What Difference Does Blackness Make? The Impact of Racial Affinity Professional Development on Black Teachers

• In Event: Growing and Sustaining Black Teachers: Examining the Intersection of Identity, Professional Development, and School Context

Abstract

Teachers at different stages of their careers need different kinds of support (Moir, Barlin, Gless, & Miles, 2009). Black teachers across those stages need support to reflect on and navigate through the racial inequity they encounter working in schools in the United States (Rogers-Ard, Knaus, Epstein, & Mayfield, 2012). The Black Teacher Project (BTP) is an organization that supports, develops and sustains Black teachers for schools in the United States. The organization is building a Black teaching force that reflects the diversity and excellence of Black people in the United States. In the pilot year BTP offered racial affinity based professional development (PD) supports for Black teachers in San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. This paper analyzes the impact of these supports on novice, mid-career and veteran teachers, and considers implications for induction and retention.

Black people gathering to focus on healing from hurt together in order to engage in self-determination has long been understood as necessary to a path to liberation (Im Akbar, 1984; Cone, 2000; Woodson, 1933). Thus, the construct of educational liberation (Perry, Steele, & Hilliard, 2004) is utilized to understand how Black teachers can gather professionally to create schools where all students (including teachers) can thrive. Racial affinity PD supports, as a type of liberatory instrument, were offered in two ways over the course of the pilot year: 1) inquiry groups led by Black teachers that helped their colleagues unpack how the intersections of their identities impacted their classroom practice and interactions with non-Black educators and parents; and 2) “Rejuvenation Spaces” that focused on the socio-emotional development of teachers through mindfulness, artistic expression and movement. To understand the impact of these supports, a mixed methods approach was taken, including ethnographic field notes of monthly PD sessions, surveys (63 total) about their PD experiences and long-term sustainability, and interviews (three veteran, four mid-career, and four novice teachers) to understand how the PD impacted their teaching. After transcripting interviews, all data sources were coded initially related to the construct of educational liberation, re-coded for emergent patterns, and further synthesized to make sense of the themes (Saldaña, 2015).

Findings suggested participation in the racial affinity PD groups decreased a sense of isolation as they listened to one another’s experiences. Further, infusing offerings from Black academics and artists strengthened racial literacy in authentic ways and allowed teachers to build relational and collective environment of trust. Novice teachers reported that participating in these activities contributed to their decision to stay in the classroom. Mid-career and veteran teachers reported feeling “a call” and gaining skill to take more responsibility for interrupting racial inequity in their schools. Collectively, findings from this study are important in that they offer empirical evidence of the potential positive impacts of racial affinity-based professional development on Black teachers at different stages of their careers. It also speaks to the need for more research exploring the various ways in which racial affinity-based support can be taken up as a means for Black teacher induction and sustainability.

Author

• Micia Mosely, Independent Researcher