Critical Professional Development Research Articles

Learning from Our History: The Role of the New York Collective of Radical Educators in Movements for Educational Justice

Educator activists can play an important role in transforming not only what happens inside classrooms but also larger educational systems. While recent focus in research has been on social justice caucuses in teacher unions, there are also radical educator collectives like the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) that organize outside of union spaces. In this article, we (the current NYCoRE leadership body) analyze the historical impact of NYCoRE to theorize about the role of educator collectives in educational justice movements. Using oral history interviews with founding members of NYCoRE, we found that NYCoRE has provided a political home for radical educators, supported critical professional development, and prepared educators to contribute to educational justice movements. National implications are discussed.

“Inclusion is definitely a possibility for all”: Promoting inclusive education through a critical professional development schools model

PurposeIn this article, we highlight ways in which disability critical race theory (DisCrit) (Annamma et al., 2013), inclusive education and community-based participatory research (CBPR) can be used within professional development schools (PDS) to provide students with disabilities with more access to inclusive classrooms. At a grade 4–6 elementary school, we developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms. We conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model. Findings suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice. This study can inform tailored professional development efforts to improve educators’ inclusive practices.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model.FindingsThe findings of this study suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice.Practical implicationsThis study can inform tailored professional development efforts aiming to improve educators’ inclusive practices.Originality/valueWe developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms.

Interrogating the Tensions: A Collaborative Self-Study of Middle Grades Teacher Education Practices in Justice-Oriented Professional Development

Middle grades teachers and middle grades teacher educators are practicing in a complex sociocultural and sociopolitical moment. As part of the recent critical turn in middle grades education, antiracist teaching and equity pedagogies have gained momentum in the middle grades education literature. Calls to engage in these practices, however, have been met with education legislation and policies intended to forestall equity-oriented teaching. In this context, middle grades teacher educators have an especially important role to play in helping prepare and support justice-oriented preservice and in-service middle grades teachers. In this collaborative self-study of teacher education practices, the authors looked closely at the experiences of five facilitators of a critical professional development institute and also engaged the perspectives of professional development leaders. Together, the authors sought to understand both the strategies and tensions in their work to engage middle grades teachers in critically conscious practice. Study findings describe both teacher educator strategies for the implementation of critical professional development and the possible tensions in this work.

Excuse me whiteness: attempting to transform pedagogies through critical professional development

ABSTRACT While Students of Color are the largest college-going population, their rates of persistence and graduation remain lower than their white peers. As an intervention into this inequity, many colleges and universities have implemented anti-racist and culturally sustaining professional development. Yet, little empirical research exists to explore the impact(s) of these learning opportunities. This paper explores the promises and perils of professional development in higher education. Drawing on dueothnographic conversations between two facilitators of what Rita Kohli has framed as Critical Professional Development (CPD), the co-authors of this study present analyses that highlight the strengths of CPD in higher education settings while also illuminating the ways that whiteness propertied permeates these settings, preventing authentic learning and healing from taking place. The paper concludes with recommendations to both illuminate and dismantle reifications of whiteness in CPD contexts by way of racial affinity spaces and institutional accountability.

Curriculum as Endarkened Feminist Third Space: Alternative possibilities, revision, reciprocity, and surrender in teacher professional development

This article reveals how an Endarkened Feminist Third Space was actualized through the creation and facilitation of “Race Space” Critical Professional Development (RSCPD) for teachers; that is, a space composed of reciprocity, surrender, and a willingness to revise one’s performances of the present. Building upon previous scholarly calls for (and theorizations of) curriculum as space, endarkened feminist epistemologies, and Third Space, I theorize Endarkened Feminist Third Space through an ethnographic case study of teacher professional development (PD) and an embedded multiple case study of teacher participants. I respond to the following research questions: (a) How did an Endarkened Feminist Third Space become actualized as curriculum within RSCPD; and (b) How did this actualization support social justice teaching and action among participants? A critical discourse analysis of focal dialogic exchanges unearthed several moments in which an Endarkened Feminist Third Space was actualized for each participant in the following ways: (a) collaborative strategizing and surrendering fears to subversively act; (b) being challenged to (re)consider alternative possibilities and political performances; (c) revision and intervention in the here and now; and (d) reciprocity. Ultimately, through the actualization of an Endarkened Feminist Third Space, teacher and facilitator ways of knowing/acting were both welcomed and called into question for the purposes of revising their performances of the present, surrendering to alternative possibilities, and reciprocity. Finally, I discuss the need for epistemologically rich and feminized interrogations of space within PD for facilitator growth and enhanced social justice teaching and being among teachers.

A call for critical PDS: infusing DisCrit into the nine essentials

PurposeThe field of Professional Development Schools (PDS) continues to evolve with promising implications. As part of advancing practice, the National Association for Professional Development Schools has updated its nine essential guiding principles, which now includes an explicit expectation for all PDS partners to advance equity, anti-racism and social justice. This article is a call for critical professional development work which infuses Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) practices into achieving the Nine Essentials.Design/methodology/approachIn this call-to-action article, the authors argue that it is imperative for the whole of PDS work to establish a priority for inclusive practice that recognizes and responds to all aspects of diversity in education from the outset, including disability. The authors suggest that PDS work must be guided by an intersectional approach that is operationalized to achieve equity in education by dismantling both racism and ableism in education. The authors use an action-based example from our PDS work to exemplify these elements in practice.FindingsIn this article, the authors put forth two arguments that they urge their PDS colleagues to consider. First, the authors call for practices within PDS to give attention to improving student learning in ways that specifically address disability and intersectional considerations related to disability. Second, the authors urge that PDS work must be conceptually and practically inclusive in order to achieve the social justice impact put forth in the comprehensive mission of the Nine Essentials.Originality/valueThere is a growing body of literature around PDS that addresses theory to practice research and best practices in PDS settings. While some recent publications address inclusive PDS practices, the authors were not able to identify any works related to DisCrit in the PDS literature to date.

Laying a foundation for critical professional development through a research–practice partnership

ABSTRACT Much of the formal professional development teachers experience consists of short-term workshops that maintain – rather than disrupt – the systems of power that reproduce educational inequities. In response, some scholars have advocated critical professional development (PD) as a means of supporting teachers’ interrogation of these inequities and empowerment to effect change. Critical PD is based on Paulo Freire’s ideas of dialogue, problem-posing, and praxis, and it tends to emerge within grassroots organisations that function independently from the school systems. There are two drawbacks to this autonomous structure, however: the legitimacy problem, or the fact that the pedagogies advocated within these groups may be difficult to implement without the institutional support of participants’ districts; and the resource problem, or the fact that teachers’ time and efforts within these independent organisations is typically uncompensated. In this essay, we describe a research – practice partnership in which we co-developed critical PD on culturally responsive teaching with district leaders. The form of the PD, critical action research, allowed the participants to engage in problem-posing and praxis in order to analyse systems of power and their own positionalities within these systems. Recommendations for those with and without access to research – practice partnerships are offered.

Critical Professional Development: A Necessary Risk?

Amy Yarborough, a veteran teacher and curriculum resource leader in a rural district in Virginia, facilitates a professional learning community focused on social justice and equity-oriented instructional practices. When allegations of teaching critical race theory are reported via the state’s email tip line and community social media groups, Amy is asked to present her professional learning community materials to the local school board. In the midst of stakeholder protests and media scrutiny, Amy must decide how to explain her professional decisions. Current and future educational leaders interested in issues related to race and equity will consider the roles of policy and the public in influencing teachers’ lessons.

Teaching Emergent Bilinguals: How In-service Teachers’ Perception of First Language Acquisition Theories Inform Practice

Different writers, linguists, and researchers present nuances in language acquisition theories. However, few studies explore in-service teachers’ voices in such discourses. It is, therefore, imperative to explore the voices of in-service teachers in such narratives as they teach emergent bilinguals (EBs) and culturally and linguistically diverse students. This paper examined how in-service teachers perceive First Language Acquisition (FLA) theories and how those perceptions influence teaching EBs and informing classroom practice. Centering on Freeman and Freeman’s discussion of five FLA theories (imitation, reinforcement, behaviorist, social interaction, active construction, connectionist), we argue that in-service teachers’ perceptions of first language acquisition theories impact how they teach and engage EBs in their classrooms. Findings show that in-service teachers consider the social interaction theory most beneficial to students’ language development. However, the precariousness of FLA theories makes it challenging for them to determine the best approach to teaching EBs. Additionally, teacher education programs and critical professional development (PD) courses are instrumental in fostering understanding and robust pedagogical mindsets and preparing teachers to meet the needs of emergent bilinguals.  

Nurturing “A Specific Kind of Unicorn-y Teacher”: How Teacher Activist Networks Influence the Professional Identity and Practices of Teachers of Color

ABSTRACT This article highlights the ways justice-oriented activist teachers of Color nurture themselves professionally through their involvement in critical professional development through activist teacher networks. This study conducted narrative inquiries of 26 activist teachers of Color across the United States. The counter-stories told by the teachers in this study reflect critical intellectual engagement and highlight specific ways in which these organizations further teacher sustainability, nurturance, and social change. This unified portrait shows a unique interplay between support of moral purpose, intellectual inquiry, and democratic change.

