“It’s a Good Struggle”: Supporting Critical Professional Development, Teacher Agency and Activism in Hostile Times

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Learning While Leading: Identity, Belonging, and Storytelling

Abstract

This paper explores how social justice-oriented secondary teachers are striving for collective liberation amidst a rapidly changing and increasingly hostile political climate. Our research draws on insights from racially, culturally, and experientially diverse teachers who participated in a social justice-oriented research collective in Spring and Summer 2025. We found teachers' response to the hostile contexts in which they work hopeful and agentive. As teachers unpacked pressing curricular, pedagogical and political dilemmas, they developed strategies for leveraging their voices, agency and activism in pursuit of justice. This research offers a framework for how K-12 and teacher educators can use their insider perspectives, institutional resources, and professional agency to strategically reconstruct and reimagine liberatory teacher education for the days to come.

Authors

• Alison G. Dover, California State University - Fullerton

• Kira LeeKeenan, California State University - Fullerton