Rita Kohli | University of California, Riverside (original) (raw)
Papers by Rita Kohli
Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2024
Professional development and mentorship are key supports designed to facilitate growth and acclim... more Professional development and mentorship are key supports designed to facilitate growth and acclimation to the teaching profession as well as foster the stability and success of new educators. However, both fields of study have been occupied by a normalization of whiteness and white teachers, which often neglects the experiences, perspectives, and needs of teachers of Color. As we attempt to diversify the teaching force, it is important to understand how teacher professional development and mentorship can be responsive to teachers of Color. In this article, we review literature on teacher professional development and teacher mentorship for and by teachers of Color. Through the lens of our analysis, we explore limitations in current policy, and provide case study examples of how to serve teachers of Color. We also offer policy recommendations that can better guide racially literate and culturally sustaining professional development and mentoring practices, so teachers of Color can grow, thrive, and positively impact schools towards the goals for which they are being recruited.
Qualitative Inquiry, 2024
Framed through the four tenets of Jayakumar and Adamian's critical race praxis as educational res... more Framed through the four tenets of Jayakumar and Adamian's critical race praxis as educational research, this article explores how the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice, a critical race professional development space, was supportive of the racial literacy growth and well-being of K-12 teachers of Color. The author additionally engages in a process of autoethnographic reflection to show how engaging in research and praxis in this way was also healing to her as a teacher educator of Color, helping her to mitigate the overwhelming whiteness of teacher education and advance racial justice in policy and practice.
Education Sciences, 2024
You can directly download the article here: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/7/722 As educati... more You can directly download the article here: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/7/722
As educational systems are confronted with attacks under the guise of “Critical Race Theory” bans, teacher educators of Color navigate the contradictions of preparing teacher candidates to be culturally sustaining within a suppression of racial discourses. For many teacher educators of Color, who are often tasked to carry out the social and racial justice work of teacher education programs, they are experiencing an exacerbated racial harm. In this article, we explore how a racial-affinity critical race professional development (CRPD) space for teacher educators of Color committed to racial justice serves as a space of support, healing, and regeneration amidst systemic racism and protections to white comfort in teacher education. Weaving together three counterstories from participants in the CRPD, we examine how this space supports teacher educators in recentering communities of Color knowledge systems and ways of being to sustain themselves and reclaim teacher education. These counterstories also offer implications for teacher education to address the ways in which it supports and maintains white comfort and the need for a restorative framework for addressing past and ongoing racial harm.
Thresholds, 2023
Over the past year, sweeping local and statewide policies framed as bans against "CRT" are being ... more Over the past year, sweeping local and statewide policies framed as bans against "CRT" are being propagated to restrict how race and racism can be taught in K-12 schools across the nation. As a result, schools are increasingly becoming a place where teachers face interpersonal and professional risk for teaching about US racial realities, including threats to their professional licenses for engaging historical or current day topics of race, inequity and injustice. In this article, we first draw on CRT to analyze how CRT-bans leverage white defensiveness and white comfort to restrict instruction and discourse about systemic racism, thereby upholding it. Second, we describe a mixed methods research study with 117 teachers across the US that provides an initial look at how teachers are being harmed by these bans. The data suggests that CRT-bans are negatively impacting the racial climate of schools and contributing to the systematic pushout of teachers, particularly those committed to equity and inclusion. In addition to capturing teachers' experiences about the bans, we specifically examine the pressure teachers are experiencing and its exacerbation of an already national problem, teacher attrition. We end the article with evidence-based recommendations on ways schools might mitigate the harm of CRT-bans on teachers.
