Drawing on ethnographic data of an urban school, this paper contrasts how two White female teachers take up the idea of 'teaching for social justice.' Fourth-grade teacher Maestra Rachel enacts a superficial understanding focused solely on curricular topics, while third-grade teacher Maestra Jennifer roots her teaching in an understanding of how…

This study sought to investigate the efficacy of a professional development designed to equip teachers with antiracist practices and support them in developing an abolitionist mindset. The study was designed for white teachers. Participants of the study engaged in a 6-week course grounded in a constructivist learning theory, TLT, and centered…

This qualitative research study examined the experiences of two Black female teachers and six White female teachers who participated in five Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) workshops that incorporated Open Studio Process (OSP) using Expressive Therapy Continuum (ETC). It is informed by research on defensiveness and resistance that often…

Traditional science instruction typically follows an initiation- response-evaluation format and privileges curriculum reflective of Western, male, white, middle-class values, and knowledge which sometimes tends to exclude Black and Latinx students. This qualitative instrumental case study explored how a White male seventh-grade science teacher in…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how two White teachers, experienced and award-winning veteran educators, navigated issues of race, class and privilege in their instruction, and ways that their efforts and shortcomings shaped both teacher agency and classroom spaces. Design/methodology/approach: This study's methodology centers participants'…

This paper focuses on the trajectories of two mathematics teachers in developing Political Conocimiento through one year of Professional Development (PD) on culturally responsive mathematics teaching. The PD was organized around teacher and student noticing, positionality, community partnerships, and action research. The study found that the…

Literature is limited demonstrating how some in-service teachers have developed sociopolitical consciousness and why they commit to social justice. Drawing on interviews, email correspondence, and Facebook postings collected throughout a school year, this article shows the life experiences of one white dual language educator who developed…

The process of racial identity development (RID) is widely agreed to be the process by which an individual comes to understand the role race plays in their sense of self, how it influences their ability to acquire information and reach goals, how it affects their interpersonal interactions with others, and the manner in which it assigns group…

This article explores the ways in which lived experiences informed literacy teacher educators' (LTEs) pedagogies and practices of social justice. In particular, three case studies were conducted to examine why the LTEs chose to address social justice, as well as how their life experiences influenced their views and pedagogies in their literacy…

Discipline is defined as the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience. In public schools across the United States, disparate discipline outcomes continue to plague most educational settings, and methods of effectively addressing this concern remain elusive. White teachers comprise…

Interpersonal and systemic racism and discrimination persist in our educational system -- from primary and secondary institutions through college, despite the forward strides of desegregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement. This special topic collection identifies and applies empirically and theoretically grounded…

Racial discipline disproportionality is a persistent issue in schools with Black students experiencing exclusionary discipline two to three times more than their White peers, and Black males more likely to be diagnosed with an emotional and behavioral disorder. Interventions that target malleable root causes of disproportionality and have an…

Preparing teachers to provide an equitable and socially just education has become a focus for many teacher preparation programs across the country. Yet, relatively little research attention has been given to the role of mentor teachers--the people who student teachers identify as most influential in their learning to teach--in this work. This…

Purpose: This qualitative research study examines classroom observations and transcripts, teacher and student interviews and student writing to investigate how white English teachers can cultivate students' critical literacies regarding race and oppression through classroom literature. As research and practice in the field of critical literacy has…

Should students in public schools learn to think critically about racial (in)justice and social (in)equity? The results of a recent mixed methods survey for educators revealed that a significant number of teachers did not believe they were responsible for helping their students develop the skills to critically analyze and respond to social…