ABSTRACT 
 
 
 
 
Title of Document: POETRY, PROSE, & PORTRAITURE: 
VOICES OF 21st CENTURY BLACK 
ENGLISH TEACHERS ON IMPACTING 
BLACK STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT 
  
 Summer Anne Carrol,  
Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 
  
Directed By: Assistant Professor, Victoria-Mar?a MacDonald, 
Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy 
and Leadership 
 
 
This dissertation study utilized Critical Race Theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 
1995) and Portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005) to investigate five African 
American English teachers? perceptions of how they impact Black student 
achievement. Study participants included teachers who taught in two neighboring 
school districts located in a large metropolitan area in the mid-Atlantic region of the 
United States.  Teachers? years of experience ranged from 2 to 15.  Data collection 
methods included journal writing, focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and a 
questionnaire.   Findings are presented in the form of individual poetic portraits for 
each teacher (Childers, 2007; Hill, 2003, 2005; Schendel, 2009) and emergent themes 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). 
Teachers viewed themselves as impacting Black student achievement by 
employing a more-than-content teaching philosophy that emphasized helping students 
  
develop life skills and knowledge that would be beneficial post high school. Teachers 
found it difficult, however, to positively impact Black student achievement because of 
frustrating situations they faced in their school settings.   Teachers? frustrations are 
organized into five categories: institutional frustration, pedagogical frustration, 
relational frustration, positional frustration, and cultural frustration.  Situated within 
the literature on Black teachers published post-1970, the findings add complexity to 
the common portrayal of Black teachers as culturally-synchronized (Irvine, 1990) 
othermothers (Foster, 1993; Irvine, 2002), mentors, and role models (Irvine, 1989) for 
Black students.  Findings also deepen the scholarly conversation surrounding the 
negative, unintended consequences the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 
Kansas (1954) court ruling had for Black teachers and Black students.   
The study?s implications call for intra-racial professional development 
workshops and teacher education initiatives designed specifically for African 
American teachers; long-term ethnographic studies investigating the experiences and 
relationships between Black teachers and Black students in contemporary 
resegregated schools; policy initiatives aimed at creating a Brown v. Board of 
Education agenda for contemporary times; and theories that reconceptualize racial 
uplift pedagogy for 21st century schools.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
POETRY, PROSE, AND PORTRAITURE: VOICES OF 21ST CENTURY BLACK 
ENGLISH TEACHERS ON IMPACTING BLACK STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT 
 
 
 
By 
 
 
Summer Anne Carrol Your Full Name as it appears in University Records. 
 
 
 
 
 
Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the  
University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment 
of the requirements for the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy 
2013 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Advisory Committee: 
Assistant Professor Victoria-Mar?a MacDonald, Chair 
Assistant Professor Maria Hyler  
Associate Professor  Hannah B. Mawhinney 
Associate Professor Jennifer Turner 
Professor Linda Valli 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
? Copyright by 
Summer Anne Carrol 
2013 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ii 
 
Preface 
It came to me as I was walking down the hall at the school where I was 
working as an assessment coordinator.  I was in a hurry, focused on completing a 
task, but I could not help but notice idle students standing in the hall.  Some in pairs, 
chatting or smooching, others in groups, a few alone just looking around and listening 
to their I-pods or talking on their cell phones.  It was not a class change. They all 
should have been in class.  This was not the first time I had witnessed (with great 
annoyance) this scene.  But this time, I not only noticed them, but I also noticed me.  I 
noticed myself walking right by them all, without a word.   
That?s when it came to me. In that moment, I knew within myself that despite 
its title, at its core, this dissertation project was hardly about teachers.  It was about 
students ?Black students.  
It was about those students I allowed to continue loitering in the hallway.   
?Why should I stop?  There are no consequences. This is the culture of the building.?  
It was about the ?empty shell of an existence?1 many Black children appear to have 
embraced, an existence that devalues ?doing school? the way I had done school as a 
youth:  obey and respect authority (at least in authority?s presence), do homework, 
class work; join clubs, play sports.  Forget, for a moment, the title and the selected 
participants; recognize that this dissertation is about Black students, especially the 
ones who would not be tracked into what Du Bois (1903a, 1903b) called the Talented 
                                                 
1
  ?Empty shell of an existence? is language my research participants used during a focus group to 
describe the culture of the Black students they taught.  
 
 iii 
 
Tenth, those students selected as the brightest in their race and nurtured toward higher 
education and professional careers.  
This dissertation is about the achievement gap ? not the gap between Blacks 
and Whites, but the gap between many Black students and academic proficiency.  
Moreover, it is less about the academic gap and more about the ?engagement? gap, 
the ?acceptable? behavior gap, and the ?respect? gap ? these are the gaps the teachers 
in my study wanted to talk about.     
I did not interview any students or observe any classes. I looked at neither test 
scores nor classroom artifacts.    I only talked to teachers.  I wanted to know what was 
on their minds about these Black kids whom this dissertation is really about.  I wanted 
to know what was happening in their classrooms, from their own points of views.  I 
wanted to talk about the perplexing and shameful reality that Black students at large 
are underachieving ? even when they are taught by Black teachers.   
The teachers wanted to talk, too.  For them, participating in the study was 
about them as teachers.  They craved a venue where their voices would be heard and 
valued.  They were starving for fellowship and frank discussion with other Black 
teachers.  My dissertation project provided the much-needed break from their 
department, district, community, self, and society-imposed fast ?that is, freedom from 
silence.  Silence about their experiences as Black English teachers in predominantly 
White departments; silence about their feelings about Black students; silence about 
the discriminatory practices they witnessed in their schools; silence about the despair 
they felt in their jobs; silence about their content knowledge and sense of self-
 efficacy; silence about how the issues of race and racism were real factors in their 
 
 iv 
 
jobs ? even with Black building leaders and even with a Black man as the president of 
the nation.  So, although at its root, it is about students, this dissertation is still about 
Black teachers.  It is about being Black and being a teacher of Black students, many 
of whom do not embrace education and are not achieving, and some of whom do not 
respect their teachers ? perhaps because of, or maybe despite, the fact that their 
teachers are Black.    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 v 
 
Dedication 
This dissertation is dedicated to my first teachers: 
Myra McLin, Dale McLin (RIP), and Traci (McLin) Buckner. 
 
 vi 
 
Acknowledgements 
What a journey this doctoral process has been. From the Fall of 2007 to the 
Fall of 2012, I transformed from classroom teacher to researcher and emerging 
scholar.   It was not until the dissertation process, when I began to witness the scholar 
in me emerging, that I realized that all of these years, I was a scholar in the making. 
There are key people who contributed to my development:  Victoria-Mar?a 
MacDonald, my committee chair, advisor, and academic guardian angel.  Dr. 
MacDonald, thank you for seeing promise in me from the start and for providing a 
safe and encouraging place for me to grow, think, and transform.  Where would I be 
without you and M.U.E.?  My mentors and committee members: Dr.  Maria Hyler, 
Dr. Hanne Mawhinney, Dr. Jennifer Turner, and Dr. Linda Valli.  You all have 
helped shape my thinking and strengthen my academic skills.  Dr. Hyler, your ?butt 
in chair? advice is part of what helped me get this dissertation written!  Dr. Turner, 
our insightful conversations have helped me at pivotal points in my doctoral process. 
Dr. Valli, you have not only challenged me academically, but you have also opened 
doors for me that led to great opportunities.   Dr. Mawhinney, thank you, also, for 
your methodological insights and earnest attention to my work.    
I also thank Dr. Steve Koziol, Dr. Joseph McCaleb, and Dr. Jackie Jordan 
Irvine, Dr. Francine Hultgren, Ms. Joy Jones, and Ms. Elsie Pratt for the support they 
have offered to me along the way.   
University of Maryland Colleagues: There are too many to name, but I 
especially appreciate the camaraderie and academic stimulation of my colleagues 
from the Minority and Urban Education and English Education units and from the 
 
 vii 
 
Graduate Student Association.  This journey was worth it because of the friendships I 
developed with all of you.  
Sistermentors?:  Thanks to all of the women in Sistermentors ? especially the 
Yogaville writing retreat bunch.  Bonding with you during our writing breaks brought 
much-needed laughter to the very serious process of writing a dissertation.  
Dissertation House Colleagues:  Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale and all those 
involved in the Dissertation House, thank you for your support and accountability.  
Friends and Colleagues:  Dr. Elke Chen, Dr. Vanessa Dodo Seriki, Dr. Alana 
Murray-Blue, and Ms. Sara Sullivan, thank you for indulging me in endless, lengthy 
conversations about my work and for providing such useful feedback.  Your 
friendship, support, and scholarly insights have helped me get over many periods of 
stagnation and frustration.   Thank you, also, Dr. Kali Murray and Dr. Beth Cohen, 
for your feedback on my work at crucial times, and thank you, Dr. Cheryl Journiette 
and Dr. Andrea Johnson, for your support, encouragement, an enthusiasm as I 
continued working toward the goal of completion.   
Members of the Gourmet Gals Supper Club: Thank you for your support and 
friendship ? and for keeping my membership active despite my many absences.  
Family: To both immediate and extended family members, thank you for 
being the ultimate support structure in my life and for nurturing my interests and 
encouraging all of my endeavors.  I cannot thank God enough for blessing me with 
such an awesome family!  Ma, thanks for giving your share ? whenever and however 
it was needed. Nothing compares to a mother?s love.  Traci, you have always been my 
greatest cheerleader and biggest help ? Thank you.  
 
 viii 
 
Ibiyemi, God knew exactly the type of partner I would need in my corner as I 
set out to complete the important work He purposed for me to do.  Thank you for 
your tremendous help, patience, encouragement, understanding, accountability, and 
unconditional love.    
Study Participants: Thank you to the teachers who participated earnestly, 
passionately, and transparently in this research project. It was an honor to break bread 
with you. We must keep ?Breakfast for Black Teachers? alive! 
Finally, thank you, God, for your divine plan for my life and for ordering my 
steps accordingly.  
 
 ix 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 
Preface........................................................................................................................... ii 
Dedication ..................................................................................................................... v 
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... vi 
Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... ix 
List of Tables .............................................................................................................. xii 
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 
1.2: Toward an Understanding of Why the Achievement Gap Persists ................... 4 
1.2.1: Historical Context ? The Root Cause of the Persistent Achievement Gap 4 
1.2.2 An Alternative Gap Perspective ? The Opportunity-to-Learn Gap ............. 7 
1.3: Research Goals .................................................................................................. 9 
1.4: Personal Interest ............................................................................................... 12 
1.4.1: Becoming a Black English Teacher .......................................................... 12 
1.4.2: Embracing a Researcher?s Gaze ............................................................... 14 
1.4.3: Recognizing & Reflecting on My Black Middle Class Status .................. 15 
Chapter 2: Literature Review ...................................................................................... 19 
2.1: The Impact of Brown vs. Board of Education on Black Teachers at Large .... 20 
2.2: The Decline in the Number of Black Teachers ................................................ 21 
2.3: The Decline in the Status of Black Teachers ................................................... 22 
2.4: Perspectives and Experiences of Black Teachers in Integrated Schools ......... 23 
2.5: Perspectives and Experiences of Black Teachers in Predominantly White 
Schools .................................................................................................................... 26 
2.6: Black Teachers? Perspectives and Roles ......................................................... 29 
2.6.1: More than Role Models and Othermothers: Black Teachers as Mentors & 
Advocates ............................................................................................................ 30 
2.6.2: Mentorship and Racial Solidarity with Black Students ............................ 31 
2.8: Mentoring Cohorts among Black Teachers ..................................................... 33 
2.9: Black Teachers? Perspectives on Black Student Underachievement............... 34 
Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework ............................................................................. 39 
3.1: Critical Race Theory ........................................................................................ 39 
3.1.1: Defining Critical Race Theory .................................................................. 40 
3.1.2: Critical Race Theory in Education............................................................ 42 
3.1.3: Critical Race Theory: An Effective Framework for Studying Black 
Teachers .............................................................................................................. 43 
3.1.4: Critical Race Theory and This Study ........................................................ 46 
Chapter 4: Methodology ............................................................................................. 48 
4.1: The Research Project ....................................................................................... 70 
4.1.1: Participant Selection ................................................................................. 71 
4.1.2: Negotiating Research Relationships ......................................................... 72 
4.1.3: Nurturing Community Amongst Participants ........................................... 80 
4.1.4: Research Site............................................................................................. 81 
4.1.5: Critical Methodological Dilemma and Release Point Theory .................. 82 
4.1.6: Methods .................................................................................................... 86 
 
 x 
 
4.1.7: Methods of Analysis ................................................................................. 97 
4.1.8: Methodological Limitations .................................................................... 110 
Chapter 5:  Teacher Introductions ? Poetic Portraits ................................................ 112 
Ms. Tan ................................................................................................................. 113 
Ms. Jocasta ............................................................................................................ 116 
Ms. X..................................................................................................................... 120 
Ms. Kelly............................................................................................................... 123 
Ms. J ...................................................................................................................... 126 
Chapter 6:  Emergent Themes ................................................................................... 131 
6.1: More than Teachers of Content ..................................................................... 135 
6.2: Teachers? Frustrations.................................................................................... 140 
6.2.1: Institutional Frustration ? Ms. Tan & Ms. Kelly .................................... 142 
6.2.2: Pedagogical Frustration ? Ms. Tan and Ms. Jocasta............................... 155 
6.2.3: Relational Frustration ? Ms. J and Ms. Jocasta ...................................... 164 
6.3.4: Positional Frustration ? Ms. X and Ms. J ............................................... 177 
6.3.4: Cultural Frustration ? All Teachers ........................................................ 187 
Chapter 7: Conclusion............................................................................................... 204 
7.1: Complicating the Black Teacher Narrative: Black Teachers? Difficulties with 
Black Students ...................................................................................................... 208 
7.1.1: Cultural & Relational Frustration: Dissonance Between Black Teachers 
and Black Students ............................................................................................ 208 
7.1.2: Positional Frustration: Brown?s Unintended Impact on the Racial Uplift 
Component of Black Teachers? Pedagogy ........................................................ 216 
7.2: Toward a Contemporary Plan for Increasing Black Student Achievement ... 222 
7.3: Implications ................................................................................................... 226 
7.3.1: Practice: Intra-racial Professional Development & Teacher Education . 227 
7.3.2: Research: Ethnographic Study on Black Teachers and Students in 
Resegregated Schools ....................................................................................... 228 
7.3.3: Policy: A Brown v. Board of Education Agenda for Contemporary Times
 ........................................................................................................................... 229 
7.3.4: Theory: Reconceptualization of ?Racial Uplift? for Contemporary 
Resegregated Schools ....................................................................................... 230 
Appendices ................................................................................................................ 231 
Appendix A: Research Question & Methodological Dilemmas ....................... 231 
Appendix B:  Data Collection & Analysis Timeline ........................................ 232 
Appendix C: Focus Group Conversation Topics .............................................. 233 
Appendix D: Focus Group Meeting Agenda .................................................... 235 
Appendix E: Writing Prompts .......................................................................... 235 
Appendix F: Hilliard?s Gap-closing Qualities .................................................. 236 
Appendix G: Online Questionnaire: Teachers? Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices
 ........................................................................................................................... 237 
Appendix H: Examples of Follow-up Interview Questions .............................. 241 
Appendix I: Methods of Analysis ..................................................................... 243 
Appendix J: Codes ............................................................................................ 244 
Appendix K: Graphic Representation of Categories Compared by Number of 
Coding References ............................................................................................ 246 
 
 xi 
 
Appendix L: Teacher Consent Form................................................................. 247 
Appendix M:  Evolution of Focus Group Meetings ......................................... 250 
Glossary .................................................................................................................... 253 
References ................................................................................................................. 255 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 xii 
 
List of Tables 
 
Table 1. Student Racial Demographics at Jefferson High School page 74 
Table 2.  Student Racial Demographics at Langston High School page 74 
Table 3. Student Racial Demographics at Andrews High School page 75 
Table 4. Student Racial Demographics at Eastlake High School page 75 
Table 5. Departmental Racial Make-up and Tracks Taught for Each Teacher page 76 
 
 xiii 
 
 
 
 xiv 
 
 
 
 1 
 
Chapter 1: Introduction 
In 1983, the United States (U.S.) Department of Education issued A Nation at 
Risk.  This report warned of a ?rising tide of mediocrity? in U.S. schools that if left 
unchecked would result in the United States losing its position as a global leader.  A 
Nation at Risk was released nearly 30 years after the historic Brown v. Board of 
Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) court case that declared segregated schools 
unconstitutional and changed the face of public school classrooms substantially, 
drawing more national attention to the achievement gap between Whites and Blacks2.  
Because Americans often avoid frank discussions about race and inequity, the effects 
of these constructs on student achievement are rarely discussed openly and 
systematically.  The country?s embrace of a colorblind (Monahan, 2006) philosophy 
of society silences discussions of race and social inequities, so that they have not been 
thoroughly explored in the quest to understand the achievement gap (Bell, 1992). This 
dissertation project does just the opposite ? it privileges race in its discussion of 
student achievement, particularly by zeroing in on the ?raced? perspectives of Black 
teachers who teach Black students and by using Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Ladson-
 Billings & Tate, 1995) as the study?s theoretical framework.   
A national report released in 2010 by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) 
(Barton & Coley, 2010) states that besides a brief period of narrowing in the 1970s 
and 1980s, that the achievement gap between Black and White students has continued 
                                                 
2
  Black and African American will be used interchangeably to describe Black people who are  
descendants of African slaves. 
 
