Exploring the Power, Promise, and Possibilities of Affinity Groups for Male Teachers of Color

• In Event: Critical Quantification in Practice: Advancing Research on Racial Affinity-Based Professional Learning Programs in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Teacher professional development programs design retention initiatives, such as affinity groups, aimed at creating psychological safety and leveraging teachers’ lived, learned, and labored experiences (Pour-Khorshid, 2018). Despite progress in discourses around affinity groups (Byrd, 2022), there is a continued need to explore how professional development programs have redesigned aspects of their offerings to support male teachers of color, their identity development, as well as their social and emotional learning, in those affinity spaces. This paper will explore how male teachers of color describe the role of sacred spaces (Author, 2022), an affinity-based approach, focused on identity and social and emotional learning, in shaping their leadership development and experience at their clinical sites.

Author

• David J. Wallace, Awakening Minds LLC
  Presenting Author