More Than Role Models: Problematizing Calls for Teacher Representation in the New Latino South

• In Event: 15.022 - Black and Latinx Issues in Teacher Retention

Abstract

While there is agreement on the lack of Latinx teachers in the South and the need to increase teacher representation, there is sparse conceptual work problematizing how such teachers are constructed and what they are asked to do. Specifically, research suggests that a major rationale for increasing Latinx teachers is that they act as role models for their students. However, this positioning as “role model” does little “to push our thinking forward and blur conventional boundaries” (AERA, 2018) of teaching and education. In this paper I use a conceptual frame of power/knowledge to argue that such positioning of role model helps maintain current power relations and sociopolitical realities while preventing teachers from sharing deeper epistemological and social justice insights.

Author

• Timothy Monreal, University of South Carolina