 2 
 
to widen since 1965, raising an eyebrow at the effects of landmark civil rights rulings 
and progress that occurred during that time: 
Had those things that were helping to close the gap stopped, or had they been 
overshadowed by new adversities that were not remedied by gaining equality 
before the law? Unfortunately, no comprehensive modeling by researchers is 
available that might identify and quantify the culprits, nor is it likely that there 
will ever be. (Nettles, as cited in Barton & Coley, 2010, p. 2) 
As the authors of the ETS report assert, these alarming statistics should create a sense 
of urgency for greater understanding of the depth and breadth of this problem, 
understanding needed by the nation as a whole and by Black communities in 
particular (Barton & Coley, 2010).  Answering the ETS call to action, my dissertation 
study starts with conversations with teachers in the Black community.  As I report my 
findings, the conversation will move to the academy and then, to the nation at large.  I 
start by defining and providing an historical analysis of the achievement gap.  I do not 
focus on numerical statistics in gains or losses; rather, my discussion centers on the 
idea of the achievement gap as a concept. 
 
Defining the Achievement Gap  
Originally ? and most often ?the term ?achievement gap? has been used to 
describe the gap in performance ? typically on standardized tests ? between Blacks 
and Whites (Hedges & Nowell, 1999; Hilliard, 2003; Orr, 2003). In the last few 
decades, however, with the increasing diversity in U.S. public schools, the gap 
discussion has expanded to include Asians and Latinos.  Theresa Perry (2003) sums 
up its definition succinctly: 
 
 3 
 
On whatever measure one uses, from the SAT to the Stanford Nine, in 
school districts and schools across the country, irrespective of political 
orientation, demographic characteristics, or per-pupil spending, there 
exists a gap between the academic performance of Black and Latino 
students on one hand, and White and Asian American students on the 
other. (p. 7)  
Essentially, the achievement gap is the common term used to describe the 
underachievement of Black and Latino students (Perry, 2003). Hillard (2003) and 
Boykin and Noguera (2011) argue that defining the achievement gap as the gap in 
performance between Black students and their White peers is flawed, and that instead 
the significant gap is the one between Black students and excellence, which is the 
conceptualization that informed this dissertation project.  The existence of the gap, 
however, is not news anymore.    What is important to examine is why the 
achievement gap persists even after multiple, ongoing efforts at closing it.   I will 
discuss the persistence of the gap after first describing existing theories on what has 
caused the gap.  
There are already several theories on what has caused the gap: disparities in 
academic tracking (Oakes, 1985; Oakes & Lipton, 2007); innate intelligence 
differences between Whites and minorities (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994); differences 
in family structures (Moynihan, 1986), family background and income inequality 
(Rothstein, 2004) and social class (Anyon, 2005; Barton & Coley, 2010; Lareau, 
2003; Mandara,Varner,  Green & Richman, 2009; Rothstein, 2004); group-wide racial 
discrimination (Fischer et al., 1996); disappearance of the Black nuclear family 
 
 4 
 
(Barton & Coley, 2010); insufficient recreational and health infrastructures in poor 
Black neighborhoods (Barton & Coley, 2010); limited to no access to political capital 
(Ladson-Billings, 2006) and social and cultural capital (Barton & Coley, 2010; 
Lareau, 2003; Orr, 2003; Roscigno & Ainsworth-Darnell, 1999); and teachers? 
pedagogical practices (Cochran-Smith, 2004; Ladson-Billings, 1994/2009).  All of 
these factors have been noted as causes of the achievement gap.  Next, I will discuss 
why the achievement gap persists.  
1.2: Toward an Understanding of Why the Achievement Gap 
Persists 
1.2.1: Historical Context ? The Root Cause of the Persistent 
Achievement Gap 
 
The broken promise of the Brown decision (Irons, 2002) has contributed to the 
ongoing achievement gap.  Despite the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 
Kansas,(1954) desegregation order, a majority of Black and Latino students find 
themselves in highly-segregated, high-poverty schools, while most White students are 
more likely to attend more middle class, better-resourced schools with few students of 
color (Anderson & Bryne, 2004; Anderson & Kharem, 2009; Bell, 2004; Boger & 
Orfield, 2005, as referenced in Tatum, 2007; Orfield & Lee, 2006).  Although 
officials would have the public believe that things are this way because of residential 
choices, critical race theorists would contend that things are this way because of 
deliberate court rulings that have weakened or reversed integration laws and efforts 
(see Bell, 2004; Irons, 2002; Orfield & Lee, 2006; or Tatum, 2007, for further 
discussion of relevant court cases).   
 
 5 
 
 As Ladson-Billings (2006) said in her 2006 AERA Presidential Address, the 
fact that there is a gap is not surprising, given the history of racism and inequitable 
distribution of resources in the United States of America.   In her address, she depicts 
the achievement gap as being a result of a series of ?debts? the U.S. has accumulated 
and ?deficits? people of color have as a result.  The historical debt she identified 
involves how the nation has viewed minority races as inferior and has profited from 
their free labor.   This debt also involves how education had been legally denied to 
minorities and how assimilation theory has created minorities as outcasts. The 
economic debt involves how ?separate schooling always allows for differential 
funding? (p. 6), the amount of funding schools receive rising with the increase in 
White students.  Ladson-Billings argues that this achievement gap vs. debt idea can 
be compared to the income vs. wealth disparity.  She argues that because Blacks? 
income has always been less than that of Whites, Blacks have not been able to build 
wealth at the same rate and level as Whites (Mandara, et al., 2009; Oliver & Shapiro, 
1997).  The same, she posits, could be true for achievement.  Because Blacks? access 
to education has historically been more limited than Whites?, collectively, their 
academic achievement levels may not be on par with their White peers.  Of course, 
there are exceptions ? Black people who outperform their White peers and White 
people who lag behind Blacks intellectually; however, in the same way Blacks have 
not been able to build wealth at the same rate and level as Whites because their 
income has historically been less, so are they not able to achieve academically at the 
same rate and level as Whites.  Thus, Ladson-Billings (2006) asserts, there exists an 
achievement disparity.  Next, she describes the sociopolitical debt in which ?limited 
 
 6 
 
access to lawyers and legislators has kept them [Blacks] from accumulating the kinds 
of political capital their White middle class counterparts have? (p. 8).  
Lastly, Ladson-Billings discusses the country?s moral debt owed to 
historically marginalized people of color, describing it as the ?disparity between what 
we know is right and what we do? (p. 8).   She argues that all of these debts must be 
considered when examining the achievement gap, asserting that personal 
responsibility must be paired with social responsibility.  The fact that failing, 
segregated schools still exist causes her to question whether the country really gave 
Brown (1954) a chance.  Near the time of her address, three-fourths of Black and 
Latino students attended predominantly non-White schools, with more than two 
million  attending apartheid schools, which are re-segregated schools with high 
numbers of inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, and sub-standard curricula 
(Kozol, 2005; Orfield & Lee, 2006).  This dissertation considers these educational 
debts and deficits alongside the unintended negative consequences of the Brown 
(1954) in the framing of this study.  
Goals of U.S. Schooling 
Universal schooling in the United States was not intended to educate everyone 
(Spring, 1994; Tatum, 2007).  Initially, schooling beyond the third grade was meant 
for children of the elite and a select few of the brightest working class.  Upon this 
country?s founding, education was meant for White males, not women ? and 
especially not people of color (Cremin, 1980; Tatum, 2007).   Although efforts have 
been made to educate African Americans, such education was based on the premise 
that ?if you know what works for the White child, then you know what will work for 
the Black child? (Perry, 2003, p.4), an assumption that has been proven false by 
 
 7 
 
multi-cultural educational researchers such as Irvine (2003) and Delpit (1995, 2006).  
Because  ?from the beginning, American constructions of race and class have 
determined who had access to education, and to a large degree those constructions 
still shape how we think about who can benefit from it? (Tatum, 2007, p. 40),  an 
answer to Tatum?s (2007) call to start talking about race is way over due.  The 
country is still resistant, and, partly, as a result, the achievement gap persists.  
1.2.2 An Alternative Gap Perspective ? The Opportunity-to-Learn 
Gap 
An alternative view of the achievement gap is the opportunity-to-learn gap 
(Hillard, 2003; Irvine, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2006; Milner, 2010). This alternative 
view considers the achievement gap through a process lens rather than a product lens.  
This process perspective frames the gap as the opportunities (Hilliard, 2003; Ladson-
 Billings, 2006) students have to learn, rather than the fact of their underachievement 
in relation to their White peers. As I have already discussed, Ladson-Billings (2006) 
argues that the United States has denied Black Americans historical, economic, socio-
 political, and moral opportunities that have resulted in a persistent achievement gap.  
These stolen opportunities have resulted in an educational deficit (i.e. in an 
achievement gap) for Black students and closing the deficit ? providing opportunities 
for progress ? should be the focus of reform efforts.  Other factors contributing to the 
opportunity-to-learn gap include deficit mind-sets, color blindness, cultural conflicts, 
the myth of the meritocracy, and context-neutral mindsets (Milner, 2010).  Milner 
(2010) suggests that awareness of these contributing factors will ?[help] educators 
bridge and shed light on opportunity gaps? (p. 13).  
 
 8 
 
Hilliard (2003) equates the opportunity-to-learn gap to the ?quality of service? 
afforded to Black students.  He argues that reform efforts have focused too much on 
the achievement outcome and not enough on the quality of the teaching service that 
impacts achievement:  ?A review of research from the past century will reveal that the 
overwhelming body of inquiry has been focused on child deficiencies.  Only a 
minuscule number of references have focused on ?savage inequalities? in service? (p. 
140). Likewise, Boykin and Noguera (2011) argue that creating more opportunities 
for students to learn will help in closing the achievement gap, and that some of those 
opportunities come in the form of quality teaching: ?In many cases, individuals who 
possess the capacity to achieve ? and even produce greatness ? are denied the 
opportunity simply because the educators charged with cultivating talent are unable to 
identify and support students whose gifts are not readily apparent? (Boykin & 
Noguera, 2011, p. ix).   
The opportunity-to-learn gap is still a culprit in causing Black student 
underachievement, even today, over 50 years after the Brown decision, a mere five 
decades after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and even with the majority 
of Black teachers teaching Black students (Berry, 2005). Scholars have theorized that 
this opportunity-to-learn gap is a result of inequitable macroeconomic policies such 
as harsh labor laws, ineffective federal policies, and unfair income and corporate tax 
laws that produce tremendous hardship for Blacks and Latinos (Anyon, 2005), as well 
as school-level structural inequities such as racial tracking, weak curriculum, and 
poor teaching (Anyon, 2005; Darling-Hammond, 2004). All of these theories are 
viable and are worthy of further inquiry. This study, however, is based on the premise 
 
 9 
 
that good teaching can close opportunity and achievement gaps (Hilliard, 2003); 
therefore, teachers were at the center of my inquiry.    
 
1.3: Research Goals 
The goal of this research project was to deepen the scholarly conversations 
about African American English teachers? roles in impacting Black student 
achievement. I also expected this research project to spark communication and 
reflective thought in communities of practice.  I hoped to illuminate and address 
pedagogical and ideological issues relevant to Black English teachers as they strive to 
increase Black student achievement in an era in which schools have resegregated, but 
that in their resegregated state, do not resemble the community pillars Black schools 
were often depicted as before the Supreme court ordered schools to be integrated 
(Fairclough, 2004; Foster, 1993; Milner & Howard, 2004; Patterson, Mickelson, 
Hester, & Wyrick, 2011; Walker, 1996, 2001, 2004).  Personally, I hoped the process 
and product of the research would create new understandings, insights, and 
inspiration for the researcher, the participants, other Black English teachers, and the 
educational community at large.  I aimed to answer one overarching research 
question: What are Black English teachers? perceptions of how they impact Black 
student achievement?  
I am interested in Black teachers? views of how they impact Black student 
achievement not only because I am African American and therefore have a special 
interest in and commitment to helping Black students achieve, but also because I am 
aware that there has been no large-scale solution to the nation?s persistent minority 
achievement gap.  I am aware, through first-hand teaching experiences and scholarly 
 
 10 
 
study, that the achievement gap between Black and White students continues to 
persist, even after desegregation efforts, even after affirmative action programs, even 
after culturally-relevant pedagogical reform efforts, even after No Child Left Behind 
? and, even when students are taught by Black teachers.   
Some research suggests that once Black teachers reach the middle class, they 
begin to adopt the White middle class mainstream view that Black students 
themselves, not racism, are the cause of underachievement (Delpit, 2006; Fordham, 
1996; Foster, 1997; Lynn, Bacon, Totten, Bridges, and Jennings, 2010;).   Recently, 
researchers found that some Black teachers lack confidence in Black students? ability 
to learn (Lynn, et al., 2010).  None of these studies, however, offer deep insights into 
teachers? own perceptions of how their own attitudes and practices might contribute 
to Black students? achievement or underachievement.   My study asked teachers to 
think reflectively and introspectively about the relationship between their practice and 
Black student achievement.   Such perspectives are important because Black teachers 
are most likely to teach Black students (Berry, 2005) and current reform efforts aimed 
at increasing Black student achievement do not take this reality into consideration.  
Moreover, historically, Black teachers have prided themselves on their ability to work 
successfully with Black students (Foster, 1997; Irvine, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1994); 
indeed, a recurrent theme in the research literature is that Black teachers are role 
models and mentors for Black students (Foster, 1993; Irvine, 1989). Still, though, 
many Black students who have access to Black teachers continue to underachieve 
(Fordham, 1996; Lynn et al., 2010). These contrasting depictions of the effect 
contemporary Black teachers may have on Black student achievement warrant further 
 