International Encyclopedia of Education, 4th edition, Volume 2, 2023
Racism and race-evasiveness in teacher education 283 Race-evasive curriculum in teacher education... more Racism and race-evasiveness in teacher education 283 Race-evasive curriculum in teacher education 284 Race-evasive approaches to white student resistance in teacher education 284 Racial literacy in teacher education 285 Teacher education programs must actively support diversification 285 Teacher education programs must actively shift their ideological commitments 286 Discussion 286 References 287 Teacher education is a powerful socializing institution that shapes who K-12 educators are and how they approach teaching. In the United States, teacher education programs were established 200 years ago, in the 1820s, with the growth of normal schools. They were modeled after European teacher training institutions, guiding educators on how to engage students, utilize limited resources, and create a positive learning environment within the newly emerging systems of education (Ducharme and Ducharme, 2022). For many working class and students of Color, these education systems were designed as a form of control, socializing students to their place within the hierarchy of American society; and teachers were instrumental to this project (Gratz, 2009). In Nebraska, the Teachers' Committee was cited as stating, How can we have a national spirit in a Commonwealth where there is an infusion of the language and blood of many nations, unless there is a very strong effort made to socialize the different elements and weld them into a unified whole? It therefore becomes evident how important it is that the teacher be an American in sympathy, ideals, training and loyalty. Gratz (2009, p. 55). They were calling for teachers who embodied nationalism and assimilationist goals. By the mid-20th century, normal school teacher training programs had expanded into 4 year colleges and universities across the nation (Ducharme and Ducharme, 2022). In 2022, where over half of public school students in the nation are students of Color, teacher education programs carry many of the same principles and structures of their origins. Today, 70% of teacher candidates, 87% of adjunct instructors, and 91% of tenured/tenure track instructors are white (King and Hampel, 2018) and predominantly monolingual, and teacher education programs continue to be critiqued for maintaining and reproducing whiteness. Scholars such as Sleeter (2001, 2016), Cross (2005), and Souto-Manning (2019) have argued of an ever-present whiteness in teacher education, where programs are complicit in "White ways and systems of knowing which. further White interests through the invisibility and/or normalizing of systemic racism" (p. 100). And while this manifests through student resistance or teacher educator race-evasiveness, it is important to understand the complexity of racism in teacher education as a structural issue (Kohli and Pizarro, 2022). Kohli et al. (2021) argue that there must be a systematized effort to address racism and whiteness within the multiple facets of teacher education, from admissions processes and the recruitment of teacher candidates, to the curriculum and pedagogy of coursework, field placements, and the retention of teacher candidates of Color. Building from higher education research on racial climate, they offer a five dimensional model for a healthy racial climate in teacher education programs, that includes a shift from a race-evasive approachdwhere programs ignore and invisibilize the prevalence of racial inequity and racismdto one of racial literacydwhere program leaders, teacher educators, and teacher candidates are able to effectively identify racism and are committed to disrupting it. In this entry, we build upon this model and posit that for teacher education programs to become pivotal spaces of change and transformation they must operate in ways that embody racial literacy. Racism and race-evasiveness in teacher education Teacher education has historically been complicit in upholding and maintaining forms of racism through the policies and practices it enacts. Today, rather than overt discrimination, teacher education engages in subtle and more sophisticated practices that are just as effective in maintaining the racial status quo of white superiority and dominance (Bonilla-Silva, 2018). One of the primary tools
The Urban Review, 2014
In direct contrast to Arizona's criminalization of Ethnic Studies in Arizona, the San Francisco U... more In direct contrast to Arizona's criminalization of Ethnic Studies in Arizona, the San Francisco Unified School District's Board of Education unanimously adopted a resolution to support Ethnic Studies in their schools. As schools across the country begin to place Ethnic Studies courses on their master schedules, the lack of preparation and education to support effective Ethnic Studies teaching has emerged as a problem. Therefore, the central questions addressed in this paper are: What is Ethnic Studies pedagogy? and What are its implications for hiring and preparing K-12 teachers? This is a conceptual article that builds upon existing research studies to investigate the pedagogy of effective K-12 teachers of Ethnic Studies. From this literature, we identify several patterns in their pedagogy: All authors contributed equally to the writing of this article.
AERA Open, 2022
THIS IS AN OPEN ACCESS PAPER, PLEASE USE THE LINK OR DOI TO FREELY ACCESS THE PAPER! To systemat... more THIS IS AN OPEN ACCESS PAPER, PLEASE USE THE LINK OR DOI TO FREELY ACCESS THE PAPER!
To systematically explore the structural racism that teacher educators of Color endure, this article uses a critical race theory lens to analyze the findings from qualitative questionnaires with 141 Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American teacher educators who work in diverse universities across the United States. We learned that many of the participants in our study were hired to teach race and racism among race-evasive colleagues and predominantly white students that are enabled to protect and leverage their whiteness. As we frame their experiences, we argue that teacher education programs are, in fact, structured for teacher educators of Color to experience racial stress and harm. We end by suggesting steps teacher education programs can take to advance racial justice.
