ABSTRACT This article presents findings from an empirical study that sought to understand how Black teachers collectively built a Black affinity space in response to the antiblackness they faced in their school sites. Analyses of interview and participant observation data point to the importance of Black teachers creating spaces reminiscent of a homeplace, where they can speak and act with their full selves through play, humor, and various expressions of Blackness. The article argues that the concept of affinity spaces is insufficient to describe what the teachers in the study collectively built. Instead, we draw on notions of fugitivity from Black Studies to theorize this space as a pro-Black fugitive space. We argue that these Black teacher fugitive spaces are rehumanizing and sustaining for Black teachers, offering implications for Black teacher support and retention.

“We just do us”: How Black teachers co-construct Black teacher fugitive space in the face of antiblackness

Teacher leadership recently has gained prominence as an important method for school improvement and reform, yet the ranks of teacher leaders do not match the racial and ethnic diversity of the students they serve. Jori S. Beck, KaaVonia Hinton, and Brandon M. Butler conducted a study of teacher leadership that garnered almost 800 survey responses and included 31 interviews with administrators and teachers. They discovered how the lack of diversity in the teacher workforce, the myth of meritocracy, and the isolation of teachers of color present barriers to diversifying the teacher leader workforce. Potential solutions include equity audits, revisions to hiring practices, and the distribution of teachers of color within school buildings.

Truly open to all: Three ways to diversify teacher leadership

Teresa Lance came to her position as assistant superintendent for equity and innovation in School District U-46 in Elgin, Illinois, after leaving a superintendency where community leaders were unwilling to change the status quo. Joshua P. Starr describes how Lance’s previous experiences led to her current role and what she learned along the way.

On Leadership: A leader’s equity journey

Racially and ethnically minoritized students are now the majority in U.S. public schools. This demographic change, along with heightened attention to racial injustice and evidence regarding the importance of Black teachers, has renewed a decades-old push to increase their numbers. Redesigning teacher education and development to support the recruitment and retention of Black teachers requires ongoing critical understanding of their racialized experiences. Uncritical approaches to workplace diversification perpetuate deficit attitudes toward Black students and unfairly burden Black teachers. Authors Christopher J. Cormier, Elizabeth Bettini, and Kristabel Stark describe challenges novice Black teachers often face, and they suggest critical considerations for this conversation within teacher education programs and schools.

Untying the double bind


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to further theorize BlackCrit to include a deeper focus on the framing idea of Black liberatory fantasy via Afrofuturism.


Design/methodology/approach
To develop the theoretical connections, the author revisits their previous scholarship on Black girls’ Afrofuturist storytelling practices to elucidate how the girls used their speculative narratives to critique the antiblackness present in their schools and the world at large and to create future worlds in which they have the power to create the world anew.


Findings
This paper discusses the relationship between BlackCrit and Afrofuturism by considering three interrelated ideas: how Afrofuturism acknowledges the antiblackness embedded in the USA; how BlackCrit makes space for liberatory Black futures and otherwise worlds; and how each theoretical idea inherently complements the other.


Originality/value
This paper creatively uses a hip hop album as a foundation for the portrayal of the intricate connections between Black pasts, presents and futures. As a conceptual paper, it pushes educators and researchers to consider the call and response between antiblackness and Black futurity.


It will take nations of billions to obstruct our dreams: extending BlackCrit through Afrofuturism

In a time of growing teacher shortages, Black teachers are rapidly and disproportionately leaving the profession. Drawing upon their interviews with 30 Black teachers in the California Bay Area, Jessica Lee Stovall and Tara R. Sullivan provide insight into what it will take to keep Black teachers in the profession. The interviews depict both the anti-Blackness that Black teachers face and their freedom dreams for a better tomorrow for their students. Ultimately, Black teachers want schools to be transformed into healing-centered spaces where they can show up authentically to create a world in which Blackness is centered and affirmed.

‘Grant us the sun’: What Black teachers need

High school mathematics teachers' noticing of inequitable talk

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Integrity Despite Moral Nonrecognition: Why Black Teachers Are Called to Teach

Abstract:This study shares the stories of Black Bay Area teachers during the 2021–2022 school year--the year of the return to in-person teaching. Drawing primarily on the analysis of semi-structured interviews with 30 teachers from across the Bay Area, I use Critical Race Theory and BlackCrit to examine Black teachers' experiences with antiblackness during the global pandemic. Analysis of the data suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated issues of equitable access for their students and their job salary sustainability. However, teachers named that their continued experiences with antiblackness and their disproportionate workloads compared to their non-Black colleagues that they were experiencing before the pandemic as their most pressing concerns regarding teacher retention.

J. Stovall

Papers

‘Grant us the sun’: What Black teachers need

“We just do us”: How Black teachers co-construct Black teacher fugitive space in the face of antiblackness

High school mathematics teachers' noticing of inequitable talk

Integrity Despite Moral Nonrecognition: Why Black Teachers Are Called to Teach

“We will not be afraid to share who we are”: Black Teachers’ Experiences with Antiblackness during a Global Pandemic