 11 
 
inquiry into Black teachers? perspectives on and experiences with teaching Black 
students.  My dissertation study aims to add to the literature in this area.  
 There are also important reasons I chose to focus on the Black English 
teacher singularly. Focusing my study on the Black English teacher not only fills a 
significant void in the general Black teacher literature, but it also fills an even greater 
gap in the English education literature. The majority of the Black teacher literature 
discusses teachers? experiences in general. There is, however, a nascent but growing 
body of discipline-specific literature, but most articles focus on the Black science 
teacher (see, for example, Goldston & Nichols, 2009).  Few studies investigate Black 
English teachers at the secondary level and in a comprehensive and targeted way, and 
those that do focus on Black secondary English teachers do so by default, not by 
researcher design (see, for example, Adkins, 2006 or Adkins-Coleman, 2010).  
Furthermore, a review of the major English education journals published by the 
National Council of the Teachers of English (English Journal, English Education, 
and Research in the Teaching of English) yielded no studies centered exclusively on 
the practicing Black English teachers? perspectives on Black student achievement.  
Rather, the scant amount of literature focused on Black teachers in these journals 
mainly explores Black pre-service English teachers? experiences, particularly as they 
relate to the teachers? problems with passing the English teacher licensure exam 
(Albers, 2002) or with implementing a multi-cultural curriculum (Agee, 2004).  None 
of these leading English education or mainstream journals included articles that 
focused on Black English teachers? perceptions of their impact on Black student 
achievement.  Even seasoned English education scholars were unable to point me to a 
 
 12 
 
single article analyzing the experiences of Black English teachers. The void in the 
English education literature, coupled with the eye-opening experiences I had as one 
of very few Black teachers in a predominantly White English department, has made 
giving voice to Black English teachers one of my top research priorities.  
In the following section of this chapter, I discuss my background and the 
personal journey that prompted this dissertation project, influenced its design, and 
informed my analysis. 
1.4: Personal Interest 
 
1.4.1: Becoming a Black English Teacher 
I started my teaching career in a predominantly Black middle school in a large 
predominantly Black school district.  When I told people where I?d be working, many 
exclaimed, ?Really?  Are you gonna need to wear a bullet proof vest?!?  The school 
was located in a neighborhood that bordered a city notorious for violence, poverty, 
and crime.   I had heard about another school with an excellent reputation, a high 
school located within walking distance from my home in a neighborhood known as ?a 
nice area ? with good schools.?  ?Nobody gets in there, because no one ever leaves,? I 
was told.  Through networking, I gained employment at the coveted school as an 
English teacher.  It was a large high school with a special science and technology 
magnet program that constituted approximately 20% of the student population. The 
school was predominantly African American; however, the magnet population was 
majority White.  African American students who were not in the special magnet 
 
 13 
 
program ? the majority of the Black students ? took comprehensive3-level classes or 
special education courses.  When I announced I was considering working at this 
school, the building principal where I was currently working as a middle school 
teacher warned me: ?beware, they like to get African American teachers over there to 
teach the Black students; they don?t allow them to teach the advanced, mostly White 
classes.?  A naive new teacher, I did not buy into this principal?s warning.   However, 
after I worked for several years at the magnet high school (teaching majority African 
American comprehensive-level classes), and began to study the research literature on 
Black teachers, I began to understand what may have prompted my former principal?s 
warning.  I believe she had experienced and seen some things that I, as a young, new 
Black teacher, had not.  A seasoned educator, she probably knew something about 
what it had meant to be a Black teacher in the United States of America since school 
integration.  Given her age of around 60 years, I believe she knew about the 
experiences of Black teachers being assigned to mostly-Black schools and relegated 
to teach lower-level classes and lower grades, and being denied opportunities to teach 
White students (Foster, 1991; Milner & Howard, 2004).  A Black educator herself, I 
suspect she knew about the trials and challenges of being a Black teacher, and as the 
principal of a predominantly Black, de facto segregated school, she, like many Black 
teachers who taught in the South when segregation was the law of the land, probably 
also knew of the joy, satisfaction ? and racial responsibility ? of working with and 
seeing Black students achieve.   
                                                 
3
  Comprehensive-level classes consist of students who are tracked at or below grade-level. I will use 
the terms comprehensive-level and regular-level students interchangeably.  Special education 
students include students who have a documented disability for which they receive services through 
the school system.  
 
 14 
 
Researching the experiences of Black teachers has helped me better 
understand and appreciate my former principal?s perspective; it has also provoked me 
to focus earnestly on exploring, understanding, and improving the experiences of 
contemporary Black teachers in public schools, and, in particular, their experiences as 
they relate to impacting Black student achievement.  
1.4.2: Embracing a Researcher?s Gaze 
Fast forward five years ? after multiple graduate school classes, several focus 
groups with Black teachers, and employment in two predominantly Black, failing 
urban schools ? to an evolved perspective on and lens through which I view the state 
of Black student achievement and Black teachers? impact on their learning. While 
preparing to collect data for this dissertation project, I entered the public school 
classroom again as a high school teacher in a chronically failing inner-city school.  
The cold, harsh introduction to the children with experiences and upbringings so 
different than my own shook me.  Many of the boys in my classroom were under 
some type of court probationary orders.  One wore an ankle bracelet connected to law 
enforcement.  Profanity was every-day speech in the classroom and halls ? even for 
the adult leaders. Maintaining order and delivering instruction required constant, 
extreme vigilance.  Many students literally could not read, and they shared 
classrooms with students reading at advanced levels.  Providing differentiated and 
individualized instruction in such an environment proved to be beyond challenging.  
I had never seen so many students demonstrate such bold defiance in a school 
setting; had never had multiple social workers entering the classroom, checking on 
students, peering in the window on a daily basis.  Had never heard administrative 
 
 15 
 
building leadership use multiple four-letter words as a way to communicate messages 
to students and staff in the name of ?cause that?s what they understand.?  I did not 
know this world.  I did not want to teach in this world. I decided to pursue a non-
 classroom based position as I continued on in my doctoral work.  
In my new position as school testing coordinator, I entered a new world that 
helped to inform my perspective: test score data.   I saw that a significant number of 
students in the school had not passed the algebra end-of-year assessment.  I also 
began to suspect that achievement for all students was not necessarily the number one 
motivating factor for school leadership; rather, how to ensure the school met 
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)4 often motivated decision-making, even if it 
making AYP meant focusing remediation efforts only on the students staff members 
felt could actually pass the test.  I also realized how big of a beast managing a school 
is and how the school leader must do more than have a vision; he or she must be able 
to enact the vision, despite resistance from students or staff. These two experiences 
caused me to reflect on how different my schooling experiences had been from the 
experiences of the students in those schools.  For the first time, I recognized my status 
as member of the educated Black middle class ? a part of what Du Bois (1903) 
termed The Talented Tenth, and I realized how unfamiliar I was with the other 90%. 
1.4.3: Recognizing & Reflecting on My Black Middle Class Status 
I was born in 1977 in Cleveland, Ohio, to a middle class family. I consider my 
upbringing middle class even though neither of my parents nor their parents held 
college degrees at the time.  As a child, I did not even know what middle class meant. 
                                                 
4
  Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is designed to measure the continuous improvement each year 
toward the No Child Left Behind goal of 100% proficiency in 2004 (www.mdreportcard.org).  
 
 16 
 
I did not even realize my parents were not college-educated.  I just knew we lived in a 
nice suburban neighborhood, populated by both Black and White people, and that 
whatever material items my sister and I needed ?or wanted ? we received.  There was 
always food on the table, and my sister and I were expected to - and always did ? do 
well in school.  We went to diversely-populated public schools.  My parents took 
advantage of a magnet school bussing program made available as a method of 
integrating schools, making my sister and me both beneficiaries of Brown?s promise 
of equal schooling opportunities for all and, in particular, for historically 
disadvantaged groups.   
 I was an honor roll student.  Often a teacher?s pet, I wanted to be one of the 
?smart? kids, and I was. It was in middle school that I recall getting placed in the 
?gifted? or, I would say, ?Talented Tenth? track.   Before I entered middle school, my 
sister took it upon herself to take me up to the school to introduce me to the teachers 
who had helped her along the way.  I remember sitting at a desk in Mr. Leonard?s 
room while my sister cashed in some of the social capital she had acquired along her 
way.  By introducing me to this teacher and asking that he ?look out? for me, I gained 
entrance into a network that would open doors that otherwise might not have been 
opened.  For example, halfway through my first year there, I was moved to the 
accelerated ?pre-algebra? track so that I would be able to take Algebra as a seventh 
grade student.   My teachers also recommended me for the honors Language Arts 
class, and so I was set on the middle class track to opportunity and high academic 
achievement. I entered the Talented Tenth track (i.e., in honors classes and involved 
in extra-curricular school activities), and, having few learning and social experiences 
 
 17 
 
with students not on the Talented Tenth track, I think I learned to live life as if the 
10% were all that existed.   I was only familiar and comfortable learning in an 
environment with people who appeared to interested in and focused on learning.  My 
productive work habits were similar to most of the students with whom I sat in class.  
I do not remember ever seeing students blatantly disrespecting teachers.  School was 
a safe and fun place to be.  Teachers and other adult staff members, such as 
secretaries, coaches, and advisors taking a special interest in me is what helped make 
my secondary schooling experience positive. Teachers ? both Black and White ? 
were allies and advocates.     
 After high school, I went to a predominantly White institution of higher 
learning. I chose that particular university because the admissions representatives 
gave me the warmest welcome and the most generous financial aid package.  I 
excelled academically and socially in college.  In addition to serving as an officer for 
the residence hall student government and writing for the campus newspaper, I joined 
what Du Bois (as referenced in Alridge, 2008) called a Talented Tenth organization: a 
historically Black public service sorority.   Armed with this resume, there was no 
doubt that after graduation I would enter the ranks of the Black middle class.  So, 
having been placed on the Talented Tenth track in middle school, I have remained on 
it into my adult life.  It was this middle class perspective that occupied my thoughts 
as I designed and conducted this research project.  Inevitably, this perspective 
influenced the questions I asked, my interpretation of the data, and the conclusions I 
drew.  
 
 18 
 
In the following chapter, I discuss the literature published about African 
American teachers? experiences since the implementation of school integration and I 
identify gaps in the literature that I think my study ? an investigation into the 
perceptions Black English teachers have of how they impact Black student 
achievement ? can fill. In chapter three, I describe my theoretical framework: Critical 
Race Theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995).  Next, I explain my methodology ? 
Portraiture ? as well as my specific data collection methods.   I then present my 
findings in the form of poetic portraits (Childers, 2007; Hill, 2003, 2005; Schendel, 
2009) and emergent themes (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). Finally, in my 
conclusion, I discuss the implications this research project has for practice, research, 
policy, and theory. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19 
 
Chapter 2: Literature Review 
This chapter includes a discussion of the literature that has been published 
about Black teachers since 1970, when states actually started implementing the 1954 
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, desegregation order (Irons, 2002). I 
cross-searched education-related databases, including Education Research Complete 
(EBSCO), ERIC, and JSTOR, for articles published from 1970 to the present using 
the following search terms: Black teachers, Black English teachers, African American 
teachers, and African American English teachers. I then narrowed my selections to 
articles that focused on Black teachers? experiences and perspectives.  I also 
consulted books written specifically about Black teachers, such as Michele Foster?s 
(1997) Black Teachers on Teaching and Jacqueline Jordan Irvine?s (2002) In Search 
of Wholeness: African American Teachers and Their Culturally Specific Classroom 
Practices.   Using the reference lists in these books, I identified additional 
publications centered on Black teachers? experiences and perspectives. Using the 
same search terms listed above, I also searched all of the National Council of 
Teachers of English journals written for practicing teachers and English education 
scholars.   
In the following sections, I discuss the ways the Brown ruling negatively 
impacted Black teachers, the scholarship about Black teachers? roles, experiences, 
and perspectives in newly integrated and predominantly White settings, and the 
perspectives of Black teachers on Black student achievement.   
 
 
 20 
 
2.1: The Impact of Brown vs. Board of Education on Black 
Teachers at Large 
Even in the 21st century, many scholars are still reflecting on and analyzing 
the impact and unintended consequences Brown had on Black teachers, Black 
students, and the Black community (Fairclough, 2004; Milner & Howard, 
2004; Walker, 2009).  Thus, a discussion of Black teachers? experiences post-Brown 
must begin with a discussion of the historic Brown v. Topeka Board of Education 
(1954) desegregation court case, as the experiences of Black teachers in American 
schools have been shaped by this decision.  
In 1954, lawyers employed by the National Association for the Advancement 
of Colored People (NAACP) successfully argued the landmark Brown v. Board of 
Education of Topeka, Kansas, case that declared segregated schools unconstitutional 
and ordered that all schools integrate their staffs and student bodies.  Many education 
leaders, scholars, and historians have questioned whether this court decision 
accomplished its supporters intended goal of equal educational opportunities for all 
students regardless of racial group, some even suggesting that desegregation did more 
harm than good to Black students and Black teachers (Foster, 1993; Fultz, 2004; 
Walker, 2009), mainly because it led to the drastic decline in the number of employed 
Black teachers, as well as to the decline in the status of Black teachers in the eyes of 
Black students and parents (Milner & Howard, 2004; Fairclough, 2007).  Moreover, 
research indicates that Black teachers? hostile experiences in integrated and 
predominantly White settings hurt their professional and personal self-esteem 
(Fairclough, 2007; Milner & Howard, 2004).   
 
 21 
 
2.2: The Decline in the Number of Black Teachers 
With the exception of a few early dissenter-scholars such as Du Bois (1935), it 
was not until the 1990s that scholars began to delve into the possibility that 
desegregation did more harm than good to the Black community.  Black activists 
were hesitant to critique the implementation and consequences of Brown because of 
the extraordinary efforts of the Black community and civil rights activists to achieve 
school desegregation (V.M. MacDonald, personal communication, February 1, 2008). 
Hudson and Holmes (1994) argue that the way in which racist policy makers carried 
out the Brown desegregation order caused teaching to become nearly a lost career for 
African Americans. The way it was implemented implied that the White school 
system (particularly its teachers) was better than the Black system and that the Black 
system had no value and thus could be expunged in the quest of integrated schooling 
(Hudson & Holmes, 1994; Walker, 2009).  Desegregation led to the closing of Black 
schools and the laying off and dismissal of thousands of Black teachers, who were 
denied jobs in White schools (Cecelski, 1994; Foster, 1993; Fultz, 2004). Within 10 
years of the Brown decision, 38,000 teachers had lost their jobs in the Southern and 
Border States (Ethridge, 1979). Throughout the country, between 1971 and 1986, the 
percentage of Black teachers decreased from 8.1 to 6.9 percent (Foster, 1993), and 
this percentage continued to contract into the 1990s (Jackson, 1992; King, 1993) and 
even into the 21st century (Berry, 2005; Milner & Howard, 2004). Since 
desegregation, the numbers of Black teachers have continued to decline (Fultz, 2004). 
The Black educator has even been called an endangered species (Cole, 1986).  
Partly as a result of Brown and the consequential loss of teaching jobs for 
Black teachers, the number of Black college students majoring in education dropped.  
 
