Tensions in Participatory Work With Teachers

• In Event: Collaborative Approaches to Noticing for Anti-Oppressive Mathematics Education

Abstract

Objectives
Community-based approaches to teacher learning are increasingly recognized for their ability to blur lines between schools and communities (Bang, et al, 2016) and to position those with lived experiences of oppression as critical to revealing injustice (Fine, 2017; Fals-Borda & Rahman, 1991) and essential contributors to social change. As a microcosm of larger social-political hierarchies, this form of joint collaboration is imbued with tensions. The aim of this paper is to examine tensions that emerged, how and whether tensions were explored, and the influence on ongoing joint work.

Theoretical Framework
Researchers who adopt a participatory perspective view tensions as potential sites for learning, in which conflict can illuminate differences in values, goals, or perspectives that when interrogated can reveal power structures in institutions, discourses, and histories (Fine, 2017). Learning occurs as the tension is traced back to hierarchies and the suppression of minoritized perspectives and experiences that when made visible can catalyze new social imaginaries (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016). Yet, tensions are often intangible, and can emerge first in the body, thus, noticing and embracing discomfort is central to exploring tensions.

Methods
Data for this study include recordings and transcripts of summer institutes, interviews, and team meetings. Data was analyzed through open-coding and identified tensions. Once identified by the three researchers, memos were written about how the tension emerged and operated on aspects of the project (e.g., trajectory of the discourse, positions and roles, members’ felt experiences). Two of the tensions are described below.

Results
The first tension is performativity, and the (perceived) need by Co-ATTEND community members, all People of Color, to provide insight on discussions of race, creating a sense of burden not felt by the majority white teachers. For example, facilitators often paused to provide space for participants to think through the prompts, yet often the silence landed on People of Color to speak to how unjust systems of race were playing out. We collectively identified this tension and traced it to broader racial hierarchies, which in turn informed the project design.

A second tension emerged around teacher sensemaking of anti-oppressive teaching and practice. In their discursive moves, ‘sameness’ often was sought, which side-stepped productive discomfort. For example, in a discussion on schooling and dominant ideologies, one of the community leaders, a Black woman, mentioned that teacher preparation programs often reinforce dominant ideologies. A white, male teacher made a connection to the stigma of alternative teaching training, which circumvents the critique of teacher education as enmeshed in dominant ideologies. We did not pause here, and the dilemma persisted over the course of the project.

Scholarly significance
This study speaks to the promise and complexity of social arrangements for teacher learning stemming from participatory perspectives. It highlights the importance of tensions as site for social change, and the challenge of responding to them in the everyday work.

Authors

• Victoria M. Hand, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Elizabeth Mendoza, University of California - Irvine

• Janiece Z. Mackey, Young Aspiring Americans for Social and Political Activism

• Jihee Yoon, University of Arizona