Creating the Conditions for Interruption: Racial Literacy Development in a Critical Inquiry Group

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Together We Rise: Transforming Teacher Education Through Collaborative and Critical Inquiry (Table 16)

Abstract

Critical inquiry groups for social justice (CIG) can be powerful spaces to foster teachers’
capacity to interrupt inequitable instructional practices and school policies. Sealey-Ruiz’s (2021)
six components of racial literacy development provided a framework to analyze whether and
how teachers in a school-based CIG interrupted racism on interpersonal and systemic levels. The
analysis revealed three categories of interruption the teachers enacted: 1) interrupting deficit
perspective, 2) interrupting curriculum that reifies racism, and 3) interrupting color-
evasive and value-neutral discourse. The paper concludes with recommendations for designing justice-oriented
professional learning spaces.

Author

• Tanya E. Friedman, Hunter College - CUNY
  Presenting Author