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Instructional coach initiatives aimed at teachers' professional development are expanding in reforming school districts across the United States. This study addresses the lack of research regarding the professional development of instructional coaches. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory, specifically a model called the Vygotsky Space, the authors use a case approach to examine the learning experiences of a single secondary literacy coach. Hypotheses suggest that (a) coaches are not unproblematic conduits of reform ideas but are also learners of new content and pedagogy; (b) as coaches' conceptual development about instruction grows, their ability to coach also matures; and (c) professional development that supports coaches is best aligned around a workplace pedagogy that addresses the learning needs of multiple system actors.

Racial humor among students of color presents a sociopolitical dilemma for teachers, requiring rapid calculations of if and how to respond in ways that support an inclusive and equitable classroom climate. This analysis uses two instances of racial humor in an elementary classroom to unpack a White teacher's responses to students of color who were both creators of and audience to racial jokes. Starting from the point of affirming the teacher's decision to intervene, findings explore the ramifications of how intervening had multiple, layered consequences for the dynamics of silencing and racialization among students of color. The purpose of this approach is to model how to sift through the complications of silencing race talk and to support conceptual and practical conversations about anti-racist pedagogical moves in the midst of fleeting, meaningful moments in classroom socialization to race.

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Background/Context Collaboration is increasingly part of teachers’ professional learning and continuous improvement of teaching practice. However, there is little exploration of how teachers’ racial, gender, and social class identities influence their collaboration with colleagues and, in turn, their teaching and professional learning. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study examines shared meanings that are constructed through storytelling by middle-class White women teachers who work in a racially and socioeconomically diverse elementary school I call Fields Elementary. I ask: What narrative tropes do middle-class White women teachers draw upon to create common understanding about what it means to teach at their school? In what ways does a normative middle-class White culture, specifically related to White womanhood, achieve ideological projects through teachers’ participation in collective storytelling in professional communities? The article proposes conceptual connections across whiteness, intersectionality, professional learning, and collective storytelling, and provides an empirical example of how the integration of perspectives illuminates this type of complex interaction. Research Design Utilizing ethnographic methods of data collection, I spent 5 months at Fields Elementary, dividing my time between two focal teachers, both middle-class White women. I followed these teachers across settings and responsibilities. The data in this critical discourse analysis are drawn from this larger study and come from a conversation in one teacher community (the second-grade team). On completion of preliminary data analysis, focal teachers reflected on findings to enrich interpretations. Findings/Results Findings indicate that this teacher community co-constructed narratives reproducing social locations as middle-class White women. Their professional knowledge reflected ambiguity in their efficacy to teach for equitable outcomes. In addition, their professional knowledge was tied to their identities as mothers; narratives reflected middle-class White social distance from students and families, which included asserting teachers’ moral superiority in parenting. Conclusions/Recommendations This study provides a model for conceptualizing collective storytelling and professional learning among teachers from an intersectionality perspective on whiteness. Empirical findings suggest that institutional constraints of teaching may require interventions at multiple levels: teachers’ and leaders’ learning how to facilitate professional conversations; home visits intended for “funds of knowledge” professional learning opportunities; hiring and placement of diverse faculty and school leaders to extend construction of professional knowledge; and policy changes. These considerations have implications for teachers’ professionalization and for schooling experiences that dehumanize students of color and students living in poverty.