A Call to Action: An Examination of Black Male Teacher Recruitment Discourse

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Critically Examining the Trajectories of Black Male Teachers From Teacher Preparation Through Induction

Abstract

Objective and Purpose: This paper explores the implicit and explicit discourses within recruitment calls for Black male teachers. Moreover, we are interested in how wider discourses about Black male youth inform the recruitment discussions about Black male teachers.

Theoretical Framework: This study draws from the frameworks of populational reasoning (Popkewitz, 1998) and cultural memory (Trouillot, 2015). Popkewitz (1998) states, “[P]opulational reasoning constructs our understanding of the way children learn, of school achievement, and the social and psychological attributes presumed to cause school failure” (p. 26). By drawing from the cultural memory literature, this paper seeks to understand how recruitment discourses about Black male teachers are also tied to long standing histories about the sociology of the Black family.

Methods, Technique, Modes of Inquiry: Historicizing of knowledge was the method used in this project. Historicizing of knowledge as a method of analysis examines how trajectories of the past help to shape how “ideas and events of the present are constructed” (Popkewitz, 1997, p.18). Employing this historical approach, this study focused on how long-standing discourses about Black males found in social science literature are present within recruitment discourses for Black male teachers. More specifically this essay examines the following research question: How do educational stakeholders discuss the need for more Black male teachers?

Data Sources: The data sources used for this essay drew from universities, districts and foundations that focus on recruiting more Black male teachers. We were also specifically interested in organizations that also have developed programmatic efforts to increase the number of Black men to the teaching profession. We examined the discourses found print materials, on-line media and new articles highlighting the efforts of organizations focused on the recruitment of Black male teachers.

Results/Substantiated Conclusions: The results of our analysis reveal how ideas about Black fathers as being “absent” is explicitly or implicitly present within recruitment calls for Black male teachers. Our conclusions suggest that an overarching narrative about the desire to recruit more Black teachers is tightly coupled with long standing ideas about Black families and Black fathers.

Scientific/Scholarly Significance: Given the increased focus on diversifying the teaching force, we maintain that attention should be given to the underlying discourses that frame diversity recruitment calls. Districts, foundations and university-based programs focused specifically on Black male teachers should consider a more comprehensive rationale for bringing more Black males to the classroom, beyond the same old stories (Brown, 2010) of Black father absence.

Authors

• Anthony L. Brown, University of Texas at Austin

• Daniel Thomas III, The University of Kansas