Embracing equity and excellence while constructing science teacher identities in urban schools: Voices of new Teachers of Color

Abstract

We explored how new Teachers of Color grappled with equity and excellence as they were constructing science teacher identities while learning to teach in a teacher education program committed to equity, justice, and excellence, and eventually teaching in urban schools where inequities and injustices persist. The theoretical framing, compiled from various bodies of literature, weaved together what we consider as essential parts of teacher identity construction and provided a lens with which to examine how conceptions of equity and excellence that the study participants were constructing meshed with their multiple identities, considerations on legitimate knowledge production, and dialectical relationships with which they grappled. Using transcendental phenomenology, we learned from and with three Black and Latinx teachers and their narratives. The teachers intertwined similarly and differently their evolving conceptions of equity and excellence into their evolving science teacher identities as they engaged in forms of contentious local practice and reflected on their experiences as science Teachers of Color teaching predominately Students of Color. Their multiple identities were meshed with histories of larger institutions—science, schooling, and society—and together these were shaping their conceptions of equity and excellence. The intermingling of equity and excellence, which was guiding the curricular and instructional decisions they were making in their classrooms, was also linked to what they considered as legitimate knowledge production in science classes and what counted as knowledge that their students needed to know at different times. The various dilemmas defined by opposing poles with which they were grappling also functioned as scales on which their coordinated equity‐excellence unit of meaning was forming. Based on the study, we offer insights into practices that science teacher educators may consider as they prepare new teachers, and work with practicing teachers, to embrace and coordinate equity and excellence in their ever‐developing science teacher identities.

An identity project: a case study of two inservice elementary stem teachers’ experiences with a comprehensive professional development

“…Moreover, the design of science professional learning along with a more student-centered, justice-oriented curriculum are effective in supporting teachers to transform their science teacher identities. Our study extends the work of Chen and Mensah [5] and Varelas, Segura, Bernal-Munera, and Mitchener [37] by examining the confluence of a justice-centered elementary STEM curriculum to transform the science teaching identities and the instructional practices of two Baltimore City elementary teachers.…”

“…Chen and Mensah [5] and Varelas, Segura, Bernal-Munera, and Mitchener [37] examines the interaction between teacher identity and more inclusive, justice-focused pedagogy and found that a social justice orientation is influenced by the larger institutional context and more local school-based context of each educator. Moreover, the design of science professional learning along with a more student-centered, justice-oriented curriculum are effective in supporting teachers to transform their science teacher identities.…”

“…Engagement with the CoP must shape and form the individual's identity; (c) Each learner, through participation in and interaction with the CoP develops a sense of belonging, negotiating their role while shaping and reshaping their identity; (d) Identity Negotiation: AS the individual interacts with the CoP, they iteratively negotiate their role in the CoP and their identity. By participating in the CoP and interacting with other learners, participants develop an identity fundamentally a part of the collective identity of the CoP [37].…”

“…SABES's innovative curriculum and professional learning serve as an identity project for the two teachers. Ms. Santiago and Mr. Jelenik's involvement became a participative identity project [7,8], an all-consuming passion that focused their teaching constructed through participation and engagement in a social group; a community of practice [19,37]. This identity project, situated within the context of a community of practice of science teachers [5], helped Ms. Santiago and Mr. Jelinek "transcend daily challenges and hardships" [8, p. 11] of teaching in a high-poverty urban setting.…”

Investigating science teacher educator identity through the politics of domestication and critical positional praxis

“…Pennington and Prater (2016) illustrate well how taken‐for‐granted assumptions and white privilege could produce a “veil” that hinders meaning making—especially, in culturally diverse contexts. Some scholars in teacher education have drawn from critical race and feminist traditions to articulate their own identities and positionalities, using positionality as an explicit tool of analysis in identity research (Chen & Moore Mensah, 2022; Martin & Gholson, 2012; Mensah, 2012; Morales‐Doyle, 2018; Rivera, 2022; Rodriguez & Navarro‐Camacho, 2022; Tolbert et al, 2018; Varelas et al, 2022).…”