Welcoming Affects in Teacher Inquiry for Inclusivity and Equity

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Making Meaning of Justice and Equity: Inquiries Into Pedagogy and Practice

Abstract

We document our collaboration with participants in voluntary teacher inquiry group on critical inclusivity. Understanding teachers are at the heart of knowledge production and recognizing the importance of their lived experience, we use ethnographic methods and post-structuralist approaches to document the entangled, heteroglossic, and slow process of inquiry for equity. By surfacing the underexplored and often silenced inner lives and voices of teachers, we call attention to the unpredictable circulation of affects and the productive potential of affective attunement. Our inquiry process encouraged us to shed our “researcher skin” to embrace vulnerability, ambiguity, and emotionality. The findings from our journey shed light on the promise of making space for affect and building emotional resources with teachers engaged in equity-oriented inquiry.

Authors

• Catherine Yanan Cheng Stahl, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Celia J. Oyler, Teachers College, Columbia University