In Service of Disruption: Exploring Disruptions for White Educators Engaged in In-Service Professional Development

• In Event: Rethinking Approaches to Studying Professional Learning in the Service of Social Justice

Abstract

Heeding the call of the 2020 Annual Meeting, this research partnered with a professional development facilitator to explore the nature and impact of different disruptions experienced by all-white faculty and leadership from across a suburban school district in a Mid-Atlantic state. This proposal weaves together three related theoretical frameworks to analyze the experiences of white teachers in equity professional development addressing race and racism: race as performative (Warren, 2003), the centrality of emotions for white educators as they confront about race and racism (Matias, Montoya & Nishi, 2016), and culturally disruptive pedagogy (San Pedro, 2018). In accordance with these theoretical frameworks, “cognitive” disruptions as well as “emotional,” “embodied,” and “spatial” disruptions are documented and explored.

Author

• Andrew Matschiner, University of California - San Diego