Black womanist teachers’ political clarity in theory and practice

ABSTRACT

Black women educators have a legacy of political clarity about teaching and learning as well as about anti-Black racism. Scholarship on Black women teachers has begun to map out this political clarity (e.g), yet is continually at risk of being devalued and deintellectualized in an educational era that privileges universalist and reductivist (e.g.“best-practices”) approaches to teaching and learning and over politically relevant forms that are relational and intergenerational, embodied and heterogeneous. Re-focusing our attention back onto the voices of Black women educators already present in educational research, this article distills their understandings of teaching and learning to honor them as womanist intellectual and pedagogical interventions designed to disrupt anti-Black racism. Their intellectual interventions offer a distinct view of teaching and learning and their pedagogical interventions cultivate the brilliance and belonging of Black youth. Understanding these interventions has implications for how we (re)conceptualize the relationships between teacher’s theories and practices of teaching and learning and engage in teacher education and development.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional Resources

1. Beauboeuf-Lafontant, T. (2005). Womanist lessons for reinventing teaching. Journal of teacher Education, 56, 436–445.

This article focuses attention on the significance of gender, namely the ideologies of Black womanhood, that are foundational to the beliefs and practices of Black women educators. Based upon life history interviews with six Black women teachers of different ages, educational backgrounds, subject matters, and years of teaching experience, the author proposes three womanist stances that shape a teacher’s pedagogy. This article suggests that womanist perspectives might be useful for social justice and politically relevant educators.

2. Dixson, A. D. (2003). “Let’s Do This!”: Black Women Teachers’ Politics and Pedagogy. Urban Education, 38, 217–235.

In this qualitative study, the author examines the political activities and involvement of two African American elementary school teachers. Connecting these teachers with a tradition of Black feminist activists, the author identifies five themes that reflect the politically relevant and inherently political nature of these teacher’s pedagogies. This article historicizes the political nature of Black women’s teaching and of pedagogies of “ordinary” teachers.

3. Philip, T. M., Souto-Manning, M., Anderson, L., Horn, I., Carter Andrews, D., Stillman, J., & Varghese, M. (2019). Making justice peripheral by constructing practice as “core”: How the increasing prominence of core practices challenges teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 70, 251–264.

This article unpacks the discursive, political, and economic trends around practice-based approaches to teacher preparation that have gained prominence in recent years. The authors examine the links (e.g., individuals, funding streams, etc.) between the core practices movement and market-based educational reform organizations. The authors argue that practice-based movements risk marginalizing commitments to equity and justice, and to minimizing the importance of key aspects of responsive teaching such as improvisation.

Additional information

Funding

Support for this research was provided by the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (US).