Equity & Excellence in Education, 2016
Research demonstrates that many teachers of Color enter schools committed to challenging injustic... more Research demonstrates that many teachers of Color enter schools committed to challenging injustice, yet often face barriers to accomplishing this goal. This article presents emergent themes from a qualitative study with 218 self-identified, racial justice-oriented teachers of Color. Using Wilson's (2008) indigenous cultural framework of relationality and relational accountability to analyze our data, we introduce the concept of community-oriented teachers of Color to describe the accountability these teachers have towards students of Color and their communities. We found that despite their connections, insights, and successes with students, hierarchies of ontology (ways of being) and epistemology (ways of knowing) within schools that promote individualism served to isolate and marginalize community-oriented teachers of Color and, thus, limited their ability to advance racial justice.
Abstract This article shares national models of educational activism that center the experiences ... more Abstract This article shares national models of educational activism that center the experiences of People of Color but are diverse in that they serve students, parents, preservice teachers, teachers, and/or community educators and meet frequently in small groups or annually/biannually. Included narratives embody the humanization process, and situate that in the purpose of each project. Our aim is to complicate and extend the definition of activism as a shared struggle for the right to feel human.
The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2015
As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we ref... more As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we refer to as antidialogical professional development (APD), this article theorizes a model of critical professional development (CPD) where teachers are engaged as politically-aware individuals who have a stake in teaching and transforming society. Illuminating three US based case studies of CPD that emerged in response to the unmet needs of justice-oriented teachers- The People’s Education Movement, New York Collective of Radical Educators’ Inquiry to Action groups, and the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice- this article uses Freire’s framework of dialogical action to analyze shared critical practices. In each independent case, teachers were engaged in a cooperative dialectical process, there was a strong emphasis on unity amongst participants around their social justice goals, the structure was organized through shared power between teachers and organizers, and ...
The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2015
As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we ref... more As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we refer to as antidialogical professional development (APD), this article theorizes a model of critical professional development (CPD) where teachers are engaged as politically-aware individuals who have a stake in teaching and transforming society. Illuminating three US based case studies of CPD that emerged in response to the unmet needs of justice-oriented teachers- The People’s Education Movement, New York Collective of Radical Educators’ Inquiry to Action groups, and the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice- this article uses Freire’s framework of dialogical action to analyze shared critical practices. In each independent case, teachers were engaged in a cooperative dialectical process, there was a strong emphasis on unity amongst participants around their social justice goals, the structure was organized through shared power between teachers and organizers, and ...
Journal of Teacher Education, 2022
For decades, research has shown the pervasive racism of teacher education and its harmful impact ... more For decades, research has shown the pervasive racism of teacher education and its harmful impact on teacher candidates of Color. In this conceptual article, we argue that teacher education programs must interrogate how racism is embedded structurally through policies and practices that guide the various facets of the institution. We build from higher education scholarship on racial climate and "health" and teacher education research on race and racism to explore how multiple dimensions of a teacher education program (historical, organizational, compositional, behavioral, and psychological) accumulate and shape the experiences and well-being of teacher candidates of Color. We offer a model to assist teacher education scholars, administrators, and practitioners to reflect upon their current structures as they strive for a healthy racial climate responsive to the experiences and needs of a diverse teaching force.
Review of Research in Education, Mar 1, 2017
While organizing efforts by movements such as Black Lives Matter and responses to the hate-filled... more While organizing efforts by movements such as Black Lives Matter and responses to the hate-filled policies and rhetoric of President Donald Trump are heightening public discourse of racism, much less attention is paid to mechanisms of racial oppression in the field of education. Instead, conceptualizations that allude to racial difference but are disconnected from structural analyses continue to prevail in K-12 education research. In this chapter, our goal is to challenge racism-neutral and racism-evasive approaches to studying racial disparities by centering current research that makes visible the normalized facets of racism in K-12 schools. After narrowing over 4,000 articles that study racial inequity in education research, we reviewed a total of 186 U.S.-focused research studies in a K-12 school context that examine racism. As we categorized the literature, we built on a theory of the "new racism"-a more covert and hidden racism than that of the past-and grouped the articles into two main sections: (1) research that brings to light racism's permanence and significance in the lives of students of Color through manifestations of what we conceptualize as (a) evaded racism, (b) "antiracist" racism, and (c) everyday racism and (2) research focused on confronting racism through racial literacy and the resistance of communities of Color. In our conclusion, we articulate suggestions for future directions in education research that include a more direct acknowledgement of racism as we attend to the experiences and needs of K-12 students of Color.
