Teacher Identity and Political Instruction in Turbulent Times

• In Event: Teacher Identity Development: Expanding Conceptualizations to Account for Changing and Challenging Contexts

Abstract

Political instruction is considered a hallmark of a quality K-12 civic education; however, most of the research in this area has focused on how students receive such instruction or how external pressures exacerbate teachers’ fears associated with broaching controversial issues in their classes. Less has been written about what role teacher identity may play in how teachers broach politics in their classes. In this paper, I explore the relationship between teacher identity and political instruction by looking at ways in which teachers’ race and citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, and political identities influence their pedagogical decisions when confronted with current political issues. I also focus on how this relationship between teacher identity and political instruction has been complicated by anti-Critical Race Theory and divisive concepts legislation that has been passed in several states during the Trump era.
I frame this paper using Holland et al.’s (1998) definition of ideology as “self-understandings” that are a “key means through which people care about and care for what is going on around them” (p. 5). Teaching controversial political issues forces teachers to balance how they view the world and their feelings about how society should function with their professional obligation to create spaces in which a variety of rational opinions are valued. In this paper, I focus specifically on the ways in which teachers’ race and citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, and political ideologies, as well as the intersectionality of those various identities, may shape their instructional decisions with respect to political issues. This paper is conceptual and uses extant literature to explore the intersection between teacher identity and political instruction.
The main takeaway from this paper is that teachers cannot magically shed their personal or political identities once they walk into a school building, and in some cases, these identities come into conflict with their professional obligations. This tension has only increased during the Trump era, in which K-12 education has been accused of pushing a “woke” agenda, and conservatives are increasingly seeking to give parents more control over what their children learn. As Trump continues his second term in office, these external pressures on teachers are likely to only intensify.
This paper generates a host of questions for the future of K-12 political instruction moving forward. As right-wing attacks on K-12 education become codified into law and teachers’ livelihoods are increasingly in jeopardy, teachers may be forced to rethink aspects of their political instruction. Perhaps more worrisome is the possibility, as suggested by research on teachers during Trump’s first term (Dunn et al., 2019; Geller, 2020), that teachers retreat from identifying clearly settled positions on political and social issues and that the strides that have been made in diversity, equity, and inclusion in K-12 education will be irreparably damaged and, if so, what that means for teachers of color, migrant teachers, and teachers who are part of the LGBTQ+ community who are tasked with political instruction.

Author

• Wayne Journell, University of North Carolina - Greensboro