The Evolving Pedagogies of Novice Ethnic Studies Teachers

• In Event: Implementing Ethnic Studies in Bay Area Schools: Research on Teachers, Pedagogy, and Curriculum

Abstract

This study’s purpose is to understand how novice Ethnic Studies teachers evolved their pedagogy in relation to classroom events that reinforced or challenged their expectations. We sought to foreground teacher agency, as teaching is a world-building activity that is simultaneously rooted in identity and ethics of care. This study serves as a counternarrative to assertions that Ethnic Studies teachers are rigid and agenda-driven and as a tool for teacher education programs seeking to refine their approaches to preparing Ethnic Studies teachers.
This study is informed by the theory of culturally sustaining pedagogies (CSP) (Alim et al., 2020), “figured worlds,” (Holland et al., 1998; Urrieta, 2014), and relational ethics of care (Noddings, 1992; McKinney de Royston, 2015). CSP is a particularly useful framework for examining teachers’ classroom experieneces who express commitment to both disrupting systems of oppression of the status quo and supporting students in deepening their knowledge of and connection to the cultures with which they associate. It is also helpful in thinking about how pedagogies may help develop solidarity, which is a fundamental principle of Ethnic Studies.

Participants in this study consisted of pre-service teachers earning their credential through a Bay Area graduate program. We conducted three sets of group interviews over Zoom, in the style of pláticas, a Latina feminist approach that centers reciprocity, disrupts the binaries that hierarchize intellectual activity and actively draws upon participants’ identities (Fierros & Delgado-Bernal, 2016). Five novice teachers in total participated and four joined in all pláticas, which were conducted at the start, middle, and end of the school year. We also used graphic elicitation in each session, having participants sketch significant moments in their education histories (Bagnoli, 2009). Our sources of analysis were the three pláticas transcripts and fourteen drawings, which participants photographed and sent. We conducted narrative analysis of the transcripts and sketches (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).

Four themes emerge from this study. First, all teachers talked about their shift from emphasizing critical concepts, such as the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum principles, to centering people. Concepts like the Four I’s of Oppression were complex and benefited from a developmental lens. However, teachers reported that using real people or fictionalized characters in movies or literature helped their students more readily grasp and put into practice learning objectives.
Second, there was an unexpected tension between designing lessons aimed at widening students’ knowledge bases and cultural competences and making more lessons personally relevant. This is particularly notable for teachers who had a substantial number of newcomers. Additionally, teachers realized the importance of being trauma-informed, to prevent re-instantiating, however unintentionally, experiences of harm the teacher intended to confront. As one teacher exclaimed, “I’m teaching the wins, man.” Lastly, teachers expressed the significant value they found in centering joy and community, using rituals such as playing Loteria, which was a highly adaptable format for community building and learning significant content, or daily recitations of “In Lak’ech.”
This study provides a timely opportunity to contribute to an understanding of the pedagogies that might be particularly suitable for Ethnic Studies courses in California and throughout the nation.

Authors

• Kevin Anderson, Stanford University

• Irene Castillion, Stanford University