Teacher Identity and Political Instruction

• In Event: 31.035 - Teacher Identity Development Situated in Dynamic Social and Cultural Contexts

Abstract

Social studies teachers’ identities cannot be separated from the political discourse within society and its interplay with teachers’ various orientations and ideologies. Despite this delicate identity construction, most of the research in this area has focused on how students receive such instruction or how external pressures exacerbate teachers’ fears associated with broaching controversial issues in their classes. In this paper, I explore this relationship between identity and political instruction by looking at ways in which social studies teachers’ race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and political ideologies may influence their pedagogical decisions when confronted with current political issues. While there are certainly issues related to discussing political ideas that are common to all teachers, it also makes sense that aspects of teachers’ identities play a part in their decisions to address certain issues in classrooms or disclose their opinions to students.

I frame my research in this paper using Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (1998) definition of identity as “self-understandings” that are a “key means through which people care about and care for what is going on around them” (p. 5). Teaching about politics forces teachers to balance how they view the world and their feelings about how society should function with their professional obligation to create spaces in which a variety of rational opinions are valued. While there are many ways in which teachers’ identities may influence their political instruction, for the purposes of this research, I focus specifically on the ways in which teachers’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and political ideologies, as well as the intersectionality of those various identities, may shape their instructional decision.

Teachers cannot magically shed their political identities once they walk into a school building, and in some cases, their professional identities come in conflict with their personal beliefs. Moreover, the “fishbowl” nature of the teaching profession also means that teachers need to be cognizant of how they project their political identities in public and on social media, particularly if they teach in a community whose ideology runs counter to theirs. Context also matters when assessing the role that teacher identity plays in one’s political instruction. Periods of heightened political awareness and/or anxiety, such as presidential elections or the aftermath of a national crisis, tend to bring identity to the political forefront. Donald Trump’s election, for example, has had ramifications on how politics is discussed in public schools. Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric on immigrants, Muslims, and women have been echoed within the walls of K-12 schools across the United States (Castillo, 2016), and one can imagine that teachers who identify with these groups have found teaching politics under Trump particularly challenging.

The purpose of this paper is not to explicitly define how teachers’ identities influence their political instruction; rather, the purpose is to encourage a critical look at the ways in which teacher identity affects K-12 political instruction. An increased focus on the role teacher identity plays on teachers’ instructional decision-making can help us better understand and critique longstanding beliefs associated with political instruction.

Author

• Wayne Journell, University of North Carolina - Greensboro