Critical Multimodal Witnessing: A Methodological Approach for Capturing the Dynamics of Teacher of Color Pedagogical Decision-Making for K-12 Ethnic Studies (Poster 30)

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

As a result of community organizing efforts and the recent passing of Assembly Bill 101, California became the first state in the U.S. to include Ethnic Studies as a public high school graduation requirement by 2025. Within this policy context, teachers of Color also have a long-standing history of enacting and embodying Ethnic Studies teaching in and outside of K-12 public schools, with and without official titles or courses. Using exploratory ethnographic methods to conduct a multi-sited study with twelve teachers of Color committed to Ethnic studies from diverse micro-geographical contexts (e.g. urban, suburban, rural), my research partners and I engaged in dialogue about their locally-specific experiences during this sociohistorical moment, and co-theorized how their local contexts (re)shaped their pedagogical decision-making in classroom and school-based settings, and the impact these decisions had on student learning. Preliminary findings reveal the necessity of a research paradigm that captures the simultaneity of multiple and, at times, conflicting perspectives that jointly shape teachers’ Ethnic Studies pedagogical decision-making within interactional, institutional, community, and broader societal contexts. Based on the emergent nature of data collection and data analysis in this study, I develop "critical multimodal witnessing" as a methodological approach and analytic tool for (1) juxtaposing dimensions of social activities and perspectives that are concurrently happening at the same time and across time within classroom spaces while (2) attuning to the racialized, affective, embodied, and spiritual dimensions of pedagogical decision-making for K-12 Ethnic Studies.

Author

• Josephine Pham, University of California - Santa Cruz