Teachers’ Enactment of Racially Just Pedagogy in an Era of Fascism and Educational Censorship

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

Abstract

Objective
For many educators of vulnerable communities, particularly students of color, teaching is a call to action to ensure youth have the tools necessary for their liberation (Curry, 2021; Chávez-Moreno, 2022). However, the current presidential administration within the U.S. has severely limited (and in some cases eliminated) the ability for teachers to engage with issues of culture, racism, and social justice more broadly (Bryant & Appleby, 2025). This has made it difficult to fully capture teachers’ enactment of pedagogies rooted in anti-racism and racial justice. For this project, we wanted to explore what anti-racism looks like in the classroom when teachers are given the freedom, encouragement, and support to fully engage with topics relevant to race, racism, and culture.

Theoretical Frameworks
For this study, we use Paris’s (2012) theoretical framework of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Expanding on culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), culturally sustaining pedagogy takes an explicit stance challenging assimilationist and anti-democratic monolingual/monocultural educational policies within the U.S., and sustaining youths’ linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as a response to demographic and social change (Paris & Alim, 2014). Within this framework, teachers’ anti-racist teaching practices reflect a commitment to affirming youths’ cultural identity and fostering their critical consciousness (i.e., awareness of and ability to challenge social inequity).

Methodology
Data from this study come from a larger university-high school partnership that employed longitudinal and mixed-methods to explore how teachers facilitate adolescents’ understandings of and motivations to address racism. At the center of the study is a public charter school located within Los Angeles, California. Their student population is overwhelmingly (90%) students of color with Latinx youth (65.6%) as the largest ethno-racial majority. Additionally, 53% of students are considered economically disadvantaged.

Data Collection
For our study, we drew on teacher interviews (N= 10) and weekly classroom observations (N=84) that were collected across the 2024-2025 school year. Teachers participated in 45-60 minute interviews that asked them a range of questions related to their identity, understanding of social (in)justice, and their application of racially just project-based learning. Weekly observations were documented from 6 teachers teaching a range of subjects (i.e., Biology, Economics, Ethnic Studies, U.S. History, African American Studies, and Chicano Studies). Using the Rigorous and Accelerated Data Reduction Technique (Watkins, 2017), we engaged in thematic analysis to analyze all interview transcripts and observational field notes.

Results
Preliminary findings highlight how teachers used active, student-led learning approaches to (a) encourage students to connect with their cultural heritage and localized histories, (b) link contemporary issues of racial injustice to a history of colonialism, and (c) develop adolescents’ sense of empathy, social responsibility, response-ability to meet the needs of their community. Teachers also emphasized their appreciation for the autonomy they received as well as the urgency to cover these topics during the current sociopolitical climate.

Significance
These findings connect theory to practice by highlighting what strategies teachers use to empower young people during a time of rampant white nationalism, legalized violence against communities of color, and fascism.

Authors

• Bernardette Josee Pinetta, University of California - Riverside

• Russell Stoll, Community Partner