“I Wanna Be With My Kids”: One Black Female Teacher’s Experiences With New Racism

• In Event: Black Women Teachers' Reflections and Resistance

Abstract

This paper narrates one Black female’s, Ms. Edgars, experiences as an educator in a racially hostile teaching environment. Using case study methodology, this five-month ethnographic case study investigated Ms. Edgars’ culturally specific teaching beliefs and practices as well as her experiences as a member of a predominantly white teaching staff in an urban elementary school in the Midwest. This paper provides a series of vignettes that capture the everyday racialized microaggressions experienced by Ms. Edgars as well as her students. Findings illuminate how racism continues to permeate the learning experiences of Black and Brown children as well as how Ms. Edgars experienced everyday racism from her teaching colleagues as a Black woman.

Author

• Sara E. Bangert, Indiana University - Indianapolis