A Narrative Exploration of Elementary Teachers’ Social Equity Teaching Decisions: The Curricula of Place and Identity

In this narrative study, I explored each teacher’s decision making on social equity issues (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) in his or her teaching. Participants considered the social equity issues they explored with students and social equity issues they sometimes avoided/silenced in the classroom and why. As my participants explored their own educational and personal experiences, personal identity came to the forefront as important. Like a magnet, personal identity frequently attracted participants toward issues of personal import in their teaching and learning. However, at other times, matters that were “too close to home” for a participant could make those social equity topics feel much less safe, thus, participants were repelled from these topics. The level of risk an identity label was perceived to carry in the community influenced whether participants were pulled toward or felt pushed from a social equity issue. My participants were in rural, urban, suburban, and micropolitan communities in the South, and place frequently arose as a rationale for why one might be wary of broaching a particular topic. In most cases, however, it was potential community push-back that was feared. Findings reveal the need for frequent opportunities to discuss the importance of social equity work and its impact, strategies for gaining (or maintaining) community support, and continued expansion of the ways that social equity work permeates the fabric of our pedagogy. We must work to make school safer spaces for both students and teachers