Male teachers of color: charting a new landscape for educational research

ABSTRACT

The manuscripts in this special issue chart a new landscape for educational research on male teachers of color.The contributors examine the lived complexities subsumed under the umbrella of ‘male teachers of color,’ and place research on distinct groups of male teachers of color in conversation with one another.The manuscripts in this special issue reflect the diversity and possibility of critical research in education, with an emphasis on the examination of the intersections of social identities for male teachers of color, and the relationship between social identity and struggles for political and professional agency. The authors provide a strong theoretical foundation for filling the empirical gap on male teachers of color by engaging in questions such as: How do critical considerations of the intersection of race, gender, and profession inform the future of teacher education? What does it mean to be ‘male’ or ‘of color’ in the context of the teaching profession? What are the aims of racial and ethnic diversity in the field of education? The research included in this special issue explores topics including, but not limited to, male teachers of color’s perceptions of and partnerships with colleagues of other genders; their sexual and gendered identities and performances; and how they embrace, reject, or negotiate the expectation of performing as a role model in the classroom. Moreover, the articles provide explicit implications for teachers, teacher educators, university and PK-12 administrators, education activists and/or education policymakers.

KEYWORDS:

• Male teachers of color
• race
• gender
• social identities
• intersectionality

Introduction

Male teachers of color are underrepresented in nearly every PK-12 subject area (Singh 2018; Vilson 2015; Waite, Mentor, and Bristol 2018). While it is possible that males of color are less interested in entering the teaching profession when compared to other demographic groups, research has suggested that the underrepresentation of males of color in the teacher workforce is a reflection of ethnoracial and gendered messages about teaching and learning that male students of color encounter in schools (Fergus 2009; Howard 2008); inadequate recruitment and retention efforts in teacher education programs (Woodson and Pabon 2016); and poor professional support and limited mentoring for this population (Bristol and Goings 2019; Rezai-Rashti and Martino 2010). This special issue provides an in-depth analysis of how male teachers of color are positioned, socialized, and supported in diverse contexts. Specifically, the contributors to this special issue examine the lived complexities subsumed under the umbrella of ‘male teachers of color,’ and place research on distinct groups of male teachers of color in conversation with one another. Empirical and conceptual contributions provide critical, cutting-edge research to support improving the recruitment, training, and retention of male teachers of color.

Major findings on male teachers of color

A large body of scholarship on male teachers of color has focused on Black male teachers, namely this sub-group’s professional trajectories, social identities, and pedagogies of Black male teachers (Bridges 2011; Bristol and Mentor 2018; Brown 2009, 2012; Brockenbrough 2014; Pabon, 2016). For the past 20 years, Black male teachers constituted less than 2% of the U.S. public school labor force (Lewis and Toldson 2013; U.S. Census Bureau 2010). Research on Black male teachers has informed the field’s emerging understanding of the complex ways this population understands their own racial, gendered, and sexual identities, and the identities of their students and colleagues, as they navigate the teaching profession. For example, in an ethnographic study of nine Black male teachers in a predominantly Black community, Brown (2009) identified three performance styles enacted by the teachers (enforcer, negotiator, and playful), and illustrated how these styles drew on historical and cultural traditions to meet students’ needs in diverse and complex ways. Lynn (2006) and Lynn and Jennings (2009) drew on case studies of Black male teachers to illustrate how their pedagogy aligned with the tenets of critical pedagogy. Though the authors’ respective analyses suggested more homogeneity across Black male teacher practice than Brown’s study, Lynn and Jennings argued for continued analysis of this group through culturally relevant and critical race frameworks.

Brockenbrough’s (2012) qualitative study employed Black masculinity as a theoretical framework to examine the narratives of 11 Black male teachers in an urban school district. His findings detailed the strengths and limitations of Black male teachers’ gender identities and gendered expectations, and called for research to further problematize masculinist and heteronormative assumptions in some Black male teachers’ approach to teaching. These heteronormative assumptions can result in Black male teachers encountering different professional expectations than many of their peers (Woodson and Pabon 2016). For example, since Black male students are often stereotyped as fatherless troublemakers, and underachievers (Jackson, Sealey-Ruiz, and Watson 2013), Black male teachers are often expected to perform as father figures, meet dominant standards of exemplary citizenship, and overachieve as professionals in order to push back on expectations associated with their race and gender (Brockenbrough 2012; Haase 2010; Johnson 2005).

Studies on Latino male teachers also find that this group of educators feels the weight of heteronormative expectations. In a case study of bilingual, Latino male elementary school teachers, Lara and Fránquiz (2015) found that teachers felt pressured to perform masculinity in hegemonic ways, and struggled to present their students with space to question binary gendered positions. In a life history study of one Latino and two Black male gay teachers, Hayes (2014) noted that the intersections of race and sexuality deeply impacted how the teachers understood and enacted successful teaching.

Research on ethnic, racial, and gendered teacher-student matching suggested that learning for students of color increases when taught by a same-race teacher – more broadly, students respond positively to teachers who share features of their social identity (Dee 2004; Eddy and Easton-Brooks 2011; Lindsay and Hart 2017; Ouazad 2008). Increasing the number of male teachers of color may help to mediate problematic social trends and opportunity gaps in the schooling experiences of male students of color (Brown 2012; Brown and Butty 1999; Lewis and Toldson 2013; Milner et al. 2013), but the exact nature of this potential mediation is unclear. Much of the research on male teachers of color renders participants as a monolithic group without exploring how the school organizational context influences these teachers’ school-based experiences (Bristol 2018). We have yet to build substantive data sets about the impact of male teachers of color and their school-based experiences. For example, the School and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS), which are both administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (National Center for Education Statistics 2014), do not ask teachers to report how their racial, ethnic, and gendered identities influence their school-based experiences.

