Inside Out: Being Insider-Outsider Teaching and Researching African American History in Teacher Professional Developments

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Issues in Social Studies Research

Abstract

Drawing on the notions of reflexivity, positionality, and the Bourdesian concepts of capital, habitus, and field, this paper reports the insider-outsider tensions that two teacher educator-researchers experienced while teaching and researching African American history in the context of teacher professional developments. Autoethnography was utilized as a mode of inquiry. Data include research articles published from the teacher professional developments and artifacts such as culture-grams, self-narratives, and research/teaching statements crafted for tenure and promotion processes. Data were analyzed both inductively and deductively. Consequently, the three tensions were identified: a) the secondary nature of social studies/history education; b) teacher-researcher positionality as a social construct; and c) the significance of the sociopolitical context for the PDs on African American history.

Authors

• Yonghee Suh, Old Dominion University

• Chrystal S. Johnson, Purdue University