‘It’s probably still written by a white person’: challenging assumptions about racial identity in a critical professional development course

ABSTRACT In this article, we present a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the online discussion board posts of a group of elementary educators as they discussed their interpretations of four historical timelines that presented different – sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory – information about the goals of the Lewis & Clark expedition and its effects on Native populations. This activity was one part of a virtual professional development course on anti-racist critical literacy pedagogy for K-8 teachers, which was structured around three key concepts: 1) considering multiple perspectives can disrupt common understandings of texts; 2) issues of power determine what is present and absent in the stories authors tell; and 3) texts are social constructions that can be deconstructed and reconstructed. The teachers featured in this article worked in the same urban district and throughout their discussion, we found that they perpetuated discourses of Whiteness while simultaneously attempting to disrupt them. However, we also found discursive reconstructive potential in the ways one teacher responded to her assumptions being interrupted by a course facilitator, as well as the value of using CDA to examine teacher language. Our findings point to further directions for teacher educators working to foster racial and critical literacy.

9. The Anti-Racist Liberatory Pedagogy Academy: Critical Race Faculty Development

Abstract This paper explores a critical professional development project at a public university called the Anti-Racist Liberatory Pedagogy Academy (ARLPA). As a faculty-teaching-faculty project, this work focuses on the facilitators of the program rather than the participants. The gaze on the facilitators helps to explore how their consciousness raising process was influenced by critical race theory. To attend to that process, generative autoethnography as critical race methodology was used to explore these questions. How did we as facilitators of ARLPA engage in praxis to further our own work with anti-racism? How might critical race theory help to make sense of our experiences within ARLPA? From the examination of the counter-stories, this paper ends by offering a future exploration by posing the question; how might praxis nurture political and pedagogical clarity through racial analyses?

Agency and criticality in statistics teaching practices: the account of a teacher

The objective of this article is to discuss actions of agency by analyzing the practices and conceptions of a mathematics teacher working in the municipal school system of Valinhos, state of São Paulo, while teaching statistics and probability to students in the final years of elementary school. The concept of agency is related to transformative capacity and refers to the power of the individual over the context in which they are inserted. The concept of agency is significant for teacher education and is linked to critical professional development, as criticality is essential for people’s transformation processes. This study adopted principles of (auto) biographical research, which view narratives as training and self-training practices. Through spoken and written narratives given by a teacher who participated in a collaborative study group, discussions about the way she develops her practices and the factors that most influence her decision-making are examined.

On the Role Played by Project-Based Learning in Teacher Training Online

This work investigates the perceptions on the role played by Project-Based Learning (PBL) in English as a second language (L2 English) participants who are receiving teacher training online. The participants in this study were enrolled in the Psycholinguistic Analysis of English Acquisition module at xxx-removed for blind review. They were given the choice of two projects: (a) an L2 English learner linguistic profile and (b) a grammatical structure analysis and its L2 English teaching application. The participants’ opinions about PBL were then collected in a questionnaire that included the following variables: motivation and attitude towards L2 English learning before and after the project, perception of the development of English language proficiency skills, content acquisition, and other issues related to PBL such as L2 learning reflection; and, autonomy and real language use. They reported having learned by doing and, as a consequence, believed that they had learned autonomously because they were responsible for their own learning. Likewise, they claimed PBL facilitated critical thinking, creativity, language awareness, and professional development through the project completion. They also showed a positive attitude towards the integration of the four language skills and the building of content knowledge by gathering and planning information using authentic resources.

Using Collaborative, Mixed-Methods Research to Determine Professional Self-care’s Relation to Burnout Among Police Officers at a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Site

Burnout, an occupational syndrome characterized by feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment, is highly prevalent among police officers, perhaps as a result of regular and repeated exposure to job-related stressful events. Burnout might be especially problematic for officers working with sexual assault victims, as this sensitive work requires officers to be exposed to trauma while conducting trauma-informed, victim-centered investigations. The current study used interagency, multidisciplinary collaboration and a mixed-method design to examine professional self-care as a mechanism to combat burnout among police officers (n = 331) at a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) site in the southeastern region of the United States. Professional self-care better predicted each component of burnout than did exposure to job-related trauma, being injured on-duty, number of critical incident types experienced, and years on the force. Specifically, engagement in professional development activities best predicted reduced emotional exhaustion and depersonalization of victims. Officers’ qualitative responses supported quantitative survey data, with 48% requesting an increase in professional self-care opportunities (e.g., more trainings, professional support) offered by their organization. Although the nature of policing often precludes a route to reducing officers’ exposure to job-related stressful events, findings suggest that law enforcement organizations can positively impact officer burnout by enhancing professional self-care and broadly providing critical professional development experiences.