 22 
 
Between 1975 and 1985, the number of Black students majoring in education 
declined by 66%, devastating the numbers of Black teachers produced during that 
time period. In addition to decreasing numbers of students majoring in education, 
there are many other reasons cited as to why the numbers of Black teachers have 
continued to decline over the decades: prospective Black teachers cannot pass 
certification tests; there are more lucrative job options for Black people, jobs that pay 
more and are more prestigious than teaching (Berry, 2005; Fultz, 2004; Irvine, 1988), 
and college attendance rates in general among Black students has decreased (Irvine, 
1988).   Recent statistics indicate that the percentage of newly-hired Black teachers in 
the United States has declined from 8.3% in 2000 to 5.6% in 2008 (NCES, 2010).  
2.3: The Decline in the Status of Black Teachers 
 
In addition to causing a decline in the number of Black teachers, the way 
Brown was implemented also hurt the status of the Black teacher and the Black 
teacher?s relationship with Black parents, students, and other Black teachers 
themselves (Fairclough, 2004; Foster, 1993; Milner & Howard, 2004). Prior to 
desegregation, the Black teacher was honored, revered, and held to high esteem in the 
Black community (Foster, 1993; Milner & Howard, 2004; Walker, 1996, 2001, 
2004). After desegregation, Black teachers lost their designation as competent 
authority figures in the eyes of Black students, as did Black principals, who were 
demoted to assistant principals at integrated formerly all White schools, where their 
primary responsibility was to discipline Black boys (Walker, 2009). In pre-Brown 
segregated schools, Black teachers were more than teachers, they were respected 
community members (Foster, 1993; Milner & Howard, 2004; Walker, 1996, 2001, 
 
 23 
 
2004). With the dismantling of Black schools, that crucial link between school and 
the Black community was severed (Fairclough, 2007; Foster, 1993; Milner & 
Howard, 2004; Walker, 2009).   
2.4: Perspectives and Experiences of Black Teachers in 
Integrated Schools 
 
While society at-large celebrates Brown as a treasured civil rights victory for 
Black people, Dingus (2006) discovered African American teachers? counter-stories 
to this dominant narrative.  In her study, teachers reported that it was difficult for 
children to transition to new integrated settings. One said, ?I think there should have 
been a little more preparation for both kids and the teachers? (Dingus, 2006, p. 225).  
Some teachers, such as the one described in Dingus?s (2006) study, were conflicted 
about integration, with some Black teachers supporting it and others resisting it.   
Some Black parents did not embrace Black teachers who supported integration, and 
thus, such Black teachers were seen as traitors to the race. Usually, the teachers who 
supported integration were the ones who were either chosen to work in newly 
integrated schools or who had family members who were selected (Dingus, 2006).  
 The process of integrating the staffs of formerly all Black and all White 
schools was called a ?switch over? (Madsen & Hollins, 2000), a practice about which 
Black teachers were less than enthusiastic: ?The intent was that willing European 
American teachers would voluntarily teach in schools where the majority of students 
were African American and qualified African American teachers would be transferred 
to schools that were being desegregated? (p. 6, emphasis added).  Black teachers were 
recruited to teach the ?undesirable? (p. 129) students or to coach sports teams (Foster, 
 
 24 
 
1990) and White teachers were often employed to teach higher level math and science 
courses (Fordham, 1996). By the 1970s, White Americans replaced Black teachers as 
the majority in predominantly Black schools but by the 1980s, Black teachers were 
being recruited for positions in both Black and White schools.  Black teachers 
continued to face racism in their new schools, now experiencing racism in school 
systems in which Black students, rather than structural racism, were considered the 
problem (Foster, 1990). School integration came about slowly. Even up to the 1960s, 
no meaningful integration had taken place.   Teachers who applied for jobs in 
northern White schools found that their applications would mysteriously disappear, 
with school officials claiming they never knew about the Black teachers? applications 
(Foster, 1997).    Some schools, such as those in cities like Boston and St. Louis, 
integrated as late as 1974.   
Black teachers chosen to integrate White staffs were faced with professional 
development activities in which ?experts told White teachers how to get along with 
the Black child? (Foster, 1997, p. 7) but that gave no time or attention to how the 
Black teacher was to interact with the White students (Foster, 1997).  In the North, 
Black teachers were relegated to schools with few to no White people.  And when 
they entered White schools, they were not permitted to teach certain children and 
certain levels.  In one case, a Black teacher was not given any students at all, and just 
stayed in a room and did nothing all day (Foster, 1990). 
In many de jure-segregated schools, Black teachers taught Black students 
more than content; they taught them racial pride (Foster, 1990, 1993, 1997; Irvine, 
1989, 2002; Walker, 2000, 2001) and approached teaching as a political act motivated 
 
 25 
 
by the antiracist struggle (Dixson, 2003; hooks, 1994).   On the other hand, in several 
integrated schools, some middle class Black teachers who embraced dominant 
cultural values that privileged a White middle class way of life held low expectations 
for Black students (Fordham, 1996; Foster, 1993). Additionally, in integrated schools, 
Black teachers witnessed and encountered racism by White teachers and school 
officials. Black teachers perceived that White teachers had low expectations for and 
were prejudiced against Black students (Foster, 1997). Also, some Black teachers 
perceived school officials as seeing Black teachers as nothing but "glorified students" 
(Foster, 1990, p. 131) and were thought to be ill-qualified to teach White children.  
Lighter-skinned Blacks were chosen over darker skinned Blacks to take positions in 
White schools, and in those schools, Blacks taught lower level classes if they taught 
at all (Foster, 1990; Milner & Howard, 2004).  As a result, some Black teachers 
favored lighter-skinned students.  Thus, contrary to the aims of Brown, many Black 
students were more alienated and made to feel more inferior in integrated schools 
(Foster, 1994; hooks, 1994), where they were separated from what one teacher in 
Foster?s (1993) study called their ?salvation? ? the Black teacher.  Even when Black 
teachers still taught Black students in integrated schools, they could not engage with 
them the way they had in segregated schools. Foster (1990) observed that, 
[Teachers] reason that desegregation has sharply curtailed African-American 
teachers? ability to talk with African-American students, in terms they 
understand, about the personal value, the collective power, and the political 
consequences of choosing academic achievement.  As a result, they contend 
not only that desegregation has weakened their solidarity with Black students, 
 
 26 
 
but that desegregation has also limited their ability to engage in critical 
dialogue with African-American students, dialogue necessary to engage 
students in their own learning. (Foster, 1990, p. 133)  
As a result of the integrated settings, African American teachers? voices were 
diminished in the education of Black students, a fact that bothered many Black 
teachers (Fairclough, 2004; Foster, 1990, 1997; Walker, 2009).   
2.5: Perspectives and Experiences of Black Teachers in 
Predominantly White Schools 
Dealing with what Du Bois termed ?the color line? and battling internal and 
external ?double-consciousness? (Du Bois, 1903a) pressures characterized Black 
teachers? experiences in predominantly White schools.   They often found themselves 
either inclined to, or pressured to, perform a balancing act to meet the expectations of 
both White and Black cultures. Madsen and Hollins (2000) is one of the few 
contemporary studies that focuses solely on exploring the challenges Black teachers 
have faced in predominantly White settings at the dawn of the new millennium; 
therefore, I discuss this study in great depth, as it is most relevant to contemporary 
times.  In the Madsen and Hollins (2000) article, the authors discuss the influence of 
the culture of power (Delpit, 1995/2006) on school organizational culture and 
particularly that the rules of the culture are established by White America.  European 
culture, as defined by Fordham (1996), is based on competiveness, while Black 
culture is more community-oriented. It is in such cases that teachers had to become 
cultural translators (Irvine, 1989) for students.  Teachers in Madsen and Hollins?s 
(2000) study reported difficulty fitting into the school culture, experiencing the 
pressure to ?meet the district?s image of ?their kind of Negro?? (p. 15 ), one who not 
 
 27 
 
only subscribes to the norms of the school?s European organizational culture, but who 
?measures up to an idealized model of majority group values and behavior? (p. 15).  
The authors describe the tensions that existed between Black teachers as a result of 
this pressure: 
Jane and Shelly from Common Elementary School were the most 
concerned about how to ?play the game? or be ?their kind of Negro? to 
maintain their positions at the school. They were quite vocal about the 
need to play a passive role and downplay ?Black pride stuff.? In 
essence, these African American teachers felt they had to conceal their 
own cultural identity to protect themselves from the negative 
judgments of their peers. (p. 15) 
Other teachers in Madsen and Hollins?s (2000) study chose never to conform to the 
dominant culture?s expectations of them as Black teachers: ?Pam was the most vocal 
about her relationships with the European American teachers. She chose not to 
compromise her cultural identity to conform to the norms at the school. 
Consequently, she had many conflicts with her colleagues? (p 16).  Even though 
Black teachers in this study expressed different levels of conformity, the authors 
noted that they all had to be ?bi-cultural? in order to be successful in a predominantly 
White organizational culture.  
 Madsen and Hollins (2000) also found that Black teachers in predominantly 
White settings felt excluded from White cliques and organizational clubs, reporting 
not being invited to certain gatherings and events.  Teachers also reported the 
perception of low expectations and questioning of their competence by White parents 
 
 28 
 
and colleagues, and an avoidance by school administrators to acknowledge and 
address the racial overtones that accompanied such occurrences. Teachers in this 
study said White teachers often felt threatened when Black teachers performed well 
and would even attempt to sabotage their work.  This caused Black teachers to put 
extra effort into performing exceptionally well in an effort to outperform their White 
peers, even though they received little recognition for the efforts from other 
colleagues.   
 Black teachers in predominantly White settings must contend with the 
pressure of being the resident Black expert (Madsen & Hollins, 2000), often finding 
themselves ?pigeonholed? into experiences in which African American knowledge or 
knowledge of other minorities is needed (p. 21).   Teachers expressed disgust that 
even though they were to be the Black expert, they were not expected to do anything 
extra special for Black children (Madsen & Hollins, 2000).  Because of this color-
 infused lens through which Black teachers perceived Whites saw them, Black 
teachers felt self-conscious about eating lunch or congregating with other Black 
teachers.  The researchers analyzed this occurrence as an attempt to divide the Black 
teachers:  
At Common Elementary School, the European American teachers 
attempted to dissolve the strong bond among the African American 
teachers. Both Shelly and Jane described the discomfort their 
European American colleagues displayed when these teachers were 
?having too much fun? together. (p. 21)  
 
 29 
 
 The challenges of teaching in predominantly White schools were emotionally 
taxing for African American teachers (Foster, 1991; Madsen & Hollins, 2000). They 
often experienced battle fatigue and discouragement, causing them to shut down and 
remain silent on issues concerning racism, so as not to be seen as the Black teacher 
rabble-rouser, but this silence hurt their confidence and crushed their spirits. As 
defense mechanisms, they used spirituality, consistent interaction with the Black 
community, and isolation from White peers when possible (Madsen & Hollins, 2000).   
 Absent from the general discussion of Black teachers are accounts of their 
experiences in de facto-segregated schools, even though an increasing number of 
scholars are recognizing the importance of researching and theorizing about how the 
rapid resegregation of schools that has occurred over the last three decades has 
devastated the equitable educational opportunities activists and parents had hoped 
Brown would secure for Black students (Horsford, 2011; Tatum, 2007, 2010).  In an 
effort to capture these important perspectives, I have purposely chosen to include in 
this study the perspectives of teachers who teach in predominantly Black schools.    
2.6: Black Teachers? Perspectives and Roles 
Prior to Michele Foster?s (1997) extensive life-history research on a 16-
 member contingent of Black teachers, the experiences of Black teachers, from their 
own perspectives, had been largely ignored in the literature (Dixson & Dingus, 2008; 
Foster, 1997; Irvine, 2002). Foster?s data collection began in 1988 and she has 
published several accounts and analyses of these data, the most referenced being her 
culminating book, Black Teachers on Teaching (1997).  She has explored and 
analyzed the politics of race from Black teachers? perspectives (1990), the 
 
 30 
 
educational philosophies of Black female teachers (1993), as well as the views 
(1994), lives (1991) practice, and pedagogy (1991,1995) of exemplary Black 
teachers. Her work has been cited or discussed in nearly all subsequent publications 
on Black teachers, as has the work of Irvine, who has theorized extensively about the 
disappearances of Black teachers (Irvine, 1988) as well as their teaching practices and 
philosophies (Irvine, 1989, 1999, 2002), especially in relation to their culture.    
2.6.1: More than Role Models and Othermothers: Black Teachers 
as Mentors & Advocates 
The general consensus in the published research on Black teachers is that 
Black teachers are more than teachers of content and that the saliency of their cultural 
background to their role as teacher is often a major part of their teaching success, 
particularly when teaching majority Black student populations. Black teachers have 
been described as saviors and othermothers (Foster, 1993), cultural translators and 
intercessors (Irvine, 1989), healers (Dixson & Dingus, 2008), activists (Dixson, 2003) 
and community workers (Dixson & Dingus, 2008; Foster, 1993).  In all of these 
cases, teachers? cultural experiences as Black Americans and their ability to relate to 
and inspire Black children by employing an ?ethic of caring? (Patterson et al., 2011; 
Walker, 2004; Ware, 2002) have been central to their practice. Most research strives 
to interpret Black teachers? experiences through some aspect of these notions of 
culture and caring or that of being more than a teacher of content.   There also exist 
studies in which teaching is portrayed as spiritual work for Black teachers (Dingus, 
2008; Dixson & Dingus, 2008; Irvine, 2002).  
 
