Constructing Portraits of Elementary Teachers of Ethnic Studies: Examining the Narratives of Anti-Racist Educators in an Era of Common Core Curriculum and Instruction
The emergence of policies requiring ethnic studies courses in California’s secondary and higher education institutions amplified calls for anti-racist pedagogy and content in all K-12 grade levels. Currently, little empirical research exists on how ethnic studies is taught in elementary school classrooms. This absence is significant because instruction in these settings tend to focus heavily on meeting state content standards (i.e. Common Core), frameworks which have been critiqued as ignoring communities of Color epistemologies and promoting color-evasive ideologies, among other concerns. Through interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis, this qualitative multiple-case study explored how anti-racist and ethnic studies pedagogies are conceptualized and implemented by three elementary teachers who identified as anti-racist educators and women of Color. By employing portraiture and critical race theory methodologies, this study centered the experiences of these teachers as counternarratives to mainstream classroom practice by capturing challenges, strategies, and successes associated with navigating standardized curriculum while maintaining a commitment to anti-racist education. Findings suggested that these elementary teachers engaged in dynamic cycles of critical consciousness (critical analysis and awareness, political agency, and critical action) to resist institutional challenges and enact anti-racist curriculum in their respective contexts. The findings revealed that the teachers’ employment of anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy aligned with community responsive pedagogy, essential to ethnic studies praxis. Distilling these aspects of their work informed recommendations on how schools and teacher preparation programs can center the development of critical consciousness and community responsive pedagogy to ensure transformative and humanizing ethnic studies experiences for elementary students.
anti-racist elementary teachers, anti-racist pedagogy, anti-racist curriculum, critical consciousness, ethnic studies, elementary education, teachers of color, portraiture, case study, Curriculum and Instruction, Curriculum and Social Inquiry, Education, Social Justice
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