Counterstorytelling Teacher Retention: How Teachers of Color Conceptualize Staying in Educational Spaces

• In Event: Remaining Critical in the Midst of (Neo)Colonial Censorship

Abstract

Purpose
Given that the retention research on Teachers of Color (TOCs) primarily focuses on the perspectives of early career teachers and the factors that push them to leave, there is an opportunity to learn from experienced teachers and their perspectives on what staying in teaching means and looks like. This paper explores counterstories of TOCs and their experiences with retention as a phenomenon. Specifically, I ask: How do TOCs think about what it means to stay, persist, endure, thrive and/or sustain themselves in educational spaces?

Perspectives
I draw from a combination of critical race theory (CRT) in education (Bell, 1992; Bernal, 2002; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) and theories of thriving to understand how TOCs define staying, persisting, enduring, thriving, and/or being sustained. I focus particularly on the fourth tenet of CRT, centering the experiential knowledge of People of Color, as a lens for analyzing how TOCs conceptualize of retention. Several scholars have theorized about thriving in the workplace (Goh et al., 2022), for college student success (Schreiner, 2010; 2013), and for Black, queer, and trans* people in education (Darling-Hammond, 2018; Darling-Hammond & Evans-Santiago, 2024). Because theories of thriving have primarily focused on teacher resilience, I use them alongside CRT as a way to center the thinking and lived experiences of TOCs.

Method
This study draws on interviews with 25 TOCs as a way of counterstorytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) the phenomenon of teacher retention. Using a qualitative multiple embedded case study design (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2002) where each TOC is a unit of analysis, I look at two cases: current in-classroom veteran TOCs and veteran TOCs who have left the classroom.
I conceptualized this study informed by my own experiences as a Filipina American student and teacher, witnessing the inequities and power dynamics inherent in the U.S. schooling system. I used purposive sampling (Etikan et al., 2016), seeking out expert informants. The data sources include 1-2 hour interviews conducted with 25 TOCs.

Results
In sharing their thoughts about what it means to stay, persist, endure, thrive and/or sustain themselves in educational spaces, current and former TOCs invited nuanced and complex conceptualizations and questions of retention. Several key findings emerged: 1) TOCs interpreted staying as a non-neutral term, and for many teachers, the word elicited negative reactions, 2) TOCs cited the importance of relationships and environment to retention, 3) TOCs spoke about affirmation and joy in their definitions, and 4) TOCs reflected on staying as a resistance or refusal of historically oppressive schooling structures.

Significance
The language choices TOCs made in their definitions and conceptualizations revealed unique insights into the phenomenon of teacher retention. This research project contributes to ongoing research with in-service TOCs, expanding the scope for studying TOC retention in ways that center them and their experiences. This study offers a theoretical deepening of the concept of “retention,” which can benefit the field of education by offering a model for co-theorizing educational futures alongside TOCs and troubling what staying in education means and looks like for TOCs.

Author

• Sarah Day Dayon, University of Michigan