 31 
 
2.6.2: Mentorship and Racial Solidarity with Black Students 
African American teachers have long been described as racial role models for 
Black students.  However, research has shown that Black teachers are much more 
than role models; they are mentors (Irvine, 1989).  Black teachers did serve role 
model functions pre-Brown, when schools were segregated and teachers were seen as 
familial and celebrity role models, and provided racial uplift to Black students, seeing 
an investment in Black students as an investment in the Black community at large.  
These circumstances did not always continue after desegregation, however (Irvine, 
1989).   Irvine argued that we need more teacher mentors: ?Mentors are advocate 
teachers who help Black students manipulate the school?s culture, which is often 
contradictory and antithetical to their own? (Irvine, 1989, p. 53).  She continued: 
The distinction between role models and mentors implies that minority 
children need minority teachers who are school mentors and school 
advocates.  Minority students need minority teachers who are willing to 
question and defy rules and regulations that are not in the best interest of their 
students. (Irvine, 1989, p. 54)  
Black teachers report this mentor role as a cherished duty and also as a burden 
(Dickar, 2008).   Dickar found that Black students discussed race openly with Black 
teachers, but not at all with Whites, and that Black teachers and students felt they 
should have a sense of solidarity with one another because of their race.  However, 
some teachers? racial and cultural solidarity were questioned because of their use of 
standard English or other mainstream markers (Dickar, 2008; Maylor, 2009).  Still, 
Black teachers found themselves having to intervene to diffuse conflicts between 
Black students and White teachers (Dickar, 2008) and witnessing covert and overt 
 
 32 
 
school practices designed to negatively affect Black students (Irvine, 1988). It is also 
important to note the assertions of scholars who say Black teachers should not only be 
categorized as role models for Black students, but rather for all students (Williams, 
Graham, McCary-Henderson & Floyd, 2009) and that African American teachers are 
more adept at understanding issues of equity, culturally relevant pedagogy, and 
developing moral character of all students (Howard, 2001).  
Do Black teachers want to be role models? 
Scholars in London, England, who also research experiences of Black 
teachers, question whether or not Black teachers desire to be role models and whether 
or not students see them as role models (Maylor, 2009).  These scholars found that 
Black children in London did not relate to their Black teachers. Fordham (1996) 
found something similar in her study of an inner-city predominantly Black school in 
Washington D.C. She found that there was a significant spatial gulf between middle 
class Black teachers and urban Black youth, a gulf that went unacknowledged by 
adults in the school.  Furthermore, she found that Black teachers in her study were 
torn between affirming their own and their students? racial identities and embracing 
the middle class White identity associated with educational and career success. One 
of the teachers in Dickar?s (2008) study described this tension as ?being caught in the 
crossfire;? that is, feeling an allegiance to students because of their shared race and, at 
the same time, an accountability to school officials as representatives of the 
professional teaching community. A teacher in Madsen and Hollins?s (2000) study 
expressed similar concerns, saying that ?by assuming an advocate role for her 
students, her relationship with her colleagues was jeopardized? (p. 19).  Maylor 
 
 33 
 
(2009) contests the notion of race-matching in student-teacher mentorships, asserting 
that, 
ethnic (and gender) ?matching? in teaching is too simplistic an 
approach as it does not take into account Black pupils? perception of or 
reaction to Black teachers, and/or Black teachers? perception of the 
concept of role modeling and their experience of role modeling with 
Black pupils. (p. 17)  
 Teachers in Maylor?s study rejected the role of mentors and were concerned more 
with simply ensuring quality teachers were providing quality teaching. 
2.8: Mentoring Cohorts among Black Teachers 
 
Not only were Black teachers mentors to students, but they were mentors to 
other Black teachers. Recent work has focused on mentoring cohorts amongst Black 
teachers, particularly as it relates to intergenerational families of women teachers 
(Dingus, 2008; Dixson & Dingus, 2008).  These cohorts are crucial to the retention of 
Black teachers as they offer a space for Black teachers to discuss racism, and to 
discuss the low expectations White teachers held for Black students (Dingus, 2008).   
Dingus?s (2008) study, which investigates Black teachers? participation in mentoring 
networks amongst Black women within the same family, found that some Black 
teachers participate in culturally-based mentoring relationships. Her study explored 
the answers to three relevant questions regarding Black teachers? experiences with 
mentoring: Why do women participate in mentoring networks?  How does mentoring 
act as a buffer against racism? How do mentoring networks shape Black teachers? 
professional ideas?  She concluded that culturally-based mentorships provide 
 
 34 
 
mentoring without the expense of one?s racial identity; that is, race-based mentoring, 
rather than mentoring for conformity.  She found that Black women?s beliefs about 
student abilities, their teaching philosophies and pedagogical practices differed from 
White teachers, in that the philosophy underlying their practice includes self-love, 
cultural pride, spirituality, connections, history and acceptance of self. For these 
Black women, mentoring involved more than learning the technicalities of teaching or 
the ins and outs of the school culture with no attention to ethnic, cultural, or gender 
diversity; rather, mentoring for them was reciprocal and contextual, considering 
factors of equity, race, gender, and class.  
Black teachers joined mentoring networks out of tradition and necessity. 
Mentoring networks are rooted in shared cultural values and trust.  In these networks, 
there is an environment of camaraderie instead of competition, a space in which 
Black teachers can vent frustrations with systemic and individual racism. Also in 
these networks Black teachers are able to model professionalism and encourage other 
Black teachers to take on leadership roles (Dingus, 2008).     
2.9: Black Teachers? Perspectives on Black Student 
Underachievement 
Most research findings indicate that Black teachers collectively share an 
emancipatory pedagogy and philosophy about teaching (Foster, 1990; Irvine, 2002; 
Lynn, Johnson, and Hassan, 1999), one in which they play the roles of mentors and 
advocates (Foster, 1993; Irvine, 1989) for students.  A few studies, however, 
including the pilot study I conducted myself, contradict the general consensus in the 
Black teacher literature that Black teachers are generally successful with Black 
students in their roles as ?othermothers? (Foster, 1993; Irvine, 2002)  and ?role 
 
 35 
 
models? (1989).   I will discuss these divergent cases at length, as they further justify 
the need for inquiry into the perception Black teachers have of their impact on Black 
student achievement. 
In a recent study, a team of researchers found that Black teachers lack 
confidence about Black students? abilities to learn.  They found that most of the 
teachers in the study adopted a deficit view of Black student achievement, blaming 
underachievement on the students themselves, the community, and the parents (Lynn, 
et al. 2010).  These findings echo the results of Fordham?s (1996) long-term 
ethnographic study of students and teachers in a predominantly Black high school in 
Washington D.C. in which teachers viewed underachieving African American 
students as academically, socially, and morally inadequate, and ultimately traitors to 
the Black community.  She concluded that African American teachers in her study 
recognized a psychological and spatial gulf between themselves and the students 
whom they were teaching.  Fordham described this knowledge as ?one of the best-
 kept secrets at the school, in that virtually no one publicly acknowledges his or her 
alienation and isolation from the vast majority of the students they teach? (p. 234).   
Fordham?s summation, I believe, is a sobering analysis of the disconnect that 
appears to be happening between many Black teachers and their Black students since 
the civil rights period5.  Fordham has articulated what teachers in her study ? and I 
suspect Black teachers in general ? are not willing (or perhaps capable) of admitting ? 
that something is missing with the connection between Black students and their Black 
                                                 
5
  I am aware that some Black scholars (see Horvat & O?Connor, 2006) have critiqued the ?acting 
White? theory Fordham asserted with Ogbu (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986); however, Fordham?s work at 
Capitol High moved beyond the ?acting White? theory to a broader, more class-based analysis of 
Black student achievement, one I find relevant to this dissertation project.  
 
 36 
 
teachers.   I saw this clearly in a pilot study I conducted of an African American 
English teacher.  I provide an excerpt from my field notes to illustrate the connection: 
I became intrigued, though, when another class of students came in, 
one I was not scheduled to observe but one that seized my attention, 
causing me to continue jotting down a few observation notes.  I was 
torn as to whether I should spend time observing the teacher in this 
class, since this was not the class we had discussed and she was not 
conducting a writing lesson.   I found myself so intrigued that I 
wondered if I needed to change my research focus.   Why was I so 
interested in this group of comprehensive-level, disengaged Black and 
Latino youngsters in a way that I was not for the mostly White honors 
students?     Why did Ms. Day?s (pseudonym) demeanor change so 
dramatically when this group came in?  In previous discussions, she 
had shared with me her frustration, disbelief and disappointment with 
this class?s lack of engagement, but seeing her feelings depicted in her 
interactions with these students affected me.   While she stood erect in 
the honors class, she sat looking deflated in this one.  I found myself 
wondering about the perceptions these Black students had of their 
Black teacher.  What existed in the air between these ethnic 
comrades?  Should there be something different, something more, than 
what would exist between them and a White teacher?  How did they 
feel about looking at someone who shared their race?  Out of 
approximately 20 students, only two looked excited to be there.  All 
 
 37 
 
the others were lost in some elusive haze of nothingness.   (McLin 
fieldnotes, October, 15, 2009) 
The prevailing accounts of the relationships between African American teachers and 
their African American students, in which the teachers assume the roles of mentor, 
role model, or cultural translator do not seem to be represented in this classroom.  
Was Ms. Day the ?role model? (Foster, 1993) that Black teachers have been depicted 
as in the literature or was she one of the ?book-Black Blacks6? described in 
Fordham?s (1996)? Did the students feel that their middle class Black teacher ?could 
not relate to Black people like [them]?? (Maylor, 2009).  In an interview, Ms. Day, 
like many of the teachers from Foster?s study (1991, 1997), self-reported that she felt 
a responsibility to the Black students in her classes. Indeed she described times in 
which she felt compelled to serve as an advocate for students, helping them 
?manipulate the school's culture, which is often contradictory and antithetical to their 
own? (Irvine, 1989, p. 53). By her account, in order to ensure her Black students were 
given access to opportunities for growth and advancement, she was willing to be the 
advocate Irvine (1989) called for, one ?willing to question and defy rules and 
regulations that are not in the best interest of their students? (p. 54). Again, these 
positions and propensities were self-reported by the teacher in an interview.   The 
excerpt noted above does not depict a teacher-student relationship that would support 
these claims. Rather, it more closely supports the more disconnected teacher-student 
relationship depicted in Fordham?s (1996) and Lynn et al.?s (2010) studies, research 
                                                 
6
  Fordham (1996) uses the term book-Black Blacks to describe how educated African Americans who 
have achieved economic or professional success are perceived by the larger African American 
community as an ?other? who has ?passed over? (p. 347) from being an authentic Black person to 
being an outsider with no true sense of what it means to be Black.   
 
 38 
 
that does not reflect the more dominant ?Black teacher as savior? narrative in the 
Black teacher literature.  
The general consensus in the published research on Black teachers is that 
Black teachers are more than teachers of content and that the saliency of their cultural 
background to their role as teacher is often a major part of their teaching success, 
particularly when teaching majority Black student populations. Black teachers have 
been described as saviors and othermothers (Foster, 1993), cultural translators and 
intercessors (Irvine, 1989), healers (Dixson & Dingus, 2008), activists (Dixson, 2003) 
and community workers (Dixson & Dingus, 2008; Foster, 1993).  In all of these 
cases, teachers? cultural experiences as Black Americans and their ability to relate to 
and inspire Black children by employing an ?ethic of caring? (Patterson et al., 2011; 
Walker, 1996; Ware, 2002) have been central to their practice. Recognizing both the 
dominant ?culture-as-plus? narrative and the less-developed cultural-deficit literature, 
I designed this dissertation project to gain deeper insights into Black teachers? 
perceptions of how they impact Black student achievement.  
In chapters three and four, I describe the theoretical framework and 
methodology that guided my approach to this research project.    
 
 
 
   
 
 39 
 
Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework 
 
3.1: Critical Race Theory 
  
   My decision to centralize the significance of race by focusing my study 
singularly on African American English teachers stems first from my own personal 
and professional experiences with racial dilemmas as a former African American 
secondary-level English teacher.  During my first few years teaching 7th grade 
language arts, I suffered from stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995), or a fear of 
conformity to a negative stereotype associated with my racial identity; more 
specifically, because of my race, I doubted my ability to teach the standard American 
English element of writing. Although I had attained a high school diploma and a 
college degree, I lacked confidence in my ability to speak and write properly.  This 
lack of confidence stemmed from the implicit and explicit messages I received in my 
formative years about markers of intelligence, in particular that speaking like a White 
person denoted intelligence and speaking like a Black person suggested just the 
opposite.  This linguistic part of my racial identity undermined my teaching 
confidence and competence, sending me to graduate school to learn about how the 
psychological effects of racialization and racism impact how teachers teach (and how 
students learn) in a race-conscious society.   As a graduate student, I learned about the 
salience of race in people of color?s lived experiences (e.g., Lopez, 2003; Perry, 
Steele & Hilliard, 2003), particularly how their racialized (Lopez, 2003) experiences 
(i.e., how they experience life as raced persons) influence not only their perceptions 
of themselves but also their perceptions of their ability to achieve academically and 
 
 40 
 
professionally.  My lived experiences with this reality as a Black student and teacher 
have caused me to embrace a Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Ladson-Billings, 1998, 
2005; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) approach to studying educational issues, an 
approach that is rooted in the beliefs that race and racism are endemic to society, that 
ineffective civil rights laws should be revisited, and that voices of people of color are 
essential to the discussion.  
Intersectionality theorists (see, for example, Collins, 2000 or Dill & 
Zambrana, 2009) object to isolating race from other elements of lived reality, such as 
gender, sexuality, or ability, arguing that all of these lived experiences are 
interconnected.  I do not contest this assertion, but I argue that in a country whose 
leaders used the principle of Manifest Destiny7 (Horsman,1981) to justify its 
expansion and development, a country led by people who colonized, imprisoned, and 
destroyed cultures of people ? because they were not White ? and a country in which 
people of color are grossly underrepresented in political, business, and educational 
leadership roles, that in such a country using race as the central framework for 
studying educational issues is logical and imperative.  In the following section, I 
define CRT and describe its main tenets.  Following that section, I describe how 
scholars have used CRT to prompt race-centered reflection amongst teachers; I then 
describe how I will use it in this study. 
3.1.1: Defining Critical Race Theory 
While Critical Race Theory?s origin was in the legal field, for nearly 17 years 
it has been building an extended family in the field of education.  So, in 
                                                 
7
  The belief in the God-given cultural and racial superiority of White settlers as justification for 
westward expansion and continental dominance and (Horsman, 1981; Spring, 1994).   
 
 41 
 
acknowledging the strong foundation that has been laid in education, in this review, I 
will forgo the traditional extensive CRT legal review, and will instead provide a 
synthesis of the fundamental principles of the legal field?s critical race theory that I 
have constructed from the explanations of education theorists.  In most accounts 
(DeCuir & Dixson, 2004; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Lynn, 2002;  Morris, 2001; 
Sol?rzano & Yosso, 2002) Critical Race Theory,  
? is grounded in a belief in the intersectionality of race with other forms of 
subordination 
? is informed by and situated in an interdisciplinary context 
? is grounded in a belief in the social construction of race  
? privileges the narratives of people of color  
? challenges dominant ideologies of colorblindness and neutrality 
? is rooted in the belief that the historic nature of race and racism is an 
endemic and permanent part of society 
? exposes and challenges White privilege.  
This list will serve as a review of the foundational legal tenets of CRT, as well as an 
introduction to education?s extension of the theory. Because Ladson-Billings and Tate 
(1995) are credited with producing the seminal CRT work in education ?Toward a 
Critical Race Theory of Education,? I use their conceptualization as the foundational 
definition of education?s critical race theory.  
 
 42 
 
3.1.2: Critical Race Theory in Education 
Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995), recognizing the salience of race in American 
society and the failure of the reform movement of multicultural education to address 
the ?growing tensions between and among various groups who gather under the 
umbrella of multiculturalism? (p.61), called for an analytic framework that put race 
front and center in educational scholarship, arguing that thus far, theorists had failed 
to theorize race in its relationship to education.   Indeed, the call of 1995 was for real, 
substantive change in education, not just superficial, ?can?t we all just get along,? 
colorblind, race-neutral paradigms that appease the social and political agendas of the 
dominant group.  Like Tatum (2007), Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) wanted to talk 
about race.  Their call was about ?attempting to uncover or decipher the social-
 structural and cultural significance of race in education? (p.50) in an effort to 
eliminate the lingering educational inequities caused by racism.  The basis of their 
call rested in the argument that racism was deeply ingrained in American life, that 
Whiteness, when viewed as property, has valuable rights and privileges that 
Blackness does not, and that class and gender-based explanations are not powerful 
enough to explain all of the differences in school experiences and performance for 
Black students. In their view, a critical race theory for education would require: 
1.      A belief that racism is endemic to society; 
2.      A reinterpretation of ineffective civil rights law;  
3.      The presence of voices of color. 
These three tenets create a theoretical framework appropriate for studying Black 
teachers? perspectives of their impact on Black student achievement because they 
provide a framework that foregrounds Black teachers? voices and experiences, 
 
 43 
 
assumes that the endemic nature of race and racism influence teachers? perspectives, 
and illuminates  ineffective civil rights laws that have impacted their experiences.   
 
