The Place-Making Practices of Black Caribbean Teachers in an Urban Education PD

• In Event: Pedagogies of the Caribbean

Abstract

Black public school teachers carry out their work within educational spaces and a broader social milieu characterized by anti-blackness (Dumas, 2016; Sharpe, 2016). As such, Black teachers face the paradox of being heavily recruited into spaces that are not designed to retain them (Love, 2023). Using a black geographies framework, this paper challenges the taken-for-grantedness of anti-blackness in education through a focus on Black Caribbean in-service teachers and the place-making activities they engaged to cultivate Black joy and demonstrate resistance within a required virtual professional development (PD) for urban education. During the PD, the international teachers navigated the Covid-19 pandemic, an immigration travel ban (Federal Register, n.d.), and the passage of divisive concepts legislation that countered much of the content they were introduced to in the PD. The pedagogical potential of theorizing Black teachers’ place-making practices amid contexts of oppression is offered.

Author

• Sabrina N. Ross, Georgia Southern University