Beyond Survival: Teachers of Color Moving Schools Towards Spaces of Possibilities

• In Event: Critical Professional Development and Vulnerability: Centering the Holistic Needs of Educators Committed to Social Justice

Abstract

Objective
Due to hostile racial climates, the teaching profession has systematically marginalized teachers of color and critical social justice educators (Kohli, 2016). This has led to the intentional creation of professional development spaces outside of institutions that support and develop critical teachers’ abilities to engage in praxis (Kohli et.al., 2015), which serves to address the isolation experienced in these institutions and sustain their social justice work (Author, 2016; Martinez et.al., 2016). To understand the urgency and importance of these spaces, researchers must understand the skillsets teachers acquire and cultivate from critical professional development (CPD). Through this study, we illustrate how one critical teacher of Color applied her learning from CPD to organize collective action towards justice with teachers from her school. Additionally, we examine how the relationship between the researcher and participants are transformed through this research process.

Framework
Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged out of the work of critical legal studies in the 1970s as a response to the slow pace of US racial reform (Bell, 2004; Ladson-Billings, 1998). A theoretical framework used to critically analyze race and racism, CRT draws attention to the ways that racial inequality is embedded in our institutions, and centers the struggle of People of Color as a main concern. As agents of the state, teachers must engage in critical race activism to disrupt the normalcy of Whiteness in schools (Matias & Liou, 2015). We use an applied framework of CRT and critical race activism to document how the participating teacher built upon the epistemologies of Communities of Color, as well as knowledge and skillsets acquired from CPD, to inform teacher-led action towards transformative change.

Methods & Data Sources
Drawing upon Goodwin’s (2000) participation framework to analyze embodiment and interactions, we utilize video recordings, ethnographic field notes, and teacher’s reflective journal as data to examine how she (re)negotiated and challenged meanings of race, equity, and power with her colleagues. To triangulate our findings (Merriam, 2009), we conducted interviews with her colleagues and collected artifacts from CPD.

Results
Having participated in CPD, the teacher utilized the skillsets acquired to establish CPD at her school site. Applying her knowledge of students’ community and structural analysis of institutionalized racism, the teacher was able to 1) strategically position herself as an authority figure and 2) reframe collective understandings of inequities. Due to epistemological barriers and lack of shared political clarity between her colleagues and herself, strategic intervention was necessary to sustain the justice-oriented action initiated by the teacher. This ultimately led to a transformation of the researcher's role, in which the data collected were utilized as a reflection tool to engage in collaborative inquiry, cultivate shared visioning, and redirect collective action.

Significance
We demonstrate the possibilities of CPD in cultivating teachers as political actors and change agents. We also unveil socio-emotional dynamics that critical teachers experience when applying their knowledge in institutionalized contexts, highlighting the possibilities of researchers as critical participants who can further validate and sustain critical race activism within research sites (Fine et.al., 2003).

Authors

• Josephine Pham, University of California - Los Angeles

• Sara Diaz, Environmental Charter Schools