Negotiating Anti-Racist Teacher Identities in Post-Pandemic Urban Classrooms

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 7:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Racial Justice Fatigue: Reckoning with Whiteness and Transformation in Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper examines how 25 urban educators working with Black students manage and negotiate their identities as anti-racist teachers in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice movements of the early 2020s. Based on qualitative interviews, the study explores how teachers define and engage with anti-racism, ranging from strong integration into practice to uncertainty or resistance. Using frameworks of identity formation and racial literacy, the analysis situates their perspectives within ongoing debates about race and education. The findings yield new insight into tensions between anti-racist ideals and the challenges of implementing them in under-resourced, politically sensitive school environments, including administrative constraints and educators’ own discomfort.

Author

• Marinda K. Harrell-Levy, Pennsylvania State University - Brandywine