 3.1.3: Critical Race Theory: An Effective Framework for Studying 
Black Teachers  
Provides Professional Space for Race Talk 
Critical Race Theory (CRT) gives Black researchers and teachers an academic 
language and theoretical grounding for discussing what before may have only been 
discussed in the form of gripes and complaints about ?the system? or ?the man? or 
?White folks.?  Using CRT as a framework for research brings such conversations out 
into the open for discussion in a constructive context in which race-talk is allowed 
and valued. Researchers have found that when given the space and impetus to air 
thoughts and concerns about race, teachers of color have much to say. I provide a few 
examples of studies to illustrate.  
Morris (2001) found that Black educators? reflections on a 1983 school 
desegregation ruling in St. Louis reflected CRT perspectives even though he did not 
intentionally apply the framework when he collected the data.  During analysis, 
however, he realized his choice of qualitative methods and his decision to study Black 
teachers were in line with CRT?s emphasis on valuing the voices of teachers of color 
and that Black teachers were eager to discuss how race and racism had affected the 
implementation of the St. Louis desegregation plan.   
Given Morris?s account of the racially-hostile time period in which the ruling 
took place and the knowledge that many Black teachers? jobs were threatened or 
terminated when schools were desegregated (Foster, 1993; Fultz, 2004), it is probably 
 
 44 
 
accurate to say that prior to Morris, few researchers had probably approached Black 
teachers to discover their views on how racism was shaping the debates surrounding 
desegregation.  According to Morris, most teachers experienced the ?push-pull? 
syndrome (Smitherman, 1977, as cited in Zeigler & Osinubi, 2002) when it came to 
desegregation.  He noted that, ?on one hand, they were compelled to support efforts 
aimed at eradicating legalized segregation in public schools and the broader society,? 
but on the other hand, ?many realized that Black children would encounter modified 
and covert acts of racism in schools that were integrated in student populations only, 
but not in teacher personnel, curricula, and power arrangement? (p.579). Morris?s 
race-centered focus on how the desegregation plan specifically impacted African 
American students caused teachers to take an enthusiastic and personal interest in the 
interviews and were eager to tell their stories, which revealed desegregation 
narratives counter to conventional wisdom?s story of Brown as a positive 
development for all in American society.   Dingus (2006), who also investigated the 
desegregation stories of Black teachers, discovered similar counter-stories.  
Personal Voices 
The element of CRT that most strongly encourages race reflection amongst 
teachers is its emphasis on the lived experiences and stories of teachers of color.  This 
aspect is based on the belief that reality is socially constructed (Banks, 1995) and that 
?the voices of people of color are required for a complete analysis of the education 
system? (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p. 58).  As stated earlier, these CRT voices 
are found in the form of personal stories, often called counter-stories or narratives 
(Sol?rzano & Yosso, 2002).  When researchers use voices of people of color as a 
 
 45 
 
central part of their research design, there is greater opportunity for substantive 
discussions in which race is central to the conversation.  Lynn?s work (1999, 2002) 
illustrates this point.  
  Using CRT as a framework, Lynn (1999) studied the attitudes, beliefs and 
practices of Black teachers whom he viewed as embracing CRT principles in their 
teaching. Lynn chose teachers ?who expressed a commitment to issues of social 
justice and had a fairly well-defined sense of political, social, and ethnic/racial 
identity? (p. 612).  It is problematic, however, that Lynn?s study is based on an 
assumption that teachers of color already possessed the knowledge, skills, and 
passion necessary to enact critical race pedagogy (Lynn, 1999). Instead of studying 
teachers to determine how CRT could help them, he studied the teachers to find out 
how their practices could help exemplify a critical race theory approach. Granted, 
Lynn chose his teachers based on their social justice interest and demonstrated 
involvement; still, assuming that these teachers are free from the psychological 
shackles of racism that critical race theory says permeates our society is a troubling 
assumption. My study does not rest on such an assumption; rather, my study is 
grounded in the belief that everyone ? even (especially) African American people ? 
have internalized ? often unconsciously ? the racist stereotypes, attitudes, and 
systems of behavior that are embedded in the fabric of the United States society. Like 
Tatum (2007), I argue for sincere race-reflection that ?applies to all teachers. We 
cannot assume teachers of color are confident in their abilities to talk about these 
issues ? none of us can teach what we haven?t learned ourselves? (p. 38).  
 
 46 
 
3.1.4: Critical Race Theory and This Study 
The core elements of CRT in education (race as endemic to society; 
importance of including voices of color; ineffective civil rights law) provided the 
theoretical context that drove my methodological decisions and served as a backdrop 
for my study on Black English teachers.  My focus on Black teachers? perceptions 
and self-reflections stems from the CRT principle that emphasizes the importance of 
including the voices of people of color in discussions of educational issues. CRT?s 
challenge of dominant ideologies is reflected in my study?s rejection of the traditional 
explanations for the minority achievement gap and its embracing of the alternate 
conceptualization of the ?opportunity-to-learn? gap (Hilliard, 2003; Milner, 2010).   
Moreover, the underlying assumption embedded throughout my research design is 
that race and racism are endemic to American society and therefore endemic to 
discussions of educational achievement and underachievement ? especially as it 
relates to marginalized groups such as African Americans. This assumption is evident 
in my choice to limit the participants to Black teachers and to limit the focus to their 
perspectives on the achievement of Black students.   Additionally, although the study 
was not designed to interrogate Black student achievement directly, I constantly 
brought focus group discussions back to the topic at hand ? the teacher?s role in 
impacting Black student achievement. I privileged race as the most significant 
contextual aspect of the study.    
CRT?s emphasis on ineffective civil rights laws provided a vehicle for me to 
consider my study?s findings in light of the negative unintended consequences of the 
country?s most historic education-related civil rights ruling: Brown v. Board of 
Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954).  In particular, this dissertation study considered 
 
 47 
 
how that ruling impacts Black teachers? experiences with Black students in today?s 
resegregated schools.  I utilized the effects of the Brown decision as a central 
analytical lens in the discussion of this study?s findings. Researchers and theorists 
have found that one of the most significant unintended consequences of the Brown 
decision was the loss of Black teachers and schools, a loss that led to the dismantling 
of a once closely-knit Black community (Fairclough, 2007; Foster, 1993; Fultz, 
2004). Additionally, Black teachers who obtained positions in newly-integrated 
schools were no longer able to freely discuss issues of racial uplift and empowerment 
with Black students (Foster, 1993).  In my analytical discussion and conclusions, I 
continue the discussion of the ways in which Brown?s implementation may be 
continuing to negatively affecting Black students in today?s resegregated schools.   
 
 
 
 
 48 
 
Chapter 4: Methodology 
Researcher as Artist-Bricoleur 
 
?If the artist does not perfect a new vision in his process of doing, he acts 
mechanically and repeats some old model fixed like a blueprint in his mind? 
-  John Dewey, Art as Experience, 1934, p. 50. 
The above quote precedes the introduction to the third edition of Corbin and 
Strauss?s (2008) book on qualitative research. The authors argue that ?qualitative 
researchers have a natural curiosity that leads them to study worlds that interest them? 
and that they ?enjoy playing with words, making order out of seeming disorder, and 
thinking in terms of complex relationships? and that ?for them, doing qualitative 
research is a challenge that brings the whole self into the process? (Corbin & Strauss, 
2008, p. 13). Their description of the qualitative researcher identity and Dewey?s 
claim about the artist?s act of creating a new vision through the process resonate with 
my experiences conducting this dissertation research project. 
When I designed this research project, I chose qualitative methods because I 
believed they would best answer my research question.  Once I had developed the 
research plan, I began conducting the research ?mechanically,? trying my best to 
follow the steps of the research process with no deviation from the initial research 
plan.  While I was open to being reflexive8 within the already established research 
plan, I did not consider the possibility of changes to the actual plan.  I had no plans of 
                                                 
8
  In this context, reflexive denotes an ?in the moment? decision; not haphazard spontaneity, but, 
rather, the willingness to change and adjust as necessary.  My research process exemplified this 
reflexive process. 
 
 49 
 
charting a new vision methodologically.  I saw myself only as a person conducting 
research using qualitative methods, not as a qualitative researcher. I did not recognize 
my qualitative researcher identity.  As I now reflect on the journey I traveled in the 
research process, I understand on a deeper level and with more clarity that a 
qualitative researcher is not just one who uses qualitative data collection methods.  I 
now understand, like Corbin & Strauss (2008) assert, that there are particular qualities 
that qualitative researchers embody: 
? A humanistic bent 
? Curiosity  
? Creativity and imagination 
? A sense of logic 
? The ability to recognize diversity as well as regularity 
? A willingness to take risks 
? The ability to live with ambiguity 
? The ability to work through problems in the field 
? An acceptance of the self as a research instrument 
? Trust in the self and the ability to see value in the work that is 
produced. (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 13)  
Together, Corbin & Strauss?s assertions about qualitative researchers and 
Dewey?s statement about the artist as vision-creator depict the qualitative researcher 
as an artist-intellectual who is aware of and sensitive to herself as a researcher, drawn 
to the imaginative and creative, as well as the ordinary, in the research participants 
and in the research process; reflective and reflexive, bold and unafraid.  These 
 
 50 
 
characteristics reflect who I discovered myself to be through the course of this 
researcher project. I enacted a bricoleur, or quilt-making (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008), 
type of methodological approach.  Denzin and Lincoln (2008), referencing the ideas 
of Becker (1998), describe the bricoleur qualitative researcher as one who ?uses the 
aesthetic and material tools of his or her craft, deploying whatever strategies, 
methods, and empirical materials are at hand. If the researcher needs to invent, or 
piece together new tools or techniques, he or she will do so. Choices regarding which 
interpretive practices to employ are not necessarily made in advance? (Denzin & 
Lincoln, 2008, p. 5).  Overall, my design decisions were made in advance; some, 
however, were unplanned, but necessary to overcome points of stall in the analysis 
process. For example, I struggled to represent research participants using prose, the 
traditional medium used to create portraits, so I reached for another literary technique 
and method of depicting research ? poetry. I discuss this change in writing format in 
the discussion of my study?s methodology.  
For this dissertation project, I chose portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1983) as 
the project?s methodology. I was drawn particularly to the methodology?s emphasis 
on context, voice, search for goodness, and the aesthetic whole (Lawrence-Lightfoot 
& Davis, 1997).  In the data analysis and representation stage, I extended the 
portraiture methodology to include poetic portraits (Childers, 2007; Hill, 2003, 2005; 
Schendel, 2009), a strategic choice employed to help me through a crisis of 
representation (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008) with regards to re-presenting the teachers in 
portraits9.  These methodological choices resulted in my findings being represented in 
                                                 
9
  I discuss this crisis of representation and my process for overcoming it in the ?Methods of Analysis? 
section of this chapter.  
 
 51 
 
both poetry and prose, a montage of both composite poetic snap shots of teachers? 
perceptions and experiences and detailed elaborations of the data?s emergent themes.  
Denzin & Lincoln (2008) capture the essence of my artist-bricoleur work:  
The product of the interpretive bricoleur?s labor is a complex, quilt-like 
bricolage, a reflexive collage or montage ? a set of fluid, interconnected 
images and representations.  This interpretive structure is like a quilt, a 
performance text, a sequence of representations connecting the parts to the 
whole. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008, p. 8)   
The portraiture methodology provided the freedom necessary to engage in this 
bricoleur work.   
Portraiture  
Featherstone (1989), as cited in Lawrence-Lightfoot (2005), referred to 
portraiture as a ?people?s? scholarship:  ?The power of portraiture lies in its explicitly 
humanistic impulse. It embraces both analytic rigor (a perspective that is distant, 
discerning, and skeptical) and community building (acts of intimacy and connection)? 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005, p. 12).   Research conducted using this methodology is 
not merely research conducted for research?s sake; rather, it is research conducted 
with the humanity of the researcher, the research participants, and the associated 
community members in mind.  It is a research tool designed to inspire individual and 
community reflection, introspection, and transformation.  Lawrence-Lightfoot (2005), 
the methodology?s creator, argues that ?the most powerful characteristic of portraiture 
is its ability to embrace contradictions, its ability to document the beautiful/ugly 
experiences that are so much a part of the texture of human development and social 
 
 52 
 
relationships? (p. 9).  When conducting research on the perspectives of marginalized 
groups of people (in the case of this study, African American English teachers) about 
problems (Black student underachievement),  in their own community, a 
methodological framework such as portraiture, which attends to the diverse needs, 
complexities, and contradictions in the human experience, is fitting.  
A uniquely humanistic and artistic methodology, portraiture embraces 
aesthetic representations of data, encourages a transformative, reciprocal research 
process; looks for the goodness in the data, provides a platform for marginalized 
voices (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005; Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997), and has 
room for methodological extensions (Dixson, Chapman & Hill, 2005).  
Appeal to the Aesthetic  
Portraiture was created by sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (1983)10 30 
years ago as a method of qualitative inquiry that would ?combine systematic, 
empirical description with aesthetic expression? (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, 
p. 3).   ?The portraits are designed to capture the richness, complexity, and 
dimensionality of human experience in social and cultural context, conveying the 
perspectives of the people who are negotiating those experiences? (Lawerence-
 Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 3). Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) argued that 
?because the subject being described is embodied in the descriptive writing, readers 
                                                 
10 When Lawrence-Lightfoot first introduced the methodology with the publication of The Good High 
School (1983), there was much controversy in the social sciences research community surrounding 
whether or not portraiture was a true methodology that met high standards of scientific rigor (V.M. 
MacDonald, personal communication, October 23, 2012).  Since then, Lawrence-Lightfoot has practiced 
and refined the methodology, and in 1997, with co-author Jessica Davis, she published a methodology 
volume that ?describes the contours, scope, dimensions, and techniques of this genre as well as the 
limits, causalities, and constraints of this work? (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005, p. 7). Numerous scholars, as 
noted in this manuscript, have embraced and utilized the methodology. 
 
 53 
 
must attend to the aesthetic features of the narrative? (p. 28).  Choosing to present the 
findings in an expressive, artistic way rather than only in a paradigmatic format opens 
the scholarship up to an audience beyond the academy and appeals to readers? 
intellect and emotions:  
The attempt is to move beyond [sic] academy?s inner circle, to speak in a 
language that is not coded or exclusive, and to develop texts that will seduce 
the readers into thinking more deeply about issues that concern them. 
Portraitists write to inform and inspire readers.? (Lawrence-Lightfoot & 
Davis, 1997, p. 10) 
In creating an aesthetically whole text, the portraitist must attend heavily to context 
and voice (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).  Attending to historical, personal, 
and internal contexts11 in the process of data collection and portrait creation facilitates 
the creation of a holistic and rich portrayal of the research subject. In portraiture, the 
historical context involves the journey, culture, and ideology of the actors, including 
the ?subject?s personal or institutional journey in which the action is situated among 
past objectives, current realizations, and visions of the future? (Lawrence-Lightfoot & 
Davis, 1997, p. 70).  For this study, the participants? historical context (Lawrence-
 Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) was interrogated by inquiring about their educational life 
histories.  The personal context involves ?the researcher?s perch and perspective? 
                                                 
11
  Internal context is the physical setting in which the action takes place.  Internal context was not 
very salient for this study, because data collection did not occur in the participants? natural 
surroundings, with the exception of one interview. Conducting the research outside of the 
participants? natural surroundings minimized the importance of the physical setting?s details with 
regards to portrait construction.   
 
