Radical Refuge: A Spatial Justice Approach Toward Workforce Sustainability for Black and Latina ECE (Early Childhood Education) Educators

• In Event: Parallel Spaces of Belonging: Building Education Spaces Free of Racism and Sexism for Early Childhood Educators

Abstract

Positionality: During the pandemic ‘self-care’ became the solution for workforce sustainability. As a Brown-skinned Latina, veteran teacher, and researcher of teacher mental health and wellness (MHW), calls for self-care felt sexist and racist. Men are not told to practice self-care when experiencing systemic exploitation in his workplace. I considered: How I could provide timely support for Latina and Black women educators that could be timeless?
I recalled people clamoring to commune in restaurant pods as NYC COVID-19 restrictions lightened. Inside these physical plastic-bubbles, they escaped the toxicity of the virus and healed emotionally through social connections.
What is required of an educational space free of racist and sexist injustices?
Support that acknowledges lived experiences of Latina and Black women must consider how racialized physical space supports or hinders their ability to engage socially and emotionally within it. Similar to restaurant pandemic-pods, I created the Radical Refuge: an ongoing professional development program as a space of refuge.
Purpose:
This study presents findings of the Radical Refuge, designed to support the MHW of Latina and Black women educators in early childhood education (ECE). The objective is to showcase the transformative impact of physical, social, and emotional spaces enabling educators to escape the toxicity of the education system while engaging in facilitated identity development (Figure-1). The purpose is to offer insights into how this spatial justice[1] approach positively influences educators' MHW, ultimately contributing to workforce sustainability.
Theoretical Framework:
Grounded in Critical Race Spatial Analysis[2] and the Five Awarenesses of Teaching[3-5], the study explores the influence of identity and positionality[6]on Latina and Black women educators’ socio-spatial experiences of systemic racism and sexism. Theoretical frameworks guided the design of physical, social, and emotional spaces within the Radical Refuge.
Methods:
The present critical qualitative study explores sixty Latina and Black women ECE educators’ experiences participating in the Radical Refuge: a virtual support group and in-person healing retreat held through winter and fall of 2022 in NYC. Data was collected from: clinical social workers who co-designed and facilitated virtual sessions, in-person retreat facilitators, and educators within the Radical Refuge (Table-1). Data was analyzed and trustworthiness established, using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (Table-2). We describe the physical, social and emotional spaces of the Radical Refuge and detail our unique approach to humanizing data collection and analysis.
Findings:
Educators' experiences exhibit how space can enable belonging. Physical space provided validation, breaking away from historical exploitation and erasure[7,8]. Social space fostered deep affinity, enabling communal healing. Emotional space facilitated identity development and processing trauma, to heal and reenter the classroom rejuvenated. Integrating physical, social, and emotional spaces led to transformative experiences, positively supporting educators' awareness-of-self and MHW.
Significance:
The Radical Refuge offsets the toxic systems and sociopolitical conditions that exhaust and traumatize Latina and Black women ECE educators[9,10]. Rather than invalidating their experiences and telling them to “do more” via self-care, it welcomes their full selves to a space with the time, community, and facilitated identity development to heal, [re]engage and [re]imagine a more humane ECE system towards workforce sustainability.

Author

• Vanessa Rodriguez, New York University