Theory into Practice, 2020
Black women educators are severely underrepresented and make up just 5% of US public school teach... more Black women educators are severely underrepresented and make up just 5% of US public school teachers. For critical Black women edu- cators working in the hostile racial climates of schools, the ideological marginalization compounds the intersectional racial and gendered alienation they feel. In this article, we theorize the racialization critical Black women educators experience even working in schools that serve communities of Color as they work to disrupt the status quo, challenge racism, and serve students of Color. Through key cases of Black women educators, we describe how critical professional devel- opment spaces address these forms of isolation and support their personal and professional wellbeing. We specifically answer what they gain from having access to networks of like-minded peers as they navigate working within institutions fraught with racism. This paper ends with recommendations for developing, retaining, and supporting a teaching force inclusive of critical Black women.
Professional Development in Education, 2020
Research has noted that teachers of Color are disproportionately called upon to address racialize... more Research has noted that teachers of Color are disproportionately called upon to address racialized issues in schools serving students of Color (Amos, 2018; Gomez & Rodriguez, 2011). And although many teachers of Color enter the profession wanting to advocate for and with students and their families and are strongly positioned to do so, these responsibilities should not rest entirely on their shoulders. Navigating institutional change as collective work is not something taught within teacher preparation or traditional professional development (PD). But what would happen if critical teachers of Color—those with a structural analysis of oppression and who are committed to social and racial justice—were actually supported and provided leadership development work towards racial justice at their school sites? How might this type of development affect their sustainability in and impact on the field? Using a framework of critical professional development (CPD)—emergent and often grassroots teacher development spaces that frame teachers as politically-aware individuals who have a stake transforming society—this article shares case studies of four teachers of Color who attended a racial affinity CPD designed specifically to promote their retention and critical growth, and its influence on their racial justice leadership.
Theory into Practice, 2019
Restorative justice (RJ) emphasizes repairing harm through cooperative processes, rather than top... more Restorative justice (RJ) emphasizes repairing harm through cooperative processes, rather than top down, punitive responses. Initially used within the justice system to reduce incarceration, RJ gained momentum in public schools as evidence mounted of racially disproportionate school discipline, and in 2016, was incorporated in the California State Teachers Performance Expectations (TPEs). Despite its growth, many teachers, administrators, and teacher educators have had little exposure to RJ. In this article, we review the history of RJ and articulate its transition into education, examine its institutionalization within California TPEs, and expose contradictions that emerge from a decontextualized approach. Next, we share findings from qualitative questionnaires to expose how these contradictions are mirrored in teacher candidates’ understanding of restorative justice, revealing the need for historical framing and training resources as RJ is built into teacher education.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 2019
Interviews with U.S.-based, justice-oriented, women of Color educators reveal critical consciousn... more Interviews with U.S.-based, justice-oriented, women of Color educators reveal critical consciousness embedded in their positionality, across all domains of their life, not something cultivated just in their teacher development. Through their families and communities, critical educational experiences from K-16+, and continued access to critical discourse, critical consciousness was both an epistemology (a way of being) and an ontology (a way of knowing). Recognizing the complex and continuous labor that goes into developing as a justice-oriented teacher, we argue that teacher education programs and schools must recruit and support those already engaged in developing their critical consciousness.
The Assembly Journal, 2018
Arturo Nevárez is a doctoral candidate at the University of California Riverside in the Graduate ... more Arturo Nevárez is a doctoral candidate at the University of California Riverside in the Graduate School of Education. Previously a middle school and high school English teacher, Arturo's research focuses on the racial literacies of Latinx students in secondary Ethnic Studies classrooms. Nallely Arteaga is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. Her work examines the racialized processes traditional comprehensive high schools participate in to remove Black and Latinx students into alternative schools.
Urban Education, 2018
Racial battle fatigue (RBF) has been operationalized as the psychological, emotional, and physiol... more Racial battle fatigue (RBF) has been operationalized as the psychological, emotional, and physiological toll of confronting racism. In this article, RBF is used to analyze the toll of racism on teachers of Color who work within a predominantly White profession. We present counterstories of justice-oriented, urban, teachers of Color who demonstrate racism in their professional contexts as a cumulative and ongoing experience that has a detrimental impact on their well-being and retention in the field. We also share their strategies of resilience and resistance, as they rely on a critical community to persist and transform their schools.
Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2024
Professional development and mentorship are key supports designed to facilitate growth and acclim... more Professional development and mentorship are key supports designed to facilitate growth and acclimation to the teaching profession as well as foster the stability and success of new educators. However, both fields of study have been occupied by a normalization of whiteness and white teachers, which often neglects the experiences, perspectives, and needs of teachers of Color. As we attempt to diversify the teaching force, it is important to understand how teacher professional development and mentorship can be responsive to teachers of Color. In this article, we review literature on teacher professional development and teacher mentorship for and by teachers of Color. Through the lens of our analysis, we explore limitations in current policy, and provide case study examples of how to serve teachers of Color. We also offer policy recommendations that can better guide racially literate and culturally sustaining professional development and mentoring practices, so teachers of Color can grow, thrive, and positively impact schools towards the goals for which they are being recruited.
