Female Puerto Rican teachers’ testimonios of retention and culture

ABSTRACT

Research suggests that teachers of color (ToC) have a positive impact on students’ academic achievement, yet, ToC comprise less than 20% of the workforce. Policymakers who seek to increase the number of ToC, particularly Latino teachers, need to understand what keeps them in the profession. Four female Puerto Rican (PR) teachers engaged in a series of in-depth phenomenological interviews. The co-researchers made meaning of internal motivators for their longevity by describing the relationship between cultural values and practices that sustained their longevity. Using LatCrit Theory, the following themes were culled: (1) collaborative practices, and (2) empowering practices that support retention. Policies that address PR teachers’ leadership and autonomy and curriculum-related policies in administrative leadership programs that integrate the retention of ToC as a topic that appears throughout the coursework, and not just in one or two classes, are needed to support retention. In addition, the lack of data about ToC limits policymakers’ knowledge of longevity within specific groups. State departments of education need to collect and maintain disaggregated data to inform the learning community on the work-lives of PR teachers. Data on employment attainment, job satisfaction, attrition, and longevity can be used to uncover retention patterns for PR teachers and bring the teacher rolls to a level that mirrors the student population.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• retention
• Latinx and Puerto Rican teachers
• LatCrit Theory
• phenomenology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I will use the term ‘Latinx’ when speaking about the group in plural form and I will use the term ‘Latina/o’ when using the singular form.

2. Latinx represents over 30 nations and a wide variety of phenotypes.

3. While the co-researchers were all born in New York City, each co-researcher traced her roots to Puerto Rico, either through parents or grandparents.

4. ‘“Irrelevant empirical research is produced by the totally detached, abstract, and isolated investigation carried on by the neutral spectator of behaviors who is indifferent to the relationship between his abstract game and the life situation … relevant research is that which explores, describes, and empirically tests human behavior while preserving a “lived‘ relationship with it in the reality of life”’ (van Kaam in Moustakas 1994, 46).