From the Margins to the Core: Centering Antiracism in a Teacher Community of Practice

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Counter-Narratives for Transformative Change in Teaching and Teacher Education (Table 23)

Abstract

Teachers’ reproduction, resistance, and transformation of systemic racism in schools have long been a point of significance for educational research. We use qualitative participatory design methods to explore the ways that antiracist teachers work to transform their community practice. We found that teachers’ racial sense-making incorporated several intersecting contexts, and teachers were navigating tensions and constraints within political, relational, and institutional planes. Secondly, we discovered researchers within the RPP served as an external community of practice - sharing our own set of norms and practices that, in turn, supported the development of tools that could drive the teachers’ work forward. These findings offer components of a model for community-level transformation of teachers towards antiracism.

Authors

• Ung-Sang Albert Lee, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Brande M. Otis, Northwestern

• Kimberley Gomez, University of California - Los Angeles

• Monica Ceja Rodriguez, University of Nevada - Las Vegas