Power, politics, and critical race pedagogy: a critical race analysis of Black male teachers’ pedagogy

Abstract

In this article, the authors explore the analytic connections between the scholarship on Black teachers and the development of the concept of critical pedagogy. In particular, the authors conduct a detailed analysis of both of these discourses and then explore the work of two African‐American male teachers in an urban school in Los Angeles. The findings reveal that the links between critical pedagogy and the scholarship on Black teachers is stronger than the existing literature would suggest. Additionally, it is suggested that Black male teachers in urban communities embody qualities outlined in both critical pedagogy and the scholarship on Black teachers.

Keywords:

• African‐American teachers
• critical race pedagogy
• Critical Race Theory
• African‐American education
• critical pedagogy
• critical theory

Notes

1. We will not attempt to address all studies on Black teachers. Rather our mission to focus on more recent research based on empirical examinations of Black teachers’ beliefs, their teaching practices and their personal lives as they relate to the schooling of African‐American children.

2. For more detailed analyses of critical theory and its relationship to Critical Pedagogy, see Peter McLaren’s ‘Life in schools’ (1998).

3. In this article, we do not make a clear distinction between Black feminist and womanist thought. In fact, we use the two concepts interchangeably. In a seminal article that addresses the questions of the differences between the concepts of womanism and Black feminism (see Collins 1996). She argues that while both terms operate from slight different historical standpoints, they essentially support Black women’s right to self‐determination. In the final analysis, she suggests that we should be spending less time playing the name game and more time trying to understand how to frame and transform racism, sexism and classism.

4. According to Murrell (2002), ‘instruction and pedagogy are by no means synonymous… Pedagogy… includes teachers’ awareness of their own culturally mediated values and biases, as well as an understanding of how success and failure are rooted in larger societal and institutional structures’ (xxiii).

5. In a 1999 article, Lynn argued that Black feminist/womanist research on teaching was, in some way, an inappropriate tool for analyzing the experiences of both men and women in schools. Michael Awkward (1995) has illustrated that men can use feminism as a lens for exploring important questions around race and gender.

6. The research was conducted by the lead author.

7. The term socio‐pedagogical refers to the nexus between teachers’ beliefs on teaching and society.