Teaching Revolution: Women Primary School Teachers, Race, and Social Reproduction in Cuba
type: CreativeWork
description: In November of 2018, Dr. Miriam Nicado García was appointed Rector of the University of Havana, making her the first woman of color to hold the position in the institution’s 209-year existence. This is undoubtedly a historic event that serves as a starting point to consider the intersections of formal education and social difference on the island from the perspective of education workers. Despite claims that Cuba is a racial democracy in which all citizens are unified by a shared national identity, an assessment of the education system through the experiences of women educators can be used as a diagnostic for progress toward that purported achievement. There are few studies that critically engage the life and work of Cuban teachers. The majority of existing texts about Cuban education homogenize the teaching force and instead focus on the achievements of the 1961 Literacy Campaign and quantitative markers of student achievement. This research is a feminist analysis of labor and the politics of nation building that focuses on the lived experiences of women primary school educators in Cuba. Between 2017 and 2020, I conducted mixed-method research with twenty-one Cuban women primary school educators, the majority of whom were based in Havana. I use social reproduction theory and a Black feminist frame of analysis to argue that the experiences of Black women teachers in Cuba throughout the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are in many ways shaped by the colonial legacies of slavery and gender inequality, which the 1959 Cuban Revolution failed to rectify. As a result, these women perform essential socially reproductive and economically productive work for the sake of the nation, while their capacities to fully participate are curtailed by long work hours, familial responsibilities, and discriminatory employment practices. In addition to reframing understandings of Cuban education, the findings from this research contribute critical interventions in the s…
abstract: In November of 2018, Dr. Miriam Nicado García was appointed Rector of the University of Havana, making her the first woman of color to hold the position in the institution’s 209-year existence. This is undoubtedly a historic event that serves as a starting point to consider the intersections of formal education and social difference on the island from the perspective of education workers. Despite claims that Cuba is a racial democracy in which all citizens are unified by a shared national identity, an assessment of the education system through the experiences of women educators can be used as a diagnostic for progress toward that purported achievement. There are few studies that critically engage the life and work of Cuban teachers. The majority of existing texts about Cuban education homogenize the teaching force and instead focus on the achievements of the 1961 Literacy Campaign and quantitative markers of student achievement. This research is a feminist analysis of labor and the politics of nation building that focuses on the lived experiences of women primary school educators in Cuba. Between 2017 and 2020, I conducted mixed-method research with twenty-one Cuban women primary school educators, the majority of whom were based in Havana. I use social reproduction theory and a Black feminist frame of analysis to argue that the experiences of Black women teachers in Cuba throughout the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are in many ways shaped by the colonial legacies of slavery and gender inequality, which the 1959 Cuban Revolution failed to rectify. As a result, these women perform essential socially reproductive and economically productive work for the sake of the nation, while their capacities to fully participate are curtailed by long work hours, familial responsibilities, and discriminatory employment practices. In addition to reframing understandings of Cuban education, the findings from this research contribute critical interventions in the s…
author: Crumdy, Angela M
keywords: Elementary Education and Teaching, International and Comparative Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Cuba, Social Reproduction, Teachers, Race
date published: 2022-09-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:00:35Z
provider: City University of New York - Graduate Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York