The Intersections of Identities and Justice-Oriented Efforts of Urban Literacy Educators

Abstract

This article draws from an ongoing longitudinal qualitative inquiry into the preparation and development of social justice–oriented urban English teachers. It examines the cases of three graduates of an urban education–focused teacher preparation program who claim different intersectional identities and have completed their fourth year as urban educators. The article explores two research questions. First, how do these teachers understand and enact critical education practices within their curriculum and instruction, socially situated relationships, and institutional structures? Second, how do they experience and understand their sociocultural identities as contributors to their practices as critical educators and the associated outcomes? Two findings are discussed. First, the teachers felt greatest agency and success within their classrooms (in comparison to other institutional spaces) to enact social justice–oriented curricula, instruction, and other educational practices, using relationship-building with students as the foundation of their work. Second, identity constructs of gender, age, and race significantly mediated the teachers’ relationship-building efforts with colleagues and administrators, the teachers’ feelings of agency, and their activities and outcomes related to justice-oriented change at institutional levels beyond the classroom. This study contributes a rare longitudinal example of how in-service critical educators’ sociocultural identities impact their literacy pedagogies and institutional efforts to advance educational justice.