Teaching Critical Consciousness Together: How Professional Learning Communities Support Middle School Teachers in Teaching Potentially Controversial Topics

• In Event: Teachers Collaborating for Social-Emotional Learning Toward Equity: The Possibilities of Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

Critical consciousness is the skill to understand and challenge oppression and its impact (Freire, 1970), and in times marked by conflict about teaching critical consciousness by discussing race and racism, teachers face uncertainty in teaching what some deem as controversial topics. This is due to many factors, including fears of outside opposition, beliefs about the purpose of schooling, and policies, which can prevent teachers from engaging in this teaching (Ho et al., 2017). One underexplored element of this sort of teaching is how teachers might work collaboratively to teach controversial topics. Research has already shown that teachers working together in ongoing and site-specific teams can support teachers in sensemaking around the complexity of teaching (Charner-Laird et al., 2017; Darling-Hammond et al., 2009; Ronfeldt et al., 2015), a support structure that might be particularly relevant in teaching controversial topics. Teacher team structures like PLCs have been particularly meaningful for students’ social and academic outcomes at the middle school level (Hackmanm et al.2002; Wallace, 2007). This paper, drawn from a larger study about developing students’ critical consciousness skills, explores how teachers participating in PLCs thought about how, when, and why to teach lessons about racism that nurture critical consciousness with middle graders.

The PLCs in this study represent 5 public middle schools across the US, including California, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington, DC, and each school conducted a monthly PLC (2022-23) via zoom of teachers led by two researchers. The teachers (n=43) each facilitated advisory time, and the PLC learning was devoted to learning how to use that advisory to teach about race and racism. The data that are the primary focus of this study are one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with participating teachers, to elicit their perspectives about teaching this topic, their perspectives about doing so, and how they worked together to do this work. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and our research team is in the process of analyzing interviews using a multi-step analytic strategy that seeks to balance etic and emic perspectives (Erickson & Murphy, 2008). We use a theoretical framework focused on difficult knowledge (Britzman, 2000) to unpack teachers’ responses about teaching about racism and oppression.

Early results of this coding reveal that teachers perceived a number of barriers to teaching critical consciousness, including general lack of sanctioned curriculum for advisory time, the appropriateness of advisory for this work, their own fears and beliefs about discussing racism with students, concerns about developmental appropriateness with middle graders, and concerns about how this might be perceived by the school community and beyond. These concerns did impact teachers’ decisions to teach particular lessons related to racism and oppression, but the PLC structure provided support in navigating and at times, circumventing these concerns as teachers collaboratively brainstormed approaches that felt comfortable and possible. Teachers also reported that they themselves learned about race and racism, and that it was helpful and powerful to do so alongside colleagues, with whom they came to feel more closely connected.

Authors

• Christina L. Dobbs, Boston University

• Scott Clifford Seider, Boston College

• Daren Graves, Simmons University

• Brianna C. Diaz, Boston College

• Babatunde Alford, Boston College

• Sarah Norris, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Trang U. Le, Boston College

• Sarah E. Fogelman, Boston College

• Alexandra Honeck, Boston College

• Emma Thompson, Boston College