Toward Critical, Race-Conscious Mentoring for Teachers of Color: Disrupting Essentialized and Race-Void Approaches

• In Event: Latinx Teacher From and for Diverse Communities and Contexts

Abstract

This study explores the phenomenon of mentoring among teachers of color (TOC). Specifically, it considers the ways eight seasoned, Latina/o/x teachers describe what exists and what they need in mentoring within the context of public school teaching. Five coalescing themes emerged from participant data. Key findings challenge sterile, vertical models of mentoring that disempower/ discount the assets TOCs bring to teaching. Participants narratives depict the fundamental importance of authentic, co-generative mentoring relationships with committed, critically-consciousness mentors willing to interrogate the contexts that marginalize communities of color. Participants sought out mentors who were learners and those that modeled strategic activism. In sum, data supports the importance of culturally-contextualized mentoring practices that center the racialized realities and capacities of teachers of color.

Authors

• Amanda Morales, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Pedro Espinoza, Kansas State University

• Kristin Duke, University of Nebraska - Lincoln