Qualitative Inquiry, 2024
Framed through the four tenets of Jayakumar and Adamian's critical race praxis as educational res... more Framed through the four tenets of Jayakumar and Adamian's critical race praxis as educational research, this article explores how the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice, a critical race professional development space, was supportive of the racial literacy growth and well-being of K-12 teachers of Color. The author additionally engages in a process of autoethnographic reflection to show how engaging in research and praxis in this way was also healing to her as a teacher educator of Color, helping her to mitigate the overwhelming whiteness of teacher education and advance racial justice in policy and practice.
Education Sciences, 2024
You can directly download the article here: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/7/722 As educati... more You can directly download the article here: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/7/722
As educational systems are confronted with attacks under the guise of “Critical Race Theory” bans, teacher educators of Color navigate the contradictions of preparing teacher candidates to be culturally sustaining within a suppression of racial discourses. For many teacher educators of Color, who are often tasked to carry out the social and racial justice work of teacher education programs, they are experiencing an exacerbated racial harm. In this article, we explore how a racial-affinity critical race professional development (CRPD) space for teacher educators of Color committed to racial justice serves as a space of support, healing, and regeneration amidst systemic racism and protections to white comfort in teacher education. Weaving together three counterstories from participants in the CRPD, we examine how this space supports teacher educators in recentering communities of Color knowledge systems and ways of being to sustain themselves and reclaim teacher education. These counterstories also offer implications for teacher education to address the ways in which it supports and maintains white comfort and the need for a restorative framework for addressing past and ongoing racial harm.
Thresholds, 2023
Over the past year, sweeping local and statewide policies framed as bans against "CRT" are being ... more Over the past year, sweeping local and statewide policies framed as bans against "CRT" are being propagated to restrict how race and racism can be taught in K-12 schools across the nation. As a result, schools are increasingly becoming a place where teachers face interpersonal and professional risk for teaching about US racial realities, including threats to their professional licenses for engaging historical or current day topics of race, inequity and injustice. In this article, we first draw on CRT to analyze how CRT-bans leverage white defensiveness and white comfort to restrict instruction and discourse about systemic racism, thereby upholding it. Second, we describe a mixed methods research study with 117 teachers across the US that provides an initial look at how teachers are being harmed by these bans. The data suggests that CRT-bans are negatively impacting the racial climate of schools and contributing to the systematic pushout of teachers, particularly those committed to equity and inclusion. In addition to capturing teachers' experiences about the bans, we specifically examine the pressure teachers are experiencing and its exacerbation of an already national problem, teacher attrition. We end the article with evidence-based recommendations on ways schools might mitigate the harm of CRT-bans on teachers.
International Encyclopedia of Education, 4th edition, Volume 2, 2023
Racism and race-evasiveness in teacher education 283 Race-evasive curriculum in teacher education... more Racism and race-evasiveness in teacher education 283 Race-evasive curriculum in teacher education 284 Race-evasive approaches to white student resistance in teacher education 284 Racial literacy in teacher education 285 Teacher education programs must actively support diversification 285 Teacher education programs must actively shift their ideological commitments 286 Discussion 286 References 287 Teacher education is a powerful socializing institution that shapes who K-12 educators are and how they approach teaching. In the United States, teacher education programs were established 200 years ago, in the 1820s, with the growth of normal schools. They were modeled after European teacher training institutions, guiding educators on how to engage students, utilize limited resources, and create a positive learning environment within the newly emerging systems of education (Ducharme and Ducharme, 2022). For many working class and students of Color, these education systems were designed as a form of control, socializing students to their place within the hierarchy of American society; and teachers were instrumental to this project (Gratz, 2009). In Nebraska, the Teachers' Committee was cited as stating, How can we have a national spirit in a Commonwealth where there is an infusion of the language and blood of many nations, unless there is a very strong effort made to socialize the different elements and weld them into a unified whole? It therefore becomes evident how important it is that the teacher be an American in sympathy, ideals, training and loyalty. Gratz (2009, p. 55). They were calling for teachers who embodied nationalism and assimilationist goals. By the mid-20th century, normal school