The Multi-Faceted Nature of Racially Transformative Practices: Bringing to Light the Invisibilized Labor and Leadership of Teachers of Color

A growing body of scholarship has suggested that K-12 Teachers of Color are uniquely positioned to enact instructional and institutional changes in classrooms and schools that expand educational opportunities for Students of Color; yet, a holistic understanding of the situational dynamics in which social change occurs remains insufficiently theorized, examined, and practiced. In this dissertation, I contribute to addressing this gap by investigating the racially transformative practices of four Teachers of Color serving a predominantly low-income Student of Color population in Los Angeles, California. Applying my place-based raciolinguistics framework as a theoretical and methodological approach, I examine how racialized dimensions of inequities are reproduced and transformed in schools through micro-level interactional processes, situated within broader historical, structural, and sociopolitical contexts. Designed as a yearlong critical ethnomethodological study with a humanizing approach to research, I draw on 110 hours of video and audio recording, ethnographic field notes, interviews, and artifacts as data to examine various social spaces in which Teachers of Color engage in racial justice work, including classrooms, teacher union meetings, professional development, school-wide events, and community protests. Through my multidisciplinary, multi-scalar framework and embodied raciolinguistic analysis, I describe how Teachers of Color draw on collective racialized experiences to recognize and transform place-based dynamics of marginalization. In addition, I detail how place-based dynamics influence the way Teachers of Color strategically foreground particular aspects of their social identities to mobilize students, families, teachers, and community members towards social change in the interests of marginalized communities. I also demonstrate the fluidity and constructed nature of “leadership” by documenting how the transformative resistance of Teachers of Color at the intersections of multiple identities and oppressions shape the extent to which they are seen and treated as “leaders” in certain contexts. Considering the multi-faceted nature of racially transformative practices, particularly social activities that are seemingly mundane yet contribute significantly to ongoing struggles for liberation and justice, I argue that teachers’ racially transformative practices are often overlooked, misunderstood, and underappreciated—factors which contribute to issues of teacher preparation, retention, and sustainability. Offering a more comprehensive framework of social change that considers the embodied and place-based dimensions of racially transformative practices enacted over time, as well as an analytic tool for examining and amplifying the invisibilized labor and racial justice leadership of Teachers of Color, I provide implications for teachers, teacher educators, educational leaders, and researchers seeking to prepare, support, and retain Teachers of Color who work towards social transformation and restoration of humanity for and alongside marginalized students, teachers, families, and communities