Teacher Histories in Communities of Color: Shifting Teacher of Color Identities Through Co-Design (Poster 8)

• In Event: AERA Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Teachers have complex identities intertwined with their racial, gender, ethnic, and national backgrounds. These identities animate their decision making, value judgements, and ethics of their work as they design and implement curriculum. Teacher identities are often positioned as linked to their professional or practice of teaching (Alsup, 2006), placing important personal identities, particularly for teachers of color, at the margins. This presentation puts forth a theory of Teacher Histories in Communities of Color (THICC) that interrogates how teachers of color identities mediate learning for teachers and their students in the context of curricular co-design and implementation. Through a study of engagement in a co-design curriculum creation and implementation process, this qualitative study seeks to highlight the histories, practices and narratives that mediate teachers' pedagogical decision making and are intertwined with their identities. This framework emphasizes that situated conflict and tensions that are present due to histories of institutionalized struggles and are coming into the present pedagogical choices and reflections with teachers. By surfacing analytical tools that can be used to understand teachers of color identities, this study serves to highlight the complexity within diverse teacher communities and support teachers of color as they create spaces for meaningful and justice-oriented learning. Teacher Histories in Communities of color offers an understanding of identity development, formation and re-formation through engaging with tensions and conflicts in curricular design and implementation to better understand teacher learning and identities.

Author

• Kate Baca, University of Colorado - Boulder