Missing Misters: Understanding the Pedagogy, Positionality, and Purpose of Male Teachers of Color

• In Event: Male Teachers of Color and the Remaking of the Teaching Force

Abstract

A prevailing discourse in studies on male teachers of color is the critical role these educators play in the lives of their students - especially Black and Latino boys (Brockenbrough, 2012, 2014; Lynn, 2006). A simultaneous discourse surrounds the need to recruit more men of color to the ranks of teaching (Bristol, 2014; Lewis & Toldson, 2013), in part because of the critical role they play in supporting the unique needs of boys of color. Notably absent from both
discourses are perspectives on these teachers from students themselves. This study addresses this absence by centering high school boys of color perspectives on the “missing misters” and on the one male teacher of color, who served as such an important figure in their lives.

Author

• Roderick L. Carey, University of Delaware