Makings Futures from the Past? Racialized Spectres Disrupting Anti-bias, Antiracist Pedagogy in a University-School RPP

• In Event: Histories, Hauntings, and Hard Other Knowledges: Examining the Specters of Research Practice Partnerships Advancing Justice

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical/Conceptual Framework
At the core of research-practice partnerships are relationships between institutions that have their own political histories, inevitably influencing the individuals that come together. These histories can clash and act as hauntings. Hauntology, as Yoon and Chen (2022) suggest, “reflects how the research is undertaken, how the researcher is transformed, and how different, multiple ways of knowing and mattering are part of making the past and future” (p. 76). In so doing, we seek to re-animate some of the central “ghosts” and “hauntings” that reified the violence of schooling but also of research.
Re-entering data from a two-year RPP between two urban Catholic institutions, this presentation thinks with theoretical concepts from “hauntology” (Yoon & Chen, 2022) to examine how the spectres surrounding race and religion stunted the work of advancing justice. Specifically, we ask “How do the racialized spectres of the past come to shape white teachers’ perceptions of present and future possibilities when engaged in learning around anti-racist pedagogies?”
Methods
Hauntology works as a methodological séance, summoning stories of how the past (e.g., of the school, of our own histories of participation as researchers) shaped not only the precarity of the present but the possibilities of (in)action in the future. To engage hauntology as a methodology, we employed thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006) with data collected over two years from a broader research-practice partnership aimed at promoting justice-oriented teaching and learning. Data were gathered from various sources, including twelve 3-hour inquiry group sessions, field notes, and collected artifacts such as participants’ reflections and process-related materials.
Findings and Significance
Findings are organized temporally to illustrate how haunting inheritances manifested as ghosts. First, we discuss the RPP's inherited histories marked by tensions between social justice and religious traditions, wherein justice was understood to avoid disrupting the Church's traditionally white cis-heteronormative beliefs. Participants often expressed a commitment to integrating social justice into their teaching, yet this sometimes clashed with previous leadership's inconsistent approach to justice-oriented teaching, laying the foundation for the haunting specter that affected our work from the outset.
Specters of the past clashed with present antiracist efforts, resulting in heightened scrutiny from families. This increased the perceived risk among teachers engaged in the second year when our meetings moved from classrooms to a conference room. This move intensified the stigmatization of the RPPs work and created a sense of disconnect with the classroom environment.
Looking toward the future, we examine the words that teachers charted in year two when re/defining “backup.” Teachers evoked specters of the past and present to express concerns about not witnessing the tangible changes rendered necessary in forwarding social justice within the school. They also expressed skepticism about the practicality of the strategies explored in the RPP. This has led us to ponder if professional learning focused less on exorcising ghosts, and more on facing them to address the underlying causes of their haunting presence can leave behind more constructive inheritances.

Authors

• Jon M. Wargo, University of Michigan

• Kierstin M. Giunco, University of Cincinnati

• Kyle P. Smith, University of Michigan