‘In it together’: activist teachers of color networks combating isolation

ABSTRACT

Teachers of Color experience isolation due to racial microaggressions and institutional racism throughout their careers, leading to trauma and higher levels of teacher turnover in the profession. In this study, we use the ‘pedagogy of activism’and scholarship on microaggressionsto explore how activist teachers of Color seek support to combat isolation and harm through participation in teacher activist networks. Using qualitative methods, we investigated the experiences of 26 activist teachers of Color from across the United States. We found that teacher activist networks were key to creating healing spaces for coping with the effects of microaggressions, and that the pedagogy of activism fostered agency to push back against racist policies and institutions. These findings have implications for sustaining diversity in the teacher workforce.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers of color
• activist teachers
• racialized isolation
• racial microaggressions
• affinity groups
• pedagogy of teacher activism

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Institute of Research on Race and Public Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago for fellowship funding in order to write this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy.