Research
Black teachers more likely to discuss racism with students, research shows By Jim Carlson
Research shows that Black teachers are more likely not only to recognize racism but also engage in conversation with their students and offer more nuanced and careful approaches to anti-racist pedagogy than their white counterparts.
team showing a 20-minute film about a jail scene to students and teachers at four preschools, a method known as video-cued multifocal ethnography. One of the sites was a working class African American preschool in Washington, D.C., and the students started playing a game that U.S. preschool teachers would refer to as “cops and robbers.” “But the 18 African American teachers that I interviewed in D.C. said, ‘well they are (playing cops and robbers) and also they’re not; it’s more,’” Henward explained.
Allison Sterling Henward, associate professor of early childhood and a core faculty in comparative and international education in the College What they told Henward was of Education at Penn State, and two Allison Henward this: “We have kids who are doctoral candidates at the University disproportionately experiencing familiar — Sung-Ryung Lyu and Quiana Jackson — published incarceration. We have kids whose neighborhoods have “African American Head Start Teachers’ Approaches been ransacked by police presence. In play, children act to Police Play in the Era of Black Lives Matter” in out and take in ideas that they see.” Teachers College Record. Those teachers, according to Henward, spoke about Their research examined how teachers negotiate the play reflecting structural racism. “That conflict conflicting tensions and enact antiracist approaches is between what they are supposed to do as ECE within Head Start classrooms that use comprehensive professionals and what these teachers have to deal and commercialized curriculums. with as Black women in a racist society,” Henward said. Henward is an educational anthropologist who looked at four different cultural communities and Henward praised Head Start, citing that the has been involved with the Head Start project for federal program has an unparalleled background eight years. Since coming to Penn State in 2015, she and has had phenomenal success. “But one of the has examined how federal policy (Head Start) meets concerns, sometimes, is that the cultural communities the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse I study don’t always have representation in what the children, including how teachers negotiate conflicting curriculums are going to be,” Henward said. tensions and enact antiracist approaches within Henward also mentioned the idea that anti-racism Head Start classrooms that use comprehensive and is either too adult or not appropriate for children. “But commercialized curriculums. our research on racial socialization and our research “Commercialized curriculum is supposed to be on how parents interact with children, particularly meeting the needs of kids in all cultural communities,” children of color, show that parents of color have to Henward said. “But this research and my other start talking to children about racism to help them research in American Samoa shows that when teachers make sense of their everyday lives,” she said. are from some cultural and ethnolinguistic communities Research has shown that Black students want that do not always align with what’s in the curriculum, teachers who look like them, and Henward thinks that teachers have to do a whole lot of work to reframe is important. “But we also need the white teachers and things, whereas other teachers don’t. the white policymakers, and everybody who is working “A one-size-fits-all curriculum doesn’t always work; around this, to have a critical consciousness too, and my research does show that.” to understand that they don’t know what they don’t A wealth of information resulted from the research know,” Henward said. Penn State Education
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