In-Service Teachers’ Conceptions of Racial Identity

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2017. Major: Education, Curriculum and Instruction. Advisor: Thomas Swiss. 1 computer file (PDF); 187 pages.There is a large discrepancy between the racial identities of current teachers and the students they teach. In the United States, white middle-class women constitute 90% of the teaching population (Picower, 2009), while students of color comprise approximately one third of the population, with an expected increase to approximately two thirds by the year 2050 (Howard, 2003). This discrepancy in racial identities often leads to deficit views and colorblindness within classrooms, resulting in the continued replication of dominant forms of power. Therefore, it is crucial to examine racial identities of teachers in hopes to build and expand on the current understandings of the role that race and racial identity have within classroom spaces. With an ethnographic study, I examined how teachers conceptualize their racial identity. How are teachers’ racial identities and their students’ racial identities represented in practice? How do teachers conceptualize their racial identities and their students’ racial identities within their practice? The research was conducted at an urban middle school with five white, female in-service teachers. The study centered around a book club series using perspectives from critical race theory. Influences on racial identity were identified from power domains using theories of pedagogy of the oppressed (Freire, 1993) and intersectionality (Hill-Collins & Bilge, 2016). Methods of qualitative analysis and an iteration of critical discourse analysis (Gee, 2014) were used to highlight findings. Findings demonstrated that teachers constructed their identities in a dual or hybrid space between oppressed (constrained power) and oppressor (empowered). By illuminating domains of power (interpersonal, disciplinary, cultural and structural) I was able to examine how these domains inform racial identities, where they overlap and how intersections of multiple domains influence participants’ conceptions. Additionally, participants named oppressive systems that influenced the complexities of their conceptions of racial identities. Participants valued the intricacies of students’ dynamic identities and conducted practices that embraced an urgency towards learning in order to combat academic underachievement. This dissertation makes a contribution to understanding the intersections that educators are between and within. This study has further implications for how teachers continue to practice with pedagogies and mindsets that validate and value the identities of both students and teachers, while simultaneously teaching within schools where dominant forms of knowledge and understandings are often valued