Working in Solidarity: An Intersectional Self-Study Methodology as a Means to Inform Social Justice Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

In this article, we critically analyze our experiences in preparing pre-service teachers (PSTs) to teach for social justice. We utilized an intersectional lens to identify and validate our different positionalities and pedagogies. It is this interplay of validating our differences and commonalities that enabled us to form a sense of solidarity in our efforts to nurture our students’ critical consciousness. Through our collective engagement with intersectionality and self-study methodology, we co-constructed a common ground of what social justice teaching meant to us and how we navigated the highly personal, messy, and often contradictory experiences of engaging in this work with students. From this process, we uncovered three themes from our self-study: 1) curriculum is a living entity; 2) teaching is personal and vulnerable, and 3) co-teaching and collaboration invigorates us to keep practicing our social justice orientation.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-study
• feminist theory
• intersectionality
• teacher education
• social justice in education

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ganiva Reyes

Ganiva Reyes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where she focuses on Latinx student experiences in education, social justice teaching, women of color feminist theories, and pedagogies of care.

Brittany Aronson

Brittany Aronson is an Assistant Professor in Sociocultural Studies in Education at Miami University. In her scholarship, she focuses on preparing educators to work against oppressive systems as well as critical policy analyses of both popular and political discourse. Her research interests include critical teacher preparation, social justice education, critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, and educational policy.

Katherine E. Batchelor

Katherine Batchelor is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her research interests include critical literacy and multiliteracies, adolescents' literacy practices (emphasis on writing), and pre-service/in-service teachers' pedagogical decisions. She can be reached at [email protected].

Genesis Ross

Genesis Ross is a 2021 Graduate of the Educational Leadership, Culture, and Curriculum PhD program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In her program, she focused on the functional realities and possibilities of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion via: teaching and learning; narratives; partnerships; cross-cultural and cross-racial collaborations; and the reconceptualization of projects, space, and value measurements. In her dissertation, she studied Antiblackness and the role of Black counter-narratives in the realization of Black Self-determination.

Rachel Radina

Rachel Radina is currently a Visiting Assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Miami University, and a Program Coordinator for the Urban Cohort. Her research interests include teacher preparation, youth participatory action research and community-based education.