 54 
 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 70), which I reveal in the poetic introductions 
of each teacher and in the dissertation?s introduction.    
 Portraiture?s emphasis on voice helped me create an aesthetically whole text 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).  The poetic portraits reflect portraiture?s voice 
as witness, voice as preoccupation and interpretation, voice as autobiography, voice 
discerning other voices, and voice in dialogue (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).  
Voice as Witness 
Voice as witness involves the researcher stance as an outside observer.  In my 
case, I was an indigenous outsider (Tillman, 2006) because I was an insider as an 
African American woman and former teacher who worked in the same school district 
as most of the research participants, but I was an outsider because of my status as a 
university researcher and no longer a practicing classroom teacher as were all of the 
participants.  Thus, even as a participant observer, I witnessed the scene as if I were a 
distant third party, ?sufficiently distanced from the action? and ?far enough away to 
depict patterns that actors in the setting might not notice because of their involvement 
in the scene? (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 87).   
Voice as Autobiography 
I also utilized portraiture?s ?voice as autobiography? element by incorporating 
my own historical context into the framing of the research project. In portraiture, ?the 
researcher brings her own history - familial, cultural, ideological, and educational ? to 
the inquiry.  Her perspective, her questions, and her insights are inevitably shaped by 
these profound developmental and autobiographical experiences? (Lawrence-
 Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 95).  I discuss how my own background and experiences 
 
 55 
 
influenced my identification of the research problem and my conceptualization of the 
research project in this dissertation?s introduction and conceptual framework.   
Additionally, I naturally drew on my cultural knowledge and experiences as 
an African American as I engaged with the teachers, often using African American 
Vernacular English, as well as body language and expressions common in African 
American communities, such as incredulous stares, twisting of the lips, and call-and-
 response exchanges. 
Voice as Interpretation  
Portraiture?s ?voice as interpretation? denotes ?the interpretive role of the 
portraitist,? including ?the researcher?s attempts to make sense of the data? 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 91). My voice of interpretation is present in 
the poetic portraits and in the emergent themes. In the portraits, I alternate between 
speaking in my third-person interpretive voice and the first-person voice of the 
teacher.  The third-person voice is a window into my interpretive thinking about the 
data.  My interpretive voice is more explicit in the emergent theme section as I 
explicitly make interpretive assertions about the data.    
Voice as Preoccupation 
The voice of preoccupation involves ?the ways in which [the portraitist?s] 
observations and her text are shaped by the assumptions she brings to the inquiry, 
reflecting her disciplinary background, theoretical perspectives, her intellectual 
interests, and her understanding of the relevant literature? (Lawrence-Lightfoot & 
Davis, 1997, p. 93).  I attended to the voice of preoccupation explicitly in the 
dissertation?s introduction, where I discussed the scholarly literature and personal and 
professional experiences that occupied my thoughts prior to and during the research 
 
 56 
 
process. This voice is also present in the conclusion, where I discuss the findings in 
relation to the literature I felt was most relevant.  Additionally, my voice of 
preoccupation is also implicit in my creation of the teachers? portraits and in my 
emergent theme analysis, revealed in the points I chose to emphasize, highlight, and 
interrogate.  Together, voice and context facilitated the development of aesthetically 
rich depictions of teachers? perceptions and experiences.   
Voice Discerning Other Voices 
 Portraiture?s ?voice discerning other voices? is about how the portraitist 
listens for voice instead of just to voice:  ?When the portraitist listens for voice, she 
seeks it out, trying to capture its texture and cadence, exploring its meaning and 
transporting its sound and message into the text through carefully selected 
quotations? (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 99).  I attended carefully to voice 
in my creation of the poetic portraits, careful to illuminate repetitive refrains 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997), statements that were repeated throughout the 
data collection process, and to include quotes that I felt best represented the meaning 
and tone present in the participants? delivery.   
Voice in Dialogue  
 Voice in dialogue involves chronicling the relationship of researcher and 
research participant by making meaning of their voices in dialogue with each other 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).   Since the goal of my research process was to 
better understand the teachers? perceptions, I did not focus on emphasizing my voice 
in dialogue with their voices; however, I do depict the nature of our exchanges by 
including large excerpts from the transcripts and by highlighting moments of 
 
 57 
 
significant dialogic meaning-making in some of the poetic portraits.  For example, in 
Ms. Tan?s poem, I describe the evolving nature of our researcher-researched 
relationship by pointing out when I started to address her as her first name.  In Ms. 
X?s poem, I point out how ?she kept us laughing,? which illustrates the communal, 
group-centered nature of our dialogue.    
Transformative, Reciprocal Research Process 
In addition to providing a structure for artistic display of research findings, 
portraiture also facilitates a transformative, reciprocal research process, in which both 
the researcher and the researched contribute to and benefit from the research process 
and results (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).  Lawrence-Lightfoot (2005) 
describes this process and its benefits: 
Deepening the conversation and broadening the audience are not only 
acts of analysis and solidarity.  They are also inevitably acts of 
intervention.  In the process of creating portraits, we enter people?s 
lives, build relationships, engage in discourse, make an imprint ? and 
leave.  We engage in acts (implicit and explicit) of social 
transformation, we create opportunities for dialogue, we pursue the 
silences, and in the process, we face ethical dilemmas and a great 
moral responsibility.  This is provocative work that can disturb the 
natural rhythms of social reality and encounter.  This is exciting work 
that can instigate positive and productive change. (Lawrence-
 Lightfoot, 2005, p. 12) 
 
 58 
 
The focus group meetings became more than just meetings teachers attended as part 
of a research project.  They became spaces the teachers came to, to vent, to listen, and 
to share (see Appendix M for a discussion of the changing nature of the focus group 
meetings).  Their earnest engagement and enthusiasm suggested they had been 
longing for an opportunity to come together with other Black English teachers to 
discuss troubling issues and to share ideas that had worked for them.  One of the 
teachers, Ms. Jocasta, wrote in her final journal entry that ?perhaps there is a 
continuing need for Black teachers to interact more often.?  Another teacher, Ms. J, 
said, ?I must say I have learned a lot about myself just going through the process.  
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your project.  I enjoyed the sessions and 
would love to work with you and the other ladies in the future? (Ms. J, personal 
communication, March 13, 2012). Ms. Kelly wrote in her final journal entry, ?Thanks 
for the rich discussions!?  The research process impacted another teacher, Ms. X, in 
such a way that she suggested another meeting in which I could share more about my 
personal experiences as a classroom teacher at Jefferson: ?It was great to hang out 
with you, and maybe we can schedule another meeting in which you can tell me about 
your experience here at Jefferson? (Ms. X, personal communication, February 12, 
2012). Ms. Tan once contacted me after all of the required meetings to tell me about 
how she had been reflecting on the nature of her relationships with both Black and 
White students.   I, too, find myself feeling more empowered to carry out my research 
agenda because of the passion and sincerity these women brought to the project. I 
believe having a safe space to share their thoughts and feelings may have encouraged 
and strengthened these women to continue giving their all to their jobs as teachers.   
 
 59 
 
Search for Goodness 
I also chose portraiture because of its appeal to the ?goodness? in the subjects 
and in the data (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).  I must admit:  disappointment, 
frustration, disbelief, confusion, and, in some ways, anger led me to investigate Black 
teachers? perceptions of their impact on Black student achievement.   I was disturbed 
that so many Black students were underachieving, even when taught by Black 
teachers. I was perplexed as to why Black teachers were found not to be reflective 
about their own practice and instead blamed Black student underachievement on the 
students themselves, their parents, and their communities.  I felt Black teachers 
needed to be rallied and reminded of the successes Black teachers often experienced 
with Black students before integration. I was not exactly poised to see the ?good? in 
the data.  Portraiture provided an analytical structure that helped modify my attitude 
toward my subject and my data, reminding me to look for the goodness while 
acknowledging that imperfections are always present ? even in beauty (Lawrence-
 Lightfoot, 2005; Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).   Data were reflective of the 
goodness in the teachers? perceptions and experiences, goodness reflected both in 
their triumphs and struggles in their efforts to teach Black children.   
Providing Space for Marginalized Voices 
In addition to its embracing of the aesthetic and its emphasis on identifying 
goodness, portraiture, like Critical Race Theory (CRT), also involves giving voice to 
those whose voices are marginalized or overlooked.    The voice of the African 
American English teacher from a discipline-centered perspective is missing in the 
English education literature.  It is also scant in the Black teacher-literature as well, 
 
 60 
 
especially at the secondary level.  Additionally, the existing literature lacks 
discussions of Black English teachers? perceptions of their personal impact on Black 
student achievement, particularly as it relates to Black students who are 
underachieving.   By pairing portraiture with CRT, I provided a context and space in 
which Black English teachers? voices could be privileged.   
Portraiture in Practice 
Sociologist Lawrence-Lightfoot (2005) developed the portraiture 
methodology in response to her need for a ?form of inquiry that might capture the 
complexity and aesthetic of human experience? (p. 5).  Her first portrait captured the 
essence of school life for six high schools (1983).  She continued to develop and 
refine the methodology, using it to unpack the stories of privileged middle class Black 
Americans (1994), to investigate how individuals manifest respect (2000), and to 
determine what was needed to help children succeed by studying the dynamics of 
parent teacher conferences (2003).  
Educational researchers have embraced portraiture as a methodology useful 
for studying teachers? experiences and classroom life.  Hill (2003, 2005) utilized 
portraiture to study the experiences of Black professors in positions at institutions of 
higher education.  Dixson (2005), linking elements of jazz musicianship to the 
portrait development process, used portraiture to study the experiences of Black 
teachers in racially mixed educational settings.  Chapman (2005) and Harding (2005) 
studied the instructional practices of White teachers in racially diverse urban 
classrooms, and Chapman (2007) examined success and failure in urban classrooms.  
Other researchers have used portraiture to determine the value of using self-reports to 
 
 61 
 
elicit views of struggling readers and to illuminate the goodness in the struggling 
reader experience (Schendel, 2009), to investigate how teachers experienced the 
transition from learner to teacher (Childers, 2007), and to investigate what culturally-
 relevant science pedagogy could look like in urban middle school classrooms (Dodo 
Seriki, 2011).  
Since this dissertation study pairs portraiture with Critical Race Theory, it is 
important to note that Chapman (2007) used portraiture and critical race theory in her 
study of urban school success and failure.  Drawing on CRTs elements of 
counterstory, interdisciplinary methods, and researcher?s role, and portraiture?s search 
for goodness, she provided a counter story to how majoritarian narratives portray 
failure and success in urban classrooms. She concluded that a classroom that a 
majoritarian perspective would have probably portrayed as depicting student failure 
was actually more reflective of teacher failure and would have been a success story 
had the teacher used instructional strategies that were more culturally relevant 
(Ladson-Billings, 1994).  
Extending the Portraiture Methodology ? Poetry   
Hill (2003, 2005) extended the portraiture methodology to include poetry as a 
method of data representation. She used poetry to depict the experiences of Black 
women university professors.  Since Hill (2003, 2005), only a few others have 
continued the extended poetic portraiture tradition, and mainly in unpublished 
dissertation studies.  Childers (2007) used poetry to depict teachers? experiences 
transitioning from learner to teacher and Schendel (2009) used poetry to represent the 
essence of the struggling reader experience. So few examples of poetic portraiture 
 
 62 
 
indicate that the poetry in portraiture is a fairly recent extension to the portraiture 
methodology. The use of poetry in qualitative research, however, is not new.   
Poetry in Qualitative Research 
Less than two decades ago, pioneers in arts-based methodologies (Richardson, 
1994, 1997, 2000; Glesne, 1997) began to experiment with poetry in qualitative 
research, providing inspiration and examples for many other researchers (see, for 
example, Butley-Kisber, 2002; Furman, 2006; Hymes, 2006; Lahman, Rodriguez, 
Richard,  Geist, Schendel & Graglia, 2011; Ohlen, 2003; Poindexter, 2002, 2006; 
Sullivan, 2000) who have since contributed scholarship to this growing body of 
literature, termed research poetry (Lahman, et al., 2011).  Researchers have engaged 
in poetic transcription (Glesne, 1997; Jones, 2010) in which interview transcripts are 
pared down and translated into poems using only the participants? words; created data 
poems directly from the participants? words (Cahnmannn, 2003; Lahman et al., 2011)  
as well as from additional data sources from the field (Cahnmannn, 2003; 
Prendergast, 2003); field note poems (Cahnmannn, 2003); researcher-voiced and 
participant-voiced poems (Prendergast, 2009); poetic stories (Manning, 2008); found 
poetry (Butler-Kisber, 2002; Prendergast, 2003) which utilize words found in other 
texts (e.g., words from scholarly articles), and poetic scholarly memoir (Richardson, 
2010).  
Researchers have used poetry to research and write about a variety of topics. 
For example, poetry has been used to explore academic life in higher education 
institutions (Hill, 2003, 2005; Jones, 2010); to investigate how lecturers experience 
teaching in multicultural classrooms (Manning, 2008); to tell the stories of formerly 
 
 63 
 
homeless people (Clarke, Febbraro, Hatzipantelis, & Nelson, 2005); to explore the 
graduate school experiences of international doctoral students (Lahman et al., 2011); 
to chronicle the life story of a senior academic (Glesne, 1997); and to depict the 
stages of one?s personal journey in the academy (Richardson, 2010).  I name only a 
few here, but the examples are vast.12   
Researchers have used poetry to overcome crises of representation (Manning, 
2008; Ward, 2011), to make sense of data during data analysis (Cahnmann, 2003; 
Richardson, 2000), to discover (Cahnmann, 2003), to re-see data (Furman, 2006) and 
to evoke readers to connect with participant experiences (Ward, 2011).  
For this dissertation study, using poetry to depict the teachers? perceptions and 
experiences helped open up my writing process, giving me the freedom to ?write it as 
I felt it,? hoping that readers would experience the comfort needed to ?feel it as they 
read it.?  In other words, the degree of license that comes with arts-oriented research 
(Eisner, 2005) gave me the freedom to add the subjectivity and preferences of my 
soul and heart to the brain work of analysis, while adhering to aesthetic standards of 
quality.  
Aesthetic Standards of Quality in Qualitative Research 
In his comparison of scientific and artistic approaches to qualitative research, 
Eisner (2005) describes what he believes are ten defining dimensions of artistic 
approaches to research, eight13 of which I embraced as aesthetic standards of quality 
                                                 
12
  For a plethora of poetic research examples, see Poetic Inquiry: Vibrant Voices in the Social Sciences 
(Prendergast et al., 2009). 
13
  I exclude two of Eisner?s dimensions, ?point of focus? and ?interest in prediction and control? 
because Eisner?s discussion of them did not resonate with my aesthetic and analytical processes.  
According to Eisner, art-oriented approaches to research ?focus less on behavior than on the 
 
 64 
 
for my project.  These dimensions include the following: forms of representation 
employed, validity, the nature of generalization, the role of form, degree of license, 
the sources of data, the basis of knowing, and ultimate aims (Eisner, 2005).   
According to Esiner (2005), in artistic research, ?what one seeks is not the creation of 
a code that abides to publicly codified rules, but the creation of an evocative form 
whose meaning is embodied in the shape of what is expressed? (Eisner, 2005, p. 69) 
as opposed to representing data using formal, didactic language. In arts-based 
research, experimenting with craft can help researchers ?control representation and 
effect? (Cahnmann, 2003, p. 31). Standards of validity also differ for arts-based 
versus traditionally scientific-based research: ?Validity in the arts is the product of the 
persuasiveness of a personal vision; its utility is determined by the extent to which it 
informs?the proof of the pudding is the way in which it shapes our conception of the 
world or some aspect of it? (p. 70) as opposed to its measure of its statistical 
significance.  Additionally, standards for generalization in artistic research are not 
based on a ?technically rigorous process of random selections,? but rather on how the 
researcher makes ?the particular vivid so that its qualities can be experienced? 
believing that ?the particular has a contribution to make to the comprehension of what 
is general? (p. 70).  With regards to form, arts-oriented researchers do not strive for 
standardization but rather for ways the form of the work can work to inform as a 
                                                                                                                                           
experiences the individuals are having and the meaning their actions have for others? (p. 70).  My 
research did not only focus on the meaning the data would have for others, but it also focused on the 
meaning it would have for the participants. Additionally, while my aesthetic representations were 
strongly explicative and my research process did not include a ?control? group and did not aim to use 
the data to make predictions, goals Eisner argues are contrary aims of arts-oriented researcher, I did 
purposefully select my project participants and I utilized their experiences to draw conclusions about 
future directions of research, practice, policy, and theory.  
 
