"Anti–Critical Race Theory" Laws, Risk, and Decision Making: A Survey of Texas Social Studies Teachers

• In Event: "Walking on a Tightrope": Social Studies in an Era of Restrictions on Teaching Divisive Issues

Abstract

Purposes
In 2021, conservative legislatures across the United States passed censorship laws that outlawed teaching current events or hard histories that address racial or gender injustices (Jeffries, 2018). In Texas, one law mandated that “a teacher may not be compelled to discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs” (Lopez, 2021, para. 2). Using qualitative methods, Pollock et al. (2022) have observed a chilling effect. In this study, we use a quantitative approach to ask how perceptions of risk from these laws affect curricular decision-making for Texas social studies teachers.
Theoretical Framework
The Extended Parallel Process Model (Witte, 1992; Witte & Allen, 2000) proposes that people’s intention to engage in risky behavior depends on their perceptions of threat severity, personal susceptibility to the risk, and perceived levels of response efficacy and self-efficacy (Maloney et al., 2011). For teachers, the EPPM predicts the likelihood of engaging in a teaching practice depending on their perceptions of its risk, its effectiveness, and their ability to implement it.
Methods
Using a list of email addresses from all 116,669 social studies teachers registered with the Texas Education Agency, we invited 40,000 teachers to participate in our survey.
Data Sources
A total of 706 social studies teachers completed the survey, which included measures of threat severity, personal susceptibility, fear levels, response efficacy, and self-efficacy. Participants provided demographic information and completed outcome measures of intention to teach six lesson types, intention to teach lesson types compared against past behavior, perceived influence of support from administrators, and perceived influence of CRT laws.
The survey population was representative of Texas social studies teachers. Participants averaged 14.73 years of experience ranging from year 1 to 53. Their average age was 45.63 ranging from 21 to 81. 64.4% (455) were women, 34.6% (244) were men, and .7% (5) identified as non-binarry. 68% (480) identified as white, 19% (137) Hispanic, 9% (65) Black, 4% (31) Native American, and 3% (24) Asian.
Participants were distributed across K-12 schooling levels (Figure 2) and represented 98 counties (Figure 3). They reported party affiliations and political ideologies with a leftward lean (Figures 4 & 5).
Preliminary Findings
Neither the level of schooling taught nor a teacher’s race had an effect on their intentions to teach critical lessons, but gender did. Consistent with EPPM, ratings of susceptibility had a significant negative influence on the intention to teach critical lessons as compared with past behavior and in light of “anti-CRT” laws. Self-efficacy also had a positive effect. Female teachers reported higher levels of susceptibility and male teachers reported higher levels of self-efficacy.
Significance
Social studies education scholars have argued that teaching hard histories is integral to a citizenship education that advances multiracial democracy and tribal sovereignty (An, 2016; Busey & Walker, 2017; Sabzalian, 2019). Our survey found evidence that censorship laws are making it harder for female teachers to pursue those ends.

Author

• Daniel G. Krutka, University of North Texas
  Presenting Author