Exploring Agency in Digital Racial Representation: Teacher Racial Literacies and Archaeology of Self

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Roundtable: The Digital Age and Its Discontents, Critical Media Literacies

Abstract

This study explores the learning processes of K-12 teachers as they wrestle with understanding digital racial identity construction for themselves and their students. A cohort of experienced K-12 teachers were recruited from California (18 participants). This interpretive analysis focuses on participants’ interview responses as they reflected on Workshop 1 (June, 2025). Through a framework of tinkering (McBride et al.,2023), participants engaged in an archaeology of self process (Price-Dennis & Sealey-Ruiz, 2021) to create digital self-representations (interactive digital mosaics or audio stories). Results from this analysis demonstrate that these teachers navigated digital racial identities along a spectrum of control and agency. These results can help researchers support digital antiracist practices in classrooms.

Authors

• Robyn Ilten-Gee, Simon Fraser University

• Pooja Dharamshi, Simon Fraser University

• Jabari Mahiri, University of California - Berkeley