people.  

Authors

• Tiffany D. Pogue, Albany State University

• Sheryl Jones Croft, Kennesaw

• Vincent DeWayne Willis, University of Alabama

• Miyoshi Juergensen, Tuscaloosa City School