teacher training programs had expanded into 4 year colleges and universities across the nation (Ducharme and Ducharme, 2022). In 2022, where over half of public school students in the nation are students of Color, teacher education programs carry many of the same principles and structures of their origins. Today, 70% of teacher candidates, 87% of adjunct instructors, and 91% of tenured/tenure track instructors are white (King and Hampel, 2018) and predominantly monolingual, and teacher education programs continue to be critiqued for maintaining and reproducing whiteness. Scholars such as Sleeter (2001, 2016), Cross (2005), and Souto-Manning (2019) have argued of an ever-present whiteness in teacher education, where programs are complicit in "White ways and systems of knowing which. further White interests through the invisibility and/or normalizing of systemic racism" (p. 100). And while this manifests through student resistance or teacher educator race-evasiveness, it is important to understand the complexity of racism in teacher education as a structural issue (Kohli and Pizarro, 2022). Kohli et al. (2021) argue that there must be a systematized effort to address racism and whiteness within the multiple facets of teacher education, from admissions processes and the recruitment of teacher candidates, to the curriculum and pedagogy of coursework, field placements, and the retention of teacher candidates of Color. Building from higher education research on racial climate, they offer a five dimensional model for a healthy racial climate in teacher education programs, that includes a shift from a race-evasive approachdwhere programs ignore and invisibilize the prevalence of racial inequity and racismdto one of racial literacydwhere program leaders, teacher educators, and teacher candidates are able to effectively identify racism and are committed to disrupting it. In this entry, we build upon this model and posit that for teacher education programs to become pivotal spaces of change and transformation they must operate in ways that embody racial literacy. Racism and race-evasiveness in teacher education Teacher education has historically been complicit in upholding and maintaining forms of racism through the policies and practices it enacts. Today, rather than overt discrimination, teacher education engages in subtle and more sophisticated practices that are just as effective in maintaining the racial status quo of white superiority and dominance (Bonilla-Silva, 2018). One of the primary tools
The Urban Review, 2014
In direct contrast to Arizona's criminalization of Ethnic Studies in Arizona, the San Francisco U... more In direct contrast to Arizona's criminalization of Ethnic Studies in Arizona, the San Francisco Unified School District's Board of Education unanimously adopted a resolution to support Ethnic Studies in their schools. As schools across the country begin to place Ethnic Studies courses on their master schedules, the lack of preparation and education to support effective Ethnic Studies teaching has emerged as a problem. Therefore, the central questions addressed in this paper are: What is Ethnic Studies pedagogy? and What are its implications for hiring and preparing K-12 teachers? This is a conceptual article that builds upon existing research studies to investigate the pedagogy of effective K-12 teachers of Ethnic Studies. From this literature, we identify several patterns in their pedagogy: All authors contributed equally to the writing of this article.
AERA Open, 2022
THIS IS AN OPEN ACCESS PAPER, PLEASE USE THE LINK OR DOI TO FREELY ACCESS THE PAPER! To systemat... more THIS IS AN OPEN ACCESS PAPER, PLEASE USE THE LINK OR DOI TO FREELY ACCESS THE PAPER!
To systematically explore the structural racism that teacher educators of Color endure, this article uses a critical race theory lens to analyze the findings from qualitative questionnaires with 141 Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American teacher educators who work in diverse universities across the United States. We learned that many of the participants in our study were hired to teach race and racism among race-evasive colleagues and predominantly white students that are enabled to protect and leverage their whiteness. As we frame their experiences, we argue that teacher education programs are, in fact, structured for teacher educators of Color to experience racial stress and harm. We end by suggesting steps teacher education programs can take to advance racial justice.
Equity & Excellence in Education, 2016
Research demonstrates that many teachers of Color enter schools committed to challenging injustic... more Research demonstrates that many teachers of Color enter schools committed to challenging injustice, yet often face barriers to accomplishing this goal. This article presents emergent themes from a qualitative study with 218 self-identified, racial justice-oriented teachers of Color. Using Wilson's (2008) indigenous cultural framework of relationality and relational accountability to analyze our data, we introduce the concept of community-oriented teachers of Color to describe the accountability these teachers have towards students of Color and their communities. We found that despite their connections, insights, and successes with students, hierarchies of ontology (ways of being) and epistemology (ways of knowing) within schools that promote individualism served to isolate and marginalize community-oriented teachers of Color and, thus, limited their ability to advance racial justice.
Abstract This article shares national models of educational activism that center the experiences ... more Abstract This article shares national models of educational activism that center the experiences of People of Color but are diverse in that they serve students, parents, preservice teachers, teachers, and/or community educators and meet frequently in small groups or annually/biannually. Included narratives embody the humanization process, and situate that in the purpose of each project. Our aim is to complicate and extend the definition of activism as a shared struggle for the right to feel human.
The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2015
As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we ref... more As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we refer to as antidialogical professional development (APD), this article theorizes a model of critical professional development (CPD) where teachers are engaged as politically-aware individuals who have a stake in teaching and transforming society. Illuminating three US based case studies of CPD that emerged in response to the unmet needs of justice-oriented teachers- The People’s Education Movement, New York Collective of Radical Educators’ Inquiry to Action groups, and the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice- this article uses Freire’s framework of dialogical action to analyze shared critical practices. In each independent case, teachers were engaged in a cooperative dialectical process, there was a strong emphasis on unity amongst participants around their social justice goals, the structure was organized through shared power between teachers and organizers, and ...
The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2015
As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we ref... more As a response to increasingly technocratic, top-down teacher professional development that we refer to as antidialogical professional development (APD), this article theorizes a model of critical professional development (CPD) where teachers are engaged as politically-aware individuals who have a stake in teaching and transforming society. Illuminating three US based case studies of CPD that emerged in response to the unmet needs of justice-oriented teachers- The People’s Education Movement, New York Collective of Radical Educators’ Inquiry to Action groups, and the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice- this article uses Freire’s framework of dialogical action to analyze shared critical practices. In each independent case, teachers were engaged in a cooperative dialectical process, there was a strong emphasis on unity amongst participants around their social justice goals, the structure was organized through shared power between teachers and organizers, and ...
Journal of Teacher Education, 2022
For decades, research has shown the pervasive racism of teacher education and its harmful impact ... more For decades, research has shown the pervasive racism of teacher education and its harmful impact on teacher candidates of Color. In this conceptual article, we argue that teacher education programs must interrogate how racism is embedded structurally through policies and practices that guide the various facets of the institution. We build from higher education scholarship on racial climate and "health" and teacher education research on race and racism to explore how multiple dimensions of a teacher education program (historical, organizational, compositional, behavioral, and psychological) accumulate and shape the experiences and well-being of teacher candidates of Color. We offer a model to assist teacher education scholars, administrators, and practitioners to reflect upon their current structures as they strive for a healthy racial climate responsive to the experiences and needs of a diverse teaching force.
Review of Research in Education, Mar 1, 2017
While organizing efforts by movements such as Black Lives Matter and responses to the hate-filled... more While organizing efforts by movements such as Black Lives Matter and responses to the hate-filled policies and rhetoric of President Donald Trump are heightening public discourse of racism, much less attention is paid to mechanisms of racial oppression in the field of education. Instead, conceptualizations that allude to racial difference but are disconnected from structural analyses continue to prevail in K-12 education research. In this chapter, our goal is to challenge racism-neutral and racism-evasive approaches to studying racial disparities by centering current research that makes visible the normalized facets of racism in K-12 schools. After narrowing over 4,000 articles that study racial inequity in education research, we reviewed a total of 186 U.S.-focused research studies in a K-12 school context that examine racism. As we categorized the literature, we built on a theory of the "new racism"-a more covert and hidden racism than that of the past-and grouped the articles into two main sections: (1) research that brings to light racism's permanence and significance in the lives of students of Color through manifestations of what we conceptualize as (a) evaded racism, (b) "antiracist" racism, and (c) everyday racism and (2) research focused on confronting racism through racial literacy and the resistance of communities of Color. In our conclusion, we articulate suggestions for future directions in education research that include a more direct acknowledgement of racism as we attend to the experiences and needs of K-12 students of Color.
Theory into Practice, 2020
Black women educators are severely underrepresented and make up just 5% of US public school teach... more Black women educators are severely underrepresented and make up just 5% of US public school teachers. For critical Black women edu- cators working in the hostile racial climates of schools, the ideological marginalization compounds the intersectional racial and gendered alienation they feel. In this article, we theorize the racialization critical Black women educators experience even working in schools that serve communities of Color as they work to disrupt the status quo, challenge racism, and serve students of Color. Through key cases of Black women educators, we describe how critical professional devel- opment spaces address these forms of isolation and support their personal and professional wellbeing. We specifically answer what they gain from having access to networks of like-minded peers as they navigate working within institutions fraught with racism. This paper ends with recommendations for developing, retaining, and supporting a teaching force inclusive of critical Black women.
