“I Don’t Want to Come Off as Pushing an Agenda”: How Contexts Shaped Teachers’ Pedagogy in the Days After the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Abstract

Guided by perspectives on the sociopolitical contexts of schooling, control of teachers’ curriculum and instruction, and teaching of elections, we use findings from a national questionnaire to explore the contexts that shaped teachers’ pedagogical decision making following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Our findings reveal that classroom, school, district, state, and national contexts often manifested in pressure from colleagues, parents, the administration, the district, and the public. This pressure is reflective of the lack of trust, autonomy, and professionalism for teachers in our current climate. The days immediately following the election revealed new understandings about teachers’ views on neutrality, opportunities for agency within control of teachers’ work, and a call for justice-oriented pedagogy. Implications for teacher education, practice, and research are discussed.

Relevance, Representation, and Responsibility: Exploring World Language Teachers’ Critical Consciousness and Pedagogies

“…Finally, results from this study support prior research that World Language teachers may feel unprepared or unmotivated to take up issues of identity (Baggett, 2018) and prior research that teachers across content areas often endorse colorevasiveness (i.e., Annamma et al, 2017) and a 'neutral' stance regarding identity and sociopolitical issues perceived to be political or partisan (Dunn, Sondel, & Baggett, 2019), such as race and racism. Previous research suggests that teachers might rationalize decisions not to address identities and sociopolitical issues in their classrooms by leaning on perceptions about student development (i.e.…”

Critical Classrooms Matter: Baltimore Teachers’ Pedagogical Response After the Death of Freddie Gray

“…Processing emotions through dialogue and/or other means of expression is crucial. Second, educators must move beyond neutrality, guilt, shame, and disregard when it comes to historic systemic racism (Dunn et al, 2019). To aid in our understanding of this mind-set, educators must rely on an array of resources.…”

“…In these times, we see multiple instances of the challenges present in dialogue across ideologies and beliefs (Dunn et al, 2019). If teachers can build community by helping students facilitate dialogue by first laying out one’s feelings in a safe environment, as well as by sensitively considering multiple perspectives, and fully CRT toward critical pedagogical praxis, then perhaps we would have a society that is better equipped to engage in controversy and opposing opinions, but more, as Jacques noted above, to become active citizens in our democracy.…”

Critical Affective Civic Literacy: A Framework for Attending to Political Emotion in the Social Studies Classroom

“…Whereas some teachers chose topics they considered controversial in order to invite impassioned debate, others avoided topics they deemed too emotionally sensitive for their students in order to maintain what they believed to be a safe classroom space. Research surrounding the 2016 presidential election found that some teachers responded to their Muslim and immigrant students’ fears of a Trump presidency by avoiding discussion of the election outcome altogether, and trying to remain neutral ( Dunn et al., 2019 ).…”