Developing an Antiracist Teaching Stance Through Critical Conversations

• In Event: Interrupting the Status Quo in Teacher Education: Critical Conversations About Race and Racism

Abstract

Over the past decade, racial literacy has become an important area of educational scholarship. Someone who is racially literate can examine, discuss, question, and confront racism through anti-racist action. Keeping this in mind, dismantling racial injustice and constructing educational possibilities for all students will require educators, researchers, and policymakers to closely examine the ways race and other issues of diversity impact teaching and learning. There is a critical need for racial literacy development among all education professionals. According to Sealey-Ruiz (2021), “Research has revealed that conversations about race, when done effectively, provide education professionals with the confidence they need to alter their pedagogy in more culturally responsive and culturally sustaining ways. They become skillful at engaging their students in essential conversations that relate to their learning and social development” (p. 287). Through my ongoing participation in a reading group focused on racial literacy development, I have recognized the importance of learning more about the history of race in education, the way race currently operates in schools, and how people of color are forced to resist various forms of oppression in American society. In this paper, I describe my own racial literacy development and anti-racist teaching stance by engaging in critical conversations with fellow practitioners about race and racism inside and outside of the classroom. I also explore the concept of “teacher as interrupter” (Sealey-Ruiz, 2021) and racial literacy as a framework for teacher education.

Author

• Christopher W. Buck, University of Massachusetts - Amherst