 65 
 
vehicle of content, utilizing artistic license that allows the researcher to selectively 
focus on what he or she thinks should be conveyed.  Likewise, the most salient source 
of data in an artistic approach involves the researcher herself, with ?the major sources 
of data emana[ting] from how the investigator experiences what it is he or she attends 
to? (p. 73).  There are also broader modes of knowing in arts-oriented research; 
particularly, knowing through emotions is central in arts-based research.  Lastly, as 
opposed to discovering an ultimate ?truth,? the ultimate aims of artistic research is 
meaning-making: ?What art seeks is not the discovery of the laws of nature about 
which true statements or explanations can be given, but rather the creation of images 
that people will find meaningful and from which their fallible and tentative views of 
the world can be altered, rejected, or made more secure? (p. 74).  In creating the 
poetic portraits, I relied on these dimensions as standards of aesthetic quality.  
 
Poetic Portraits 
We must assume an audience for our work, an audience that longs for fresh language 
to describe the indescribably emotional and intellectual experiences in and beyond 
classrooms? ? (Cahnmann, 2003, p. 35) 
Poetic portraits (Childers, 2007; Hill, 2003, 2005; Schendel, 2009) convey 
data and analysis using lyrical language that speaks to both the mind and the heart, 
language that uses figurative language and other literary devices to create images that 
appeal to readers? senses and intellect, and that triggers familiarity, connectivity, and 
empathy within the reader. Cahnmannn (2003) argues that, 
 
 66 
 
by reading and implementing poetic craft, researchers can enhance 
their abilities to listen and notice in the field during data collection, 
creatively play with metaphor and image during analysis, and 
communicate with more liveliness and accuracy when representing 
data to larger audiences.  (Cahnmannn, 2003, p. 32) 
In creating the poetic portraits for each teacher, I strove to depict each teacher in the 
way I perceived they presented themselves at the focus group meetings, in their 
writings, and in the interview, illuminating aspects of the data that revealed each 
teacher?s deepest concerns, perspectives, and impactful experiences.  
Choosing poetry as the form of presentation allowed me to use and arrange 
words in ways that I felt would be most penetrating for the reader.  Eisner (2005) 
argues that ?form is regarded as part of the content of what is expressed and bears 
significantly on the kinds of meanings people are likely to secure from the work? 
(Eisner, 2005, p. 72). Jones (2010) adds that ?poetry, or poetic transcription allows 
for the emotional, ambiguous, contradictory and elusive as well as the analytical.  It is 
at once intellectual and aesthetic.  It opens up material for the readers that is powerful 
in its subjectivity, in a way that is at once subtle, concise, unique, powerful and new? 
(p. 594).   Hill (2005), who used poetic portraits to describe the experiences of Black 
women teacher-educators, argued that portraiture, in its openness to blurring the 
boundaries of the scientific and aesthetic and its effort to capture the complexities and 
subtleties of human experience, ?supports poetic documentation of educational 
research? (p. 95).   
 
 67 
 
Using Hill?s application of poetic portraiture as a guide, I crafted poetic 
portraits (Childers, 2007; Hill, 2003, 2005; Schendel, 2009) using my analysis of the 
interview and focus group transcripts, as well as teachers? answers to the online 
questionnaire and writing prompts.  The poetic portraits combined researcher-voiced 
and participant-voiced poetic forms (Prendergast, 2009), as I used direct quotations 
from all of these sources, in addition to my own interpretation of teachers? comments 
and experiences in the poem.  In the spirit of portraiture, my voice is intertwined with 
the teachers? voices.  In essence, I presented their perceptions through the lens of my 
own, but, at the same time, I was careful to temper my voice enough for each 
teacher?s unique voice and perspective to occupy the foreground of the poetic 
portrait.   For example, consider my construction of parts of a poem for one of the 
teacher?s portraits, Ms. Kelly?s.  As I did in the other poems, I included both my own 
analytical thoughts as well as direct quotations from Ms. Kelly. Though the analytical 
thought was my own, it was based on the data in the transcripts, writing prompts, and 
questionnaire answers.  An excerpt from Ms. Kelly?s portrait exemplifies how I 
included elements of both researcher-voiced and participant-voiced (Prendergast, 
2009) poetry in the portraits.  The first stanza below includes a direct quote from Ms. 
Kelly (participant-voiced poetry example).  The second stanza is an example of my 
third-person voice (researcher-voice poetry example). 
?Fast-forward to the year 2000:  
my mother passed away 
 and I found myself depending on my teachers for everything.   
Not resources and supplies, 
 
 68 
 
 but just conversations, college suggestions,  
career tips, life lessons?I loved my teachers? 
  
And so, after a B.A. in English 
And an M.Ed., she became one.  
All acquired at the same PWI14 
 
The first stanza is a quotation taken directly from Ms. Kelly?s educational life history 
writing prompt.  The next stanza includes data from the same educational life history 
writing prompt (the B.A. in English and M.Ed) and the interview (her attendance at a 
PWI). In an effort to capture the essence of Ms. Kelly?s message, I deduced the 
writing prompt and interview data down to the three line stanza.  The following is the 
part of the writing prompt I drew from to write the above stanza: 
Fast-forward to the year 2000: my mother passed away and I found 
myself depending on my teachers for everything.  Not resources and 
supplies, but just conversations, college suggestions, career tips, life 
lessons?I loved my teachers.  I always associated teaching and 
education to my mom, so naturally I wanted to become a teacher.  
What would it take?  A  B.A. in English, Praxis I, Praxis II, 
completion of student teaching experiences and a master?s in 
Education.  FINALLY, after all of that, I?m here?my first teaching 
experience.     (Ms. Kelly, Writing Prompt #1) 
                                                 
14
  Predominantly White Institution 
 
 69 
 
In the two stanza?s noted above, I strove to convey elements of Ms. Kelly?s 
educational life history that would provide readers with a historical context within 
which to consider Ms. Kelly?s perceptions and experiences. From the two stanzas, we 
learn what influenced Ms. Kelly?s decision to become a teacher: her mom and the 
teachers she relied on after her mom?s death; we also learn a little about the 
significant roles her teachers played in her life as mentors and caretakers; we learn of 
the level of education she had obtained and we also get a glimpse into the racial 
context of her higher education experience.  ?All acquired at the same PWI,? 
information I learned in the follow-up interview, were my own words (i.e., 
researcher-voiced), depicting my synthesis of contextual information that I felt was 
relevant to Ms. Kelly?s portrait development.   
Like Ward (2011), I turned to poetry in an effort to ?bring the message 
forward? (Eisner, 2008, p. 9, as referenced in Ward, 2011); that is, I wanted to convey 
to the readers the essence of what teachers shared in interviews and focus groups.  For 
me, ?bringing the message forward? meant ensuring the time teachers spent 
participating in discussions was not spent in vain; rather, their messages would make 
it beyond the confines of the meetings.   Ward (2011) argues that poetic 
representations of data enable the researcher to foreground the participants? stories; 
create verisimilitude; focus on the ?essence? of the experiences; create coherent 
story-lines, and create evocative text.   All of these assertions were true for me in my 
experience writing the poetic portraits, most strongly the writing of evocative texts. 
The traditional emergent theme section could have stood alone as the data analysis 
chapter, but as one of the Lahman et al. (2011) authors expressed, ?I see value in each 
 
 70 
 
representation. I am wondering if each form of representation doesn?t serve a 
purpose; that is, we need them all ? a crystallization perspective ? the representations 
could stand alone, paired up, or as a whole package? (p. 893).  In other words, while 
both traditional and non-traditional research methodologies could stand alone, there is 
value in pairing them up to ?bring the message forward? in its most authentic and 
penetrating form. I embraced this bricoleur perspective for this dissertation project. 
4.1: The Research Project   
I recruited five Black female English teachers, all Black women ranging in 
age from 25 to 63 years old and with years of experience from 2-15 years, to 
participate in a month-long focus group, which met for two hours once a week for a 
total of four consecutive weeks.  I conducted the focus group in the format of a 
writing workshop, with each meeting lasting for two hours (see Appendix D for 
details of each group meeting). Prior to the first meeting, I sent each teacher an 
electronic ?Teachers? Beliefs, Attitudes, and Practices? questionnaire (Appendix G) 
to complete. I used the results of the questionnaire to begin creating a profile of each 
teacher?s current perspective of their practice and to formulate interview follow-up 
questions for one-on-one interviews (Appendix H) that took place after the focus 
group meetings.  At each meeting, teachers completed a reflective writing task that 
they shared and discussed with the group.   In addition to the questionnaire answers, I 
used the writing artifacts, focus groups, and transcripts to formulate questions for the 
individual follow-up interviews. 
 
 71 
 
4.1.1: Participant Selection 
Purposeful selection (Maxwell, 2005) ensured only teachers who met criteria I 
thought would help answer my research questions participated in the study.  
Purposeful selection, ?a strategy in which particular settings, persons, or activities are 
selected deliberately in order to provide information that can?t be gotten as well from 
other choices? (Maxwell, p. 88), facilitated my achieving ?representativeness or 
typicality? and ?heterogeneity in the population? (p. 89).  Since Black teachers are 
diverse in their backgrounds and experiences but homogeneous in their race, it was 
important that I chose my participants strategically.   The participant population I was 
striving for was one that included secondary-level English teachers, some who teach 
on predominantly White departments and others who teach on a predominantly Black 
faculty, but all of whom teach Black students.   I wanted to represent perspectives 
from both of these populations in my study in an effort to achieve typicality for both 
groups. Given my experience as a Black teacher in a predominantly White English 
department, the reported deficit perspectives of the teachers on predominantly Black 
staffs (Fordham, 1996; Lynn et al., 2010), and the drastically different experiences 
Black teachers had in pre-Brown all-Black schools and post-Brown integrated schools 
(Fairclough, 2004; Horsford, 2011; Walker, 2009), including the perspectives of 
teachers from both populations in my study was essential.  
In addition to typicality, diversity of experience was equally important in my 
participant population. While all teachers shared the same race and secondary school 
teaching level, some were veteran teachers while others were novices; some seasoned 
adults and others young adults. These distinguishing factors helped ensure data that 
would reflect diverse voices from varying teaching and life experience levels.   
 
 72 
 
While I recognize the importance of studying male teacher perspectives, I 
chose to exclude them from this study. As a female teacher-researcher, I believed I 
would more effectively be able to negotiate productive relationships with female 
teachers because of our shared cultural knowledge and experiences as Black women. 
Furthermore, I recognized the personal nature of the writing and reflecting I would be 
asking teachers to do and I did not want to add any element, such as a male ?other,? 
to the research environment that might hinder or disrupt the uninhibited communal 
atmosphere I felt was necessary to yield authentic data.  This omission of the Black 
male teacher voice could be seen as a limitation; however, a body of research that 
focuses on Black male teachers is increasing (see, for example, Bridges, 2009; 
Brown, 2009; Lynn, 2002).   
4.1.2: Negotiating Research Relationships   
?All the processes of portraiture require that we build productive and benign 
relationships.  It is through relationships between the portraitist and the 
actors that access is sought and given, connections made, contracts of 
reciprocity and responsibility (both formal and informal) developed, trust 
built, intimacy negotiated, data collected, and knowledge constructed.? 
 (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 35) 
 At a general level, I had something in common with all of the teachers in my 
study.  We all had taught or were currently teaching in the same school district, a 
large, urban district in the mid-Atlantic part of the United States.  This commonality 
gave the participants and me a shared reality and vocabulary, but it may have also 
caused some inhibitions because participants may have felt uncomfortable disclosing 
 
 73 
 
information that could get back to a district source without their knowledge or 
approval.  To lessen the possibility of this occurring, I stressed the confidential nature 
of the research process.  In addition to possible participant resistance, I had to be sure 
my knowledge about and experiences with the school district did not cause me to 
make unwarranted assumptions in my analysis of the teachers? perspectives. 
 At a more specific level, I already had established relationships with three of 
the participants, Ms. Tan, Ms. X, and Ms. Kelly. Ms. Tan, Ms. X15, and I taught at the 
same school for four years. We were three of five Black English teachers in a 
department of about 20 teachers.  We were not close friends, but we shared a 
collective ?Black English teacher? experience that we rarely ? but sometimes ? 
discussed with one another.  We have never spoken about why we rarely spoke about 
our feelings and issues collectively, even since meeting in the focus groups.  Our past 
professional relationship influenced how we related to each other during the focus 
group meetings and interviews.  On one hand, I felt we had a level of comfort because 
of our familiarity with one another and our shared institutional knowledge.  On the 
other hand, I felt silences and lack of full disclosure between us may have remained 
in some instances16.  I had to work at moving the relationship to a new, more 
                                                 
15
  Teachers chose their own pseudonyms. Ms. Tan initially chose British Tan, but I decided to only use 
last names in reference to the teachers.  Ms. X chose the symbol of a smiley face to accompany her 
name.  For simplicity and word processing purposes, I eliminated the smiley face from her name.  For 
consistency, I added the prefix Ms. to all of the teachers? chosen pseudonyms.  
16
  It is important to note that I am only able to report on my perception of the relationship the three 
of us shared.  I do not know whether or not they perceive the relationship in the same way. The way 
this assumption influences my approach to negotiating a research relationship with them could affect 
the nature of the research relationship and the data it yields. As it did when I conducted the pilot 
study with one of the mentioned teachers, this issue continues to be a methodological dilemma.  
 
 74 
 
transparent space.  The confidential norms of the research process helped facilitate 
this adjustment.  
 I had a more substantive relationship with one of the teachers mentioned in 
the above paragraph, Ms. Tan.  She was the teacher in the pilot study I conducted, the 
findings of which were part of the impetus for this current project proposal, as I 
mentioned in Chapter 2. While I was aware the results of the pilot study would 
certainly contribute to my analysis of the teacher in this current study, I was careful 
not to allow them to overshadow new data and insights that emerged in the new 
study.  In addition to