Countering Teacher of Color Attrition Through Critical Professional Development and Critical Mentoring

• In Event: Charting the Landscape of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers

Abstract

Objectives
Research has demonstrated that teacher racial and cultural match results in positive student academic and personal outcomes (Eddy & Easton-Brooks, 2011; Egalite et al., 2015). However, despite the ever-increasing diverse student population, there continues to be a lack of representation of Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers (TOCIT). In this presentation, we use the frameworks of Critical Professional Development and critical mentorshing to address TOCITs’ retention.

Literature Connections
Studies have explored the racialized oppression that TOCITs’experience (Amos, 2018; Dixson & Dingus, 2008). Research has also argued that TOCITs often enter the teaching profession with a heightened awareness of social inequality, have higher expectations, and engage in more culturally responsive teaching (Cherng & Davis, 2017; Easton-Brooks, 2019). Yet, TOCITs tend to be neglected within traditional approaches to professional development, mentorship, and the broader literature. This policy paper will explore critical approaches for professional development and mentoring needed to enhance TOCITs’ capacity and retention as transformative leaders.

Theoretical Frameworks
Traditional models of professional development and mentoring privilege skill development at the expense of social analyses or justice-oriented practices, and take a race-evasive approach (Cochran-Smith, Villegas…2015; ), and thus, under-serve the needs of TOCITs (Author, 2022a; Author, 2019). While there is continued efforts to diversify the teaching force for the rich rewards it brings for all students (Cherng & Halpin, 2016), there must be an acknowledgment that TOCITs are being hired into a White dominated profession imbued in educational policies and practices that leads to attrition.

Critical professional development is a model dedicated to the political development of teachers, centering their transformative capacity as agents of change. Similarly critical culturally efficacious mentorship is another component supporting TOCITs’ growth as transformative change agents and a means to counter teacher attrition (Author, 2022a, 2022b). We anchored critical culturally efficacious mentoring on Weiston-Serdan’s theoretical lens and a culturally efficacious mentoring theoretical model (Author, 2022). Critical culturally efficacious mentoring calls mentors-mentees to acknowledge that the hegemony in educational contexts must be named and interrogated through horizontal dialogue in which the TOCITs identities and experiences are centered and power relationships are deconstructed

Methods & Data Sources

This policy paper is built upon an analysis of two bodies of literature, where we searched and examined professional development and mentoring from a critical lens and in which TOCITs were centered using these search terms: teachers of Color, Black/African American, Latinx/Latina/o,Chicana/o, Indigenous/Native, Asian American teachers, etc.

Results and Scholarly Significance

In our review, three main approaches emerged for critical professional development: 1) involved racial affinity groupings, 2) were self-guided or teacher-led, and 3) focused primarily on strengthening teachers' critical consciousness or activist stance. Additionally, it emerged that mentoring be viewed from a developmental continuum in which the TOCIT’s unique experiences be considered. Moreover, critical mentoring requires highly skilled mentors who can address the inequities present within the educational context. If we are truly committed to transformative practices, we must ensure that there are policies in place that address critical professional development and mentoring as key components of teacher development.

Authors

• Belinda Bustos Flores, University of Texas - San Antonio
  Non-Presenting Author

• Socorro Herrera, Kansas State University
  Presenting Author

• Rita Kohli, University of California - Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Peggy Brookins, NBPTS
  Presenting Author

• Lorena Claeys, University of Texas - San Antonio
  Presenting Author

• Re'Nyqua Farrington, University of California - Riverside
  Presenting Author