Teacher Role Identity and Racial Socialization in the Classroom

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Identity Development, Socialization, and Retention (Table 27)

Abstract

Racial socialization is an important identity building process that is typically examined within families. Recently, racial socialization research has been extended to the role of schools and school agents, like teachers, and their messages to students about race. However, research is nascent regarding teachers’ perspectives on their role in students’ racial socialization. This longitudinal case study uses the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity to investigate a novice social studies teacher’s identity and racial socialization messages in their instruction. Findings demonstrate how the teacher’s role identity—identity content, alignments, and tensions among her self-perceptions, purpose and goals, beliefs about her students, and perceived action possibilities in the classroom—framed the type of racial socialization messages they incorporated into their lessons.

Authors

• Amani Rush, Temple University

• Avi Kaplan, Temple University

• Abby Reisman, University of Pennsylvania

• Timothy Patterson, Temple University

• Wendy Chan, University of Pennsylvania