Opportunity Structures and the Making of a Changemaker: Black Teachers' Relational Practices as Sites of Sociopolitical Development

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Black Educational Research as Justice Praxis

Abstract

This empirical study explores how Black teachers' relational practices function as opportunity structures for sociopolitical development (SPD). Using qualitative data collected during the Spring 2022 semester, including classroom observations and interviews with four Black teachers in a rural Alabama Black Belt school, this research illuminates the strategic and intentional ways educators leverage relationships with students to cultivate critical consciousness and political agency. Situated within the historical tradition of Black educational resistance, findings illustrate how Black teachers' relational labor serves as both protective and developmental, actively resisting systemic marginalization. By foregrounding teachers' perspectives, this study underscores the centrality of relational practices in liberatory educational settings, contributing valuable insights to scholarship on power, politics, and culture in education.

Author

• LaKendrick Richardson, Auburn University