Intersectionality: Tracing the Presences and Absences of the Margins We Map

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

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this paper is twofold. On one hand, the authors will trace the historical and contemporary iterations of intersectional dialogues as they exist across fields of research—from dialogues that have implications in the legal system to complicated conversations about schools and systems of schooling. This paper will also consider the absences within those conversations, carefully considering, for example: How do intersectional dialogues impact trans and gender-nonbinary teachers of color as they negotiate white supremacist norms in classrooms and communities? How do markers of difference in terms of ability as they intersect with race, genders, sexual orientations, and the like inform whether and how teachers of color can fully participate in K-12 schools?

Framework: This paper uses the existing intersectional framework first proposed by Kimberle Crenshaw (1991) and uses a historical tracing of the field as it is related to local and less local sociopolitical norms and values to better understand how the intersectionality might be/is situated in, across, and outside of contemporary understandings. For example, although the theoretical framework has been used to interrupt oppressive norms and values across fields, this paper considers how the positioning of the term might also reinforce forms of oppression.

Methods/Data Sources: The method for writing this paper is predominantly a literature review across fields that includes dialogues from scholarly as well as activist spaces.

Results: Rather than “results” this paper is meant to call for further unpacking of intersectional work while advocating for its significance in teacher education and K-12 schools more broadly. Intersectional analyses have been used to unpack inequities that continue to impact girls of color, those with (dis)abilities, queer and questioning youth, those with multiple home languages and cultures, and others. This paper, therefore, highlights some of those dialogues and their complications, as the authors attend to the possibilities and challenges within continuing intersectional work as scholars, teachers, and policymakers who are invested in the state of schools and systems of schooling.

Scholarly Significance: In terms of education and teachers of color, this is particularly significant in that students’ identities are increasingly diverse while teachers’ identities have remained rather static—that is, they are still largely white, female, straight, and cisgender (Geiger, 2018). This means that a large number of teachers and administrators continue to benefit from the structures most likely to oppress many of their students. Similarly, teachers who embody minoritized identities often encounter implicit and explicit bias from students, colleagues, and administrators that are oppressive and central to questions of fatigue and burnout (Fashing-Varner et al., 2015; Gilbert, 2014). In short, marginalization continues to be a central experience in schools for those who share intersectional identities.

Authors

• Ed Brockenbrough, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Boni Wozolek, Pennsylvania State University - Abington
  Presenting Author