Teacher as Bricoleur: Advancing a Framework for Critically Aware, Creative, and Resourceful Teacher Identity Development

• In Event: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Teachers' Lives: Critical Methodologies and Critical Stories

Abstract

Teachers’ racialized identities will undoubtedly influence who they are as teachers and how they teach the racialized bodies in their classroom. Racial storylines are the pervasive narratives about race in ours social discourse that gets enacted in schools and other social settings. These storylines influence the identities that are made available to learners (and teachers) in learning contexts. This paper examines the experiences of three teachers of Afro-Diasporic descent and how they negotiate their identities and corresponding practices in the science classroom, especially around race in relation to teaching science. I forward a notion of Critical Agentic Bricoleur that describes how they adapted meanings of informal science learning in response prevailing deficit narratives about race in schools and science.

Author

• Jennifer Dawn Adams, University of Calgary