Critical Professional Development and the Racial Justice Possibilities of Teachers of Color in K–12 Schools

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Using a framework of critical professional development (CPD)— development spaces that frame teachers having a stake in teaching and transforming society—this panel will showcase the possibilities of a racial affinity CPD space designed to promote the retention, growth, activism and leadership of teachers of Color in K-12 schools. The panel includes the organizers of a CPD (who are also educational researchers, and teachers of Color who have attended the CPD, engaged in transformative racial justice projects at their school sites, and documented their processes. After an overview of the CPD, participants will be guided by data and reflections on the ways in which teachers of Color built on the CPD and engaged in racial justice work in their schools.

Sub Unit

• Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education / Division K - Section 03: Teachers’ and Teacher Educators’ Lives: Lived Experiences, Identities, Socialization and Development

Chair

• Rita Kohli, University of California - Riverside

Papers

• La Lotería and Creative Resistance in Arts Education - Luis Genaro Garcia, California State University - Sacramento

• Learning From Arts Education: Culturally Sustaining Approaches to Middle School Language Arts - Lisa Kelly

• Resisting Deficit Approaches to Student Engagement: Latinx Students and Culturally Sustaining Self-Determination - Michael Espinoza, Campbell Union High School District

• The Power and Tensions of Teacher of Color Organizing in a Predominantly White Profession - Juan Cordova

Discussant

• Marcos Pizarro, San José State University