Gaps in the research literature on male teachers of color

Though the Black male teaching experience is important, educational researchers must also expand the scope of this research to account for the complexity of diverse racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, and professional identities in responding to the underrepresentation phenomenon. Ongoing conversations about Black male teachers raise three themes that helped to shape this special issue. First, male teachers of color have diverse racial, cultural, and gendered experiences (Howard 2008; Lara and Fránquiz 2015; Rezai-Rashti and Martino 2010; Vilson 2015; Woodson and Pabon 2016). Three included abstracts advance research in this area by examining the life histories of Black, Black and Latino, and Filipino male teachers, respectively.

Second, despite notable recent advances, research literature and the media overwhelmingly represent the experiences of heterosexual and normatively gendered male teachers of color (Brockenbrough 2012; Brown 2012; McCready and Mosely 2014; Rezai-Rashti and Martino 2010). Disrupting these representations is essential if we hope to improve the education, induction, and retention of male teachers of color. Moreover, the research on male teachers of color suggests that we must pay closer attention to the interactions between these professionals and male students of color. If we hope to include male teachers of color meaningfully as allies in efforts to improve learning conditions for all students, it is imperative that we understand the social expectations, pedagogical practices, and patterns of engagement that characterize interactions between male teachers of color and vulnerable student populations.

Finally, we do not seek to minimize the important work of the critical, multicultural, and social justice scholars who have worked to explore the professional conditions in which male teachers of color train and work, describe the identities and practices of these teachers, or explicate the continued need for male teachers of color throughout P-12 schools in the United States. We believe that the included discussions will contribute to a theoretical and empirical foundation for a better understanding of inconclusive findings on racial, ethnic, and gender teacher:student matching, and what these findings might mean for Black male teachers’ professional, racial, and gendered identities.

Unique contribution of this special issue

This special issue makes important contributions to the field of research on male teachers of color. The articles reflect the diversity and possibility of critical research in education, with an emphasis on the examination of the intersections of social identities for male teachers of color, and the relationship between social identity and struggles for political and professional agency. The authors address race and race inequality in education, and provide a strong theoretical foundation for filling the empirical gap on male teachers of color by engaging in questions such as: How do critical considerations of the intersection of race, gender, and profession inform the future of teacher education? What does it mean to be ‘male’ or ‘of color’ in the context of the teaching profession? What are the aims of racial and ethnic diversity in the field of education? The research included in this special issue explores topics including, but not limited to, male teachers of color’s perceptions of and partnerships with colleagues of other genders; their sexual and gendered identities and performances; and how they embrace, reject, or negotiate the expectation of performing as a role model in the classroom. Finally, the articles provide explicit implications and recommendations for teachers, teacher educators, university and PK-12 administrators, education activists, and/or education policymakers.

For example, Bristol’s article introduces an important framework, what he terms ‘social isolation in organizations,’ to illuminate how the school-based experiences of Black men who are the only Black male teachers on their faculty compare to Black men teaching in schools with multiple Black male teachers. Woodson’s article provides an important interrogation of Black masculinity, which is often absent from an examination of Black male teachers.

Young and Young’s article provides an important 10-year content analysis of the empirical research on Black male teachers. This timely analysis identifies the theoretical and empirical contributions to date. Equally important are the findings from this article that highlight gaps in the research on Black male teachers – namely the absence of empirical work that highlights this subgroup’s experiences outside of the United States. Wallace, in drawing on Bourdieusian conceptions of organizational habitus, adds to the limited body of research on the experiences of Black Caribbean and Black African male teachers in London. Wallace breaks new empirical ground by describing the ‘diversity trap’ that ensnares and limits the roles Black men teachers can enact in their classrooms in the United Kingdom’s largest urban center, London.

Moreover, both Warren and Carey contribute a unique line of inquiry on the research of Black male teachers: each author centers Black and Latinx male students in his analysis. Warren, for example, employs a genre study to examine how Black boys learned about their racial and gender identify through the Black men teacher faculty. Carey’s case study turns to Latinx and Black male students and examines what these students missed and missed out on by not having Latinx and Black men teachers. Similar to Carey’s article that centers the voices of Latinx male students and their perceptions about the absence of interactions with Latinx and Black men teachers, Hayes centers the experiences of Latinx teachers. In particular, Hayes’s unique contribution draws on Critical Race Theory to explore how Black veteran teachers mentor novice Latinx male teachers to design equitable learning environments for their students.

Finally, the special issue ends with two articles that we believe have the greatest potential to initiate new domains of inquiry on a sub-group for which there is a dearth of research: Asian American male teachers. Kokka and Chao employ AsianCrit to explore how the ethnoracial identities of Asian American male mathematics teachers shape their interactions with Latinx and Black students. Curammeng’s article focuses specifically on the dispositions and practices of Filipino male teachers. Specifically, Curammeng uses portraits of Filipino male teachers to examine how through teaching an Ethnic Studies course, these teachers were able to develop their own critical consciousness. In sum, the manuscripts in this special issue chart a new landscape for educational research on male teachers of color.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.