Critical Emotional Events, Teacher Identity Development, and the Situational Marginalization of Students of Color

• In Event: Emotions as Radical and Racially Just Pedagogy: Reasserting Our Hearts During Times of Undemocratic Educational Duress

Abstract

Emotions serve as a window into classroom -- they tell us about classroom trust and engagement as well as play a key role in identity development. We see emotions as both socially constructed and personally enacted, which means it is important to investigate both the social historical contexts as well as personal transactions that occur during a particular emotional episode.
In terms of identity, teachers enter classrooms with identity beliefs about their students. These beliefs act as reference points teachers use to make judgments about events. Student activity is compared to teachers’ beliefs about how students should act (Flores & Day, 2006). When students’ actions match those identity beliefs, pleasant emotions emerge. However, a discrepancy among those’ identity beliefs and student activity has the potential for unpleasant emotions and a reconceptualization of those identities beliefs (Cross & Hong, 2009; Schutz, 2014). Thus, when students are compliant, pride in their behavior may confirm the teacher identity beliefs about being respected, however when students are defiant, frustration may lead to doubts about emergent teacher roles and beliefs about their students.

For students of color those teacher identity beliefs can be problematic. Take this quote from a beginning teacher regarding the use of Spanish in her science classroom:
“Now, there’s a lot of controversy on this -- and I’m probably going to catch a lot of flack for it. But there is one student she speaks both Spanish and English. I’ve asked her not to speak Spanish in the class, because science is a language all to its own, it’s not taught in Spanish, it’s taught in English. She needs to learn the concepts, so she needs to speak English in her science class. —Ms. Miller“
In this brief quote we see Ms. Miller’s beliefs about language in her classroom (i.e., “it’s not taught in Spanish”). It is important to note that science is being taught and carried out everyday in Spanish-speaking countries throughout the world. In addition, 90% of the students in her school classify themselves as Hispanic/Latino. Thus, their language, identity, or who they are, is tied to speaking Spanish, English, and probably Spanglish throughout the day (Lanehart, 1996; Le Page, 1986). Finally, not that long ago, students in this state were punished for speaking Spanish in the classroom. Ms. Miller’s identity beliefs about language and science in her classroom, emerged from her social historical context, has the potential to create tensions between her and her students, resulting in the potential to create identity changing unpleasant emotional episodes for both herself (e.g., “I cried every day for a month”, Ms. Miller) and her students.
In an effort to “unpack” his event, in this paper I will discuss how socially constructed and personally enacted critical emotional events influences the process of teacher identity development and how that identity development has the potential to create the classroom context for both constraints or affordances related to the situational marginalization of students of color.

Author

• Paul A. Schutz, The University of Texas - San Antonio