Professional Development in Education, 2020
Research has noted that teachers of Color are disproportionately called upon to address racialize... more Research has noted that teachers of Color are disproportionately called upon to address racialized issues in schools serving students of Color (Amos, 2018; Gomez & Rodriguez, 2011). And although many teachers of Color enter the profession wanting to advocate for and with students and their families and are strongly positioned to do so, these responsibilities should not rest entirely on their shoulders. Navigating institutional change as collective work is not something taught within teacher preparation or traditional professional development (PD). But what would happen if critical teachers of Color—those with a structural analysis of oppression and who are committed to social and racial justice—were actually supported and provided leadership development work towards racial justice at their school sites? How might this type of development affect their sustainability in and impact on the field? Using a framework of critical professional development (CPD)—emergent and often grassroots teacher development spaces that frame teachers as politically-aware individuals who have a stake transforming society—this article shares case studies of four teachers of Color who attended a racial affinity CPD designed specifically to promote their retention and critical growth, and its influence on their racial justice leadership.
Theory into Practice, 2019
Restorative justice (RJ) emphasizes repairing harm through cooperative processes, rather than top... more Restorative justice (RJ) emphasizes repairing harm through cooperative processes, rather than top down, punitive responses. Initially used within the justice system to reduce incarceration, RJ gained momentum in public schools as evidence mounted of racially disproportionate school discipline, and in 2016, was incorporated in the California State Teachers Performance Expectations (TPEs). Despite its growth, many teachers, administrators, and teacher educators have had little exposure to RJ. In this article, we review the history of RJ and articulate its transition into education, examine its institutionalization within California TPEs, and expose contradictions that emerge from a decontextualized approach. Next, we share findings from qualitative questionnaires to expose how these contradictions are mirrored in teacher candidates’ understanding of restorative justice, revealing the need for historical framing and training resources as RJ is built into teacher education.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 2019
Interviews with U.S.-based, justice-oriented, women of Color educators reveal critical consciousn... more Interviews with U.S.-based, justice-oriented, women of Color educators reveal critical consciousness embedded in their positionality, across all domains of their life, not something cultivated just in their teacher development. Through their families and communities, critical educational experiences from K-16+, and continued access to critical discourse, critical consciousness was both an epistemology (a way of being) and an ontology (a way of knowing). Recognizing the complex and continuous labor that goes into developing as a justice-oriented teacher, we argue that teacher education programs and schools must recruit and support those already engaged in developing their critical consciousness.
The Assembly Journal, 2018
Arturo Nevárez is a doctoral candidate at the University of California Riverside in the Graduate ... more Arturo Nevárez is a doctoral candidate at the University of California Riverside in the Graduate School of Education. Previously a middle school and high school English teacher, Arturo's research focuses on the racial literacies of Latinx students in secondary Ethnic Studies classrooms. Nallely Arteaga is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. Her work examines the racialized processes traditional comprehensive high schools participate in to remove Black and Latinx students into alternative schools.
Urban Education, 2018
Racial battle fatigue (RBF) has been operationalized as the psychological, emotional, and physiol... more Racial battle fatigue (RBF) has been operationalized as the psychological, emotional, and physiological toll of confronting racism. In this article, RBF is used to analyze the toll of racism on teachers of Color who work within a predominantly White profession. We present counterstories of justice-oriented, urban, teachers of Color who demonstrate racism in their professional contexts as a cumulative and ongoing experience that has a detrimental impact on their well-being and retention in the field. We also share their strategies of resilience and resistance, as they rely on a critical community to persist and transform their schools.
Confronting Racism in Teacher Education unpacks systematic and persistent racism through in-depth... more Confronting Racism in Teacher Education unpacks systematic and persistent racism through in-depth analyses of racial justice struggles and strategies in teacher education. By bringing together counternarratives of critical teacher educators, the editors of this volume present key insights from both individual and collective experiences of advancing racial justice. Written for teacher educators, higher education administrators, policy makers, and others concerned with issues of race, the book is comprised of four parts that each represent a distinct perspective on the struggle for racial justice: contributors reflect on their experiences working as educators of Color to transform the culture of predominately White institutions, navigating the challenges of whiteness within teacher education, building transformational bridges within classrooms, and training current and preservice teachers through concrete models of racial justice. By bringing together these often individualized experiences, Confronting Racism in Teacher Education reveals larger patterns that emerge of institutional racism in teacher education, and the strategies that can inspire resistance.