“You excluded us for so long and now you want us to be patriotic?”: African American Women Teachers Navigating the Quandary of Citizenship

Abstract

This qualitative study focuses on how 5 African American women social studies teachers utilized their experiential knowledge and understanding of history to make sense of the construct of citizenship. Drawing from Black feminism, this study asks how African American women social studies teachers define and teach the construct of citizenship. Multiple intersections of the participants’ identities impacted the ways in which they understood and taught citizenship to their students. Because traditional notions of citizenship failed to align with their experiences as African American women, they reinterpreted citizenship as based within their respective communities through the creation of “free spaces.” These transformative views of citizenship provide a framework into how complex perspectives on citizenship are being enacted within social studies classrooms.

Keywords:

• African American women teachers
• Black feminism
• citizenship education
• community

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the research participants for allowing me into their classrooms and for their support during this research project. I would also like to thank Cinthia Salinas, Aurora Chang, Jonathan Vickery, Chase Henderson, and Chris Dolejs for their insightful feedback and guidance throughout this project.

Notes

¹ Alicia Garza (2014) (a co-creator of the #BlackLivesMatter movement) clarified the meaning and intent behind the movement by writing, When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived basic human rights and dignity. It is an acknowledgement [that] Black poverty and genocide is state violence. It is an acknowledgement that 1 million Black people are locked in cages in this country—one half of all people in prisons or jails—is an act of state violence. It is an acknowledgement that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act of state violence (para. 11).

² The term African American and Black will be used interchangeably depending upon how the teacher self-identified. Self-identity is very personal, so it is important to ask an African American/Black woman how she identifies herself and not make assumptions.

³ Pseudonyms have been used for all participants’ names, research sites, communities/cities, schools, and other identifying information in this article.

⁴ The class chose the name “300” after the 2006 action movie based on a graphic novel about the Spartan warriors during the Persian Wars.

⁵ Soul train was a musical variety television program that first aired in 1971 known for its music, dancing, and 1970s fashion. The show featured R&B, soul, disco, and a variety of other musical genres.