El Instituto: Centering Language, Culture, and Power in Bilingual Teacher Professional Development

Teacher education programs have the obligation to prepare bilingual teachers, new and established, to challenge pervasive deficit and racist ideologies, to cultivate students’ identities/knowledges, and to thwart oppressive ideologies through counter-hegemonic discourses. This paper presents a case study of El Instituto, one Hispanic Serving Institution’s immersive professional development program for Spanish-speaking bilingual teachers in Los Angeles County. Conducted entirely in Spanish, the program aimed to center teachers’ sociocultural realities and community cultural wealth while honoring their linguistic capital, deepening their Spanish-language knowledge, and developing critical consciousness. Findings suggest that utilizing a sociocultural approach to simultaneously study Spanish language and critical pedagogy while centering teachers’ community cultural wealth led to deep insights about intersections of languages and culture within larger power structures that cultivate systemic oppression. However, epistemological shifts about fostering more humanizing and critical professional development for bilingual educators are necessary to achieve these goals.

Critical Black women educators: Resisting the racial and ideological marginality of K–12 teaching through critical professional development

ABSTRACT Black women educators are severely underrepresented and make up just 5% of US public school teachers. For critical Black women educators working in the hostile racial climates of schools, the ideological marginalization compounds the intersectional racial and gendered alienation they feel. In this article, we theorize the racialization critical Black women educators experience even working in schools that serve communities of Color as they work to disrupt the status quo, challenge racism, and serve students of Color. Through key cases of Black women educators, we describe how critical professional development spaces address these forms of isolation and support their personal and professional wellbeing. We specifically answer what they gain from having access to networks of like-minded peers as they navigate working within institutions fraught with racism. This paper ends with recommendations for developing, retaining, and supporting a teaching force inclusive of critical Black women.

Critical professional development and the racial justice leadership possibilities of teachers of colour in K-12 schools

ABSTRACT Research has noted that teachers of Color are disproportionately called upon to address racialized issues in schools serving students of Color. And although many teachers of Color enter the profession wanting to advocate for and with students and their families and are strongly positioned to do so, these responsibilities should not rest entirely on their shoulders. Navigating institutional change as collective work is not something taught within teacher preparation or traditional professional development (PD). But what would happen if critical teachers of Color—those with a structural analysis of oppression and who are committed to social and racial justice—were actually supported and provided leadership development work towards racial justice at their school sites? How might this type of development affect their sustainability in and impact on the field? Using a framework of critical professional development (CPD)—emergent and often grassroots teacher development spaces that frame teachers as politically-aware individuals who have a stake transforming society—this paper will explore the impacts of a racial affinity CPD space, the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice, designed specifically to promote the retention, growth, and activist leadership of teachers of Color in K-12 schools.

The power of an intersectionality framework in teacher education

Purpose The purpose of this study is to describe the use of an intersectionality framework to analyze and incorporate teachers’ lived experiences into critical professional development. Design/methodology/approach Researchers used qualitative coding based on the matrix of oppression and privilege (Ferber and O’Reilly Herrera, 2013) to analyze teachers’ multicultural autobiographies. Connections between multicultural autobiographies were then made between other course reflections and lesson plans that were developed throughout the 150 h of professional development. Findings Findings evidence the multiple sites of oppression and privilege, the importance of spaces and relationships in locating ourselves and others on the matrix and the possibilities for transferring knowledge to professional practice. Research limitations/implications The authors do recognize the limitations of their study. Although the participants were from differing educational contexts and backgrounds, the sample size was small. Additional studies of this nature can expand our understanding of privilege, oppression and the impact of critical professional development for educators. Our society, and therefore the education system, continues to become more culturally and linguistically diverse, and it is incumbent upon us as educators and researchers to identify effective approaches for preparing both teachers and students for a changing world. Practical implications The power of the matrix framework in pedagogical settings is that it facilitates the recognition and analysis of individual social locations and their relationships to various systems of inequality. Most importantly, analyzing both privilege and oppression allows individuals and instructors to reflect on their own experiences and initiate conversations that reduce the animosity toward those who have different experiences. Originality/value This study is significant, in that it offers a framework that addresses the perceived disconnect between teachers and their increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse student population (Banks and Banks, 2013; Darling-Hammond and Bransford, 2005).

Investigating TESOL Teachers' Awareness of Critical Pedagogy at Higher Education Institutions in Oman: Implications for Critical Professional Development

Critical Pedagogy (CP) has been proposed as an alternative pedagogy capable of meeting the complex demands of teaching English within a particular sociopolitical context. Despite the fact that CP has been present in education since the 1960s, much of the research on CP has been conducted recently in Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) contexts. There is a growing but as yet small amount of research that addresses the usage of CP in TESOL contexts, to which this study hopes to make a useful contribution. Therefore, this study investigates the extent to which TESOL teachers from four higher education institutions in the Sultanate of Oman are aware of CP. In order to achieve this, a questionnaire is administered to 178 English Language Teachers. The main findings reveal a widespread lack of awareness of the concept of CP among TESOL teachers. Nonetheless, minorities of teachers are aware of CP and implement it in a limited fashion in their classes. On the other hand, there are teachers who, whilst being aware of CP, do not implement it. The implications of these findings are discussed.