Holding Onto Humanity: How Networks Support Activist Teachers of Color

• In Event: 67.030 - In This Thing Together? Exploring Educators' Collaboration and Collegiality

Abstract

Teachers of Color (TOC) face significant challenges in U.S. schools and are under pressure to support minoritized students. In this paper, we draw on findings from a life histories study to examine what teacher activist networks offer TOC and how their participation in these networks influences their work in the classroom. Our findings reveal that these networks (1) offered teachers the chance to develop and refine their political ideology and knowledge as they pushed the limits of their teaching practice to better serve their minoritized students; (2) provided contradictions to the dehumanizing, isolating conditions experienced by TOC and their students; and (3) offered TOC a sense of connection and community that was often difficult to find in their schools.

Authors

• Sonia M Rosen, University of Pennsylvania

• Lynnette K. Mawhinney, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Kira J. Baker-Doyle, Arcadia University