Building Coalitions Through Co-Design: Possibilities and Complexities for Developing an Ethnic Studies Pedagogy

• In Event: Co-Designing Collective Learning for Ethnic Studies Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives
With deep-seated colonial roots, schools in the United States continue to be battlegrounds for liberatory education (Vossoughi & Tintiangco-Cubales, 2020). Building classrooms that cultivate student wellness instead of perpetuating (neo)colonial violence is one of the many challenges faced by educators with political commitments to ethnic studies. An ethnic studies pedagogy demands robust relationships with the local community (Tintiangco-Cubales et al., 2019), yet meaningful coalition building is often stymied by colonial oppression, including carceral logics (Shalaby, 2021). This paper explores the question, how does coalition building within an ethnic studies pedagogy learning community influence the development of educators’ pedagogical practices for working across institutional contradictions and constraints?

Framework
Together teacher solidarity co-design (TSCD) and onto-epistemic heterogeneity can enhance joint learning. TSCD, a particular form of participatory design research (Philip et al., 2022), provided opportunities to attend to the nuanced relations teachers and researchers have with communities (Philip et al., 2022). Onto-epistemic heterogeneity emphasizes the boundedness of knowing and being and the timeless, dynamic, and imaginative nature of liberatory education (Warren et al., 2020). Both TSCD and onto-epistemic heterogeneity can encourage coalition building since TSCD lays the groundwork for multifaceted relationships while onto-epistemic heterogeneity uplifts the expansive nature of knowledge production and learning. Dialogicality, a sensibility connected to onto-epistemic heterogeneity (Warren et al., 2020), affords a means to collectively wrestle with the tensions of colonial logics while clarifying ethical and political commitments.

Methods/Data Sources
Data collection spanned from September 2023 through June 2024 and occurred within an ethnic studies pedagogy learning community affiliated with a university teacher education program. Classroom observation field notes, observation debriefs, and analytic memos were the primary data sources analyzed while both deductive and inductive coding were applied (Bogdan & Biklen, 2016). I focus on the case studies of two preservice teachers, Lucy and Loren.

Results
Preliminary analysis elucidated how coalition building within collective learning spaces provided entry points for enacting ethnic studies pedagogical practices. During an observation debrief, Loren reflected on how they felt supported by our co-design team and the larger ethnic studies pedagogy learning community during a difficult time. Loren shared, “I felt like I was being cradled by four different people” and how they “want to just like take our cohort and like sprinkle it onto all the students…I want them to feel that so I’m hoping that eventually we’ll be able to reach that” (L. Davis, observation debrief, February 22, 2024). Loren “being cradled” by their co-design team provided an embodied experience aligned with an ethnic studies pedagogy, one that she wanted to replicate for their students. Another emergent finding was that the co-constructed observation debriefs created opportunities for co-designers to grapple with the tensions of teaching ethnic studies amidst programmatic learning experiences with an emphasis on control and punishment—fostering a dialogicality sensibility.

Scholarly Significance
With possibilities for enhancing co-designers understanding and enactment of an ethnic studies pedagogy, co-constructed learning environments intentionally designed for dynamic relationships provide a critical approach for coalition building and challenging carcerality in teacher learning and development.

Authors

• Christina Hewko, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Jaedyn Wells, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Jocelyn Espinoza Mendoza, University of California - Santa Cruz