Living Outside the Bubble: Counternarratives of Black Women TESOL Educators

• In Event: 63.075 - Invisible Labors of Black Women Educators: Negotiating Institutional and Situational Racism in the Education Workforce

Abstract

Black American women have a legacy of excellence as educators and community members in the field of English language education. However, given the ongoing impact of racism as a systemic force shaping U.S. society and the world, due to the global reach of U.S. culture and economy, Black women’s personal and professional lives are necessarily impacted (Bell, 1987; Crenshaw, 1989). Moreover, their expertise, perspectives, and voices are underappreciated, under-researched, and therefore, too often unheard (Chung-Constant, 2012). In opposition to this dismissal, critical race theorists emphasize that racism is normal, institutionalized, and often coded in rhetoric of equality and neutrality—and that the knowledge and perspectives that come from communities marginalized by systemic racism are valid, important, and necessary components to social, legal, and academic discourse (Crenshaw, 2011). Educational spaces are primary sites of racial struggle, and critical race scholars have called for increased explorations of how race, gender, class, and language intersect to impact the educational lives of persons of color in education (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).

However, although researchers have published important work on the experiences of teachers of color in TESOL, there is scant literature specifically centering the perspectives of Black women (Lin, Grant, Kubota, Motha, Sachs, Vandrick, and Wong, 2004). Therefore, in “Living Outside the Bubble: Counternarratives of Black Women TESOL Educators,” the first presenter contributes to “substantive discussions of racism” (Solózarno & Yosso, 2002, p. 37) in education that are often missing from the critical discourse, by highlighting the counternarratives of Black women TESOL educators. This presentation draws from a qualitative study, which attended to the following research questions: How do race, gender, and racism impact the personal and professional lives of Black women educators in TESOL? How can their counternarratives enrich the existing literature that examines relationships among race, gender, and racism for women of color, generally, and Black women educators, specifically?

In addressing the above questions, the study was guided by critical race methodology and Black feminist epistemology--intellectual traditions that definitively center Black women ways of knowing and coming to know and understand the world, and that are unapologetically oriented toward racial equity and justice for all people. Methods included conversational interviews with seven women, as well as archival and Internet research (blogs, news articles, social media sites, and message boards). According to Solórzano & Yosso (2002), critical race methodology places race and racism front and center throughout the research process to tell “the stories of those people whose experiences are not often told” (p. 32). The counternarratives of the Black women TESOL educators in this study indicate that their professional lives lack the protections that White privilege and White cultural belonging provide. Specifically, the teachers’ narratives emphasize the particular ways that gendered racism in the professional sphere places them “outside the bubble” of privilege, power, and apathy that White colleagues often enjoy. This presentation will highlight the voices of Black women TESOL educators, generate discussion on systemic inequity in the field, and offer strategies for positive change.

Author

• Carlotta Penn, The Ohio State University - Columbus