Building Coalition and Leveraging Forms of Backup to Combat Divisive Concepts and Dismantle Inequity

• In Event: Reflexive and Engaged Policy Studies: Critical Policy Research With K–12 Teachers and Teacher Educators

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes:
Signed into law on April 22, 2022, Georgia is one of 44 states that has introduced censorship legislation since January 2021 (Schwartz, 2023). Entitled the “Protect Students First Act,” Georgia’s House Bill 1084 (HB 1084) labeled nine concepts as “divisive,” prohibited from mandatory training, classroom instruction, or curriculum. Race and gender are featured extensively in the language of the legislation. As this legislation is relatively new, there is scant research examining the effects of this legislation. This study is authored by a collective of 10 teacher-scholars in Georgia who reflect on the implications of HB 1084 on their work and consider ways they navigate pushback against critical teaching. Through an autoethnographic approach, we crystallized our vignettes – told reflectively and purposefully – in response to these guiding questions:
How is censorship legislation, and specifically HB 1084, impacting a diverse group of educators?
How do educators navigate censorship legislation in different contexts?
Theoretical framework:
We drew from Pollock and colleagues (2022) five forms of backup as a framework for teachers to use when they face opposition or “pushback” against equity-centered teaching: stealth backup, subspace backup, student-led backup, school leader backup, and system backup. As we analyzed our vignettes, we considered what forms of backup were available in our different contexts.

Methods and Data Sources:
Participants in this study shared vignettes about their experiences, responding to the divisive concepts legislation within their own educational contexts. We engaged in an autoethnographic reflection (Hughes & Pennington, 2017) of our reactions to HB 1084. Capturing the ontological and epistemological plurality of our classroom (Carter Andrews et al., 2019), we acknowledged the many ways of being and knowing. In doing so, we worked to decenter “Eurocentric, cis-hetero-ablest knowledge and cultural practices in schooling” (p. 21).

After constructing our narratives, we conducted line-by-line coding (Charmaz, 2014) to better understand the patterns within our experiences. In coding for Pollock’s (2022) forms of backup, we connected our spectrum of reactions to what forms of support we possessed and how this related to our intersectional identities.

Results: Through coding, we developed a spectrum of responses to censorship legislation that moved among fear, hesitation, and resistance. As we coded our vignettes and examined our responses to H.B. 1084 legislation, we noticed how our experiences with the legislation were shaped not only by our education roles (e.g. novice teacher versus veteran teacher in a high school setting) but also by our identities. The vignettes contextualize the current political climate, address real and imagined fears provoking those in education to self-censor, and explore the impact of divisive concepts legislation on the teaching profession, student efficacy, and agency.

Significance: This session has implications for educators and researchers facing divisive concepts legislation. We consider to what extent our reactions to censorship legislation might be atypical for teachers in Georgia, considering the forms of backup that come with our involvement in professional organizations and our university positioning. From our reflections, we better understand the need for university-school partnerships, coalition building, and diversified forms of backup.

Authors

• Nadia Behizadeh, Georgia State University

• Lisa York, Georgia State University

• Saniha Kabani, Georgia State University

• Caroline B. Rabalais, Georgia State University

• Matthew Shiloh, Georgia State University

• Nathaniel Ervin, Georgia State University

• Marquis Baker, Georgia State University

• Kate Woodbridge, City Schools of Decatur

• Marissa M. Murdock, Georgia State University