Leaning into the Jeanes Teaching Tradition for Equity in Educational Research and Practice

• In Event: Stepping into the (Cess)Pool While the Water Is Stirring: Deconstructing/Reconstructing Black Pedagogical Activism Narratives

Abstract

This paper explores the Jeanes Teachers/Supervisors pedagogical tradition. Framed theoretically within Black intellectual thought in education (Grant et al., 2015) and autoAfronography (Baker & King, 2022) was used as a methodology to describe my experience as a Black early-career faculty member participating in a cross-generational/cross-organizational research project that explored Black pedagogical activism/organizing for transformative community building. By leaning into the Jeanes teaching tradition, I learned the value of an equity-focused collective organizing approach to educational research and practice to imagine and work toward more equitable futures for all.

Theoretical Framework/Method

The Jeanes Foundation established itself in the early 20th century to enhance the educational opportunities for rural Black children (Author, 2016). The Jeanes Fund spearheaded hiring educators who later became known as Jeanes Teachers and Jeanes Supervisors. Unfortunately, although education for Black people within the American South has never been void of political controversy (Anderson, 1988; DuBois, 1935), recent legislation has restricted and censored what can and cannot be taught or researched and has become one of the more polarized concerns of today (Pew Research Center, 2025). In alignment with this year's AERA call, one of the ways to resist recent restrictions is to not forget and to explore the histories of early Black educators such as the Jeanes Teachers and Supervisors who curated their own set of traditions to address educational concerns of their time.

When conceptualizing Black intellectual thought in education, Grant and colleagues (2015) used the lives of Anna J. Cooper, Carter G. Woodson, and Alain Locke who were all early Black educators that created an intellectual pedagogical tradition that can be used to respond to contemporary concerns within education. Black intellectual thought in education was used in this paper to explore the traditions of the Jeanes Teachers and Supervisors to think through how their traditions could be used in my current position as a researcher who seeks to use research for Black liberation. In this autoAfronographic (Baker & King, 2022) account, I share three vignettes related to how my collaboration with the Young People’s Black Pedagogical Activism Lab (“The Lab”) and the Harvard Black Teacher Archive further centered my research agenda and educational practices within the Black intellectual tradition.

Literature Connections/Scholarly Significance

This paper connects to a growing body of literature that explores and interrogates the role of researcher reflexivity and the way the research process is carried out (Olmos-Vega et al., 2022; Russell & Kelly, 2002). Using what I learned with “The Lab,” I highlight and explain how the overall goal of liberation prevalent within the Jeanes Teaching tradition informed my researcher reflexivity and how the research process should be carried out for Black liberation and humanity. Through the vignettes I share in the paper, I demonstrate how the pedagogical activism and collective organizing demonstrated by Jeanes Teachers and Jeanes Supervisors centered equity that can inform new visions for educational research amid current sociopolitical controversy surrounding education that has sought to delegitimize the role of education in the fight against all forms of inhumanity.

Author

• Terrance Joshua Lewis, University of Alabama