One urban district administered the Black Male Teacher Environment Survey (BMTES) to each of its Black male teachers to measure their school-based experiences. This article highlights descriptive statistics from the 86 Black male teacher respondents. Findings suggest that participants’ background characteristics and school-based experiences varied by the number of Black men on the faculty. Loners, schools with one Black male teacher on the faculty, reported different experiences when compared with Groupers, schools with four or more Black male teachers on the faculty. Specifically, Loners were more likely to receive alternative certification, reported that their White colleagues had greater influence on school policy than teachers of color, believed that being Black caused people to fear them in their schools, and reported having a greater desire to leave their schools than Groupers.
This article uses a phenomenological approach to explore the organizational dynamic of boundary heightening for 27 Black male teachers, across 14 schools, in one urban school district. Black male teachers described being perceived by their colleagues as either incompetent or overqualified to teach their subject matter. These experiences created workplace environments in which participants felt alienated from their colleagues. In response, these Black male teachers strategically erected social boundaries to manage interactions with their colleagues. Black male teacher diversity campaigns in education preparation programs should be informed by Black male teachers’ school-based experiences. The article shows how teacher education programs can redesign facets of their preparation to attend to the boundary-heightening and workplace experiences that Black male teachers may face in becoming teachers of record.
A research synthesis points to the added value—benefits to social and emotional development, as well as learning outcomes—for students of color taught by teachers of color. Given ongoing education debates, policymakers can use this evidence base to craft legislation aimed at increasing the ethnoracial diversity of the U.S. educator workforce. To begin, historical research shows how Latinx and Black teachers have supported their Latinx and Black students’ social and emotional development during state-sanctioned school segregation. Contemporary qualitative and quantitative research highlights how teachers of color improve social and emotional development, as well as learning, for their students of color. Implications for Higher Education Act (HEA) are discussed.
Despite the benefits of educators of color to various outcomes for students of color, large-scale research has not explored these educators’ on-the-job interactions with colleagues outside of large urban districts. Using social network analysis, this study examined the work-related social interactions of staff (teachers and administrators) of color in two mid-sized school districts. Where staff of color were likely the only faculty members of color—and where math professional development and curricular change were district-wide foci—staff of color were less likely to seek out colleagues for math advice. Staff of color were generally not sought for advice any more or less than White colleagues. Implications for policy and practice related to staff of color are discussed.
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