Toward a Pedagogy of Discomfort: Racial Literacy, Transgressive Conversations, and Institutional Change

• In Event: Teaching in a "Revolutionary Situation": The Role of Racial Justice in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives and Research Questions
Our paper explores a year-long process of personal and institutional introspection of racial equity and justice within a midwestern public urban college of education. The initiative occurred following the May 24, 2020, murder of George Floyd, and the ongoing loss of life in Black and Brown communities due to lethal policing and the disproportional impact of COVID. A dialogue among faculty in a pandemic-constrained Zoom setting reflected an acute sense of urgency, personal introspection, and institutional critique. College leadership responded with a proposal to interrogate our teaching and learning towards achieving racial equity and justice (Banks, 2020) and a year of data collection, self-study, reflection, and action plans ensued.

The objective of the paper is to explore the complexity of racial literacy on the ground as teacher educators engage with each other, students, and school partners. Our questions included: 1) How did racial equity and social justice thinking, talk, and action reveal tensions and desires among faculty in this context? and 2) In what way has that context seeded the ground for changed practices and policies, and how have struggles persisted?

Methods and Sources
Data sources include survey and focus group data, summative documents, as well as institutional archives. Through a qualitative case study approach, we examined the bounded time period of the 2020-2021 academic year in a single institution of which we are a part. The data sources include reflective writing entries by the authors who represent perspectives from multiple racial backgrounds.

Theory
We draw on the work of Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz (2021) in exploring an institutional context of faculty desire and struggles in interrogating their teaching and learning towards achieving racial equity and social justice. Sealey-Ruiz conceptualizes six components to racial literacy--critical love, critical humility, historical literacy, archaeology of self, and interruption. Carrying out racial literacy development in teacher education is a complex process of relationality (Howard, Milner-McCall, & Howard, 2021); decentering Whiteness as property (Harris, 1993) and normativity (DiAngelo, 2018); social comprehension (Ahmed, 2018); identity, skill, intellectual, and criticality development (Muhammad, 2020); racial healing and identity development (Ginwright, 2016); refusing oppression and a refusal to oppress, personally and collectively (Love, 2020).

Findings
Three findings emerged from the yearlong exploration. First, racial literacy work is challenging. The conversations were emotionally charged and revealed tensions, desires, and opportunities. Secondly, the initial context seeded the ground for changed practices and policies (though struggles continued). By interrogating systems and practices through an equity lens, faculty identified policies and hidden structures that advantaged some students and disadvantaged others. Thirdly, the desire to take action was slowed by the complexity of racial literacy on the ground as teacher educators engaged with each other, their students, and their school partners.

Significance
Our study responds to the call that educational research be positioned as a necessary site of deliberation. It extends Boler’s (2004) theoretical work on pedagogy of discomfort in its attention to individual and collective space for engaging in transgressive conversations toward decentering whiteness in teacher education (hooks, 1994).

Authors

• Terri Lynn Purcell, Cleveland State University
  Presenting Author

• Anne M. Galletta, Cleveland State University
  Presenting Author

• Tachelle I. Banks, Cleveland State University
  Presenting Author