Critical vigilance, counter-discourses, and counter-conduct: White Teachers’ attempt at resistance at one ‘no-excuses’ urban charter school

Abstract

ABSTRACT Educational innovations such as ‘no-excuses’ charter schools have emerged as a discipline-focused approach to schooling as they are predicated on communicating high-expectations and personal responsibility. As ‘no-excuses’ charters are replicated across the United States as part of a neoliberal education reform policy, there continues to be prevailing stereotypes about the Black and Latinx populations in these spaces by teachers, the majority of whom are White. Yet not every White teacher within this context espouses the academic and behavioural socialisation associated with ‘no-excuses’ contexts. The findings of this phenomenological study suggest that White educators can become allies of Black and Latinx students but fail to create consistent affirming spaces due to an unrelenting implicit organisational pressure that we identify as ‘no-excuses pressure,’ that works against educators becoming full resistors and works against Black and Latinx students’ full humanity. The paper concludes with implications on how to build critical resistance for all teachers, especially those within a ‘no-excuses’ context.