Exploring Teacher Activism in the Age of Digital Resistance

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Teaching in the Digital Commons: Care, Community, and Resistance

Abstract

This study examines how teachers use digital platforms like TikTok and X to engage in activism, challenge systemic injustice, and assert professional agency. Drawing on critical frameworks such as fugitive pedagogy and culturally sustaining pedagogy, the project analyzes over 60 TikToks and 2,000 tweets. Findings show that educators use social media for justice-oriented teaching, identity work, and community building—often through humor, storytelling, and critique. Despite risks, teachers create counter-narratives and resist institutional constraints, transforming digital spaces into sites of public pedagogy. These findings suggest that teacher education must evolve to prepare educators as public intellectuals and cultural workers equipped for digital resistance.

Authors

• Ogonna Abraham Onuorah, Montclair State University

• Noriko Takahashi, Montclair State University