"Working the Cracks": Teacher Identity and Resistance

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Activism, Resistance, and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Abstract

Resistance by individual teachers is a critical starting point. Although research values large scale collective resistances and often positions teachers as unable to have any independent power to change the contexts of their work, teachers daily work to resist dominant discourses within schools can be a powerful force in maintaining individual beliefs, identities, and in practicing social justice (Carr, 2013; Ollin, 2005). This study examines the methods of individual resistance that teachers took up in order to assert socially just and critically conscious identities. It specifically highlights one framework of resistance, participants named and borrowed from Patricia Hill Collins (2013) termed "working the cracks.” The presentation will illustrate educator’s use and naming of this framework within their resistance work.

Author

• Carrie E Rood, SUNY - College at Cortland