Supporting Teachers to Refuse Hate in a Hate-Spike Era: Core Tensions of "Nonpartisan" Practice Today

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Designing Supports for Educators in a Trump Era

Abstract

Objective: We share findings from a study of “#USvsHate”: an educator-and-youth-led project to counter the hate spike documented since Trump’s election (Rogers et al., 2017; 2019). Educators teach anti-hate lessons and students create inclusion messages for school communities. We piloted #USvsHate in a politically mixed region (Author, 2017; SPLC, 2019). Here, majority white teachers serve proportionately more undocumented and refugee students than other communities, alongside vehement anti-immigration sentiment. Students report virulent racism, Islamophobia, and homophobia.

Theoretical Perspective: We extend scholarship demonstrating “old and new” pressure to address “hate.” School-based hate incidents spike as “teachers are seeing increased incivility, intolerance and polarization in classrooms” (Rogers et al., 2019). Yet, countering hate is a longstanding responsibility of teachers (Hollins & Guzman, 2005) and always key to positive school climate (NSCC, 2015). Our era is also not “new,” but an unleashed version of historically treating some “groups” as superior (Kendi, 2016). Thus, we define “hate” as: “any time people denigrate, disrespect or harm an individual or group as if they are an inferior type of person”—behavior core to society and schools pre-Trump, and currently spiking.

Methods: Participants included 12 districts, 53 teachers, and 3300 students. Research questions:
How are educators in these demographic/political contexts currently experiencing equity-and-inclusion-oriented dialogue and action?
What dialogue [and other] supports are needed currently?
What else can we learn about implementing equity-and-inclusion-oriented efforts in politically polarized contexts?
We documented dialogues via fieldnotes, and participants shared #USvsHate experiences via interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires (Emerson et al., 1995; Mishler, 1991). Using discourse analysis, (Author et al., 2010; 2015), we conducted a grounded analysis (Charmaz, 2006), identifying trends in responses (Boyatsis, 1998) and “core tensions” (Author, 2017). Insights were discussed via member checks (Richards, 2005).

Findings: Analysis pinpointed several core tensions, each a longstanding but currently exacerbated dynamic of teaching against “hate.”
Respond immediately, but wait for preparation. Teachers want to counter hate immediately, but fear doing so without sufficient preparation; a tension long core to “diversity” education with a mostly-white teaching force (Hollins & Guzman, 2005). This is exacerbated when teachers must publicly denounce a range of hate incidents; each requires “preparation” they lack.

Refuse hate in a “nonpartisan” manner. Countering current hate raises a timeless question of whether teaching for inclusion is too “political” or “partisan” for schools, or simply a requirement of education (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Some participants used the word “political” to deem anti-hate messaging off limits; a critic found the project “yelling at President Trump.” Yet, others made clear that inclusion is not “partisan.”

Refuse hateful speech and treasure freedom of speech. Students indicated hate speech was normalized in school, making refusing hate an essential enterprise. Yet, a national dynamic of insisting on “freedom” to speak hatefully had some noting the rarity of challenging ubiquitous “hateful” speech.

Significance: In a polarized climate, supporting anti-hate action feels simultaneously essential, age-old, and newly fraught. School communities weathering hate deserve researchers’ partnership in determining how to insist “everyone belongs.” This requires studying, then addressing, core tensions of teachers’ current situation.

Author

• Mariko Yoshisato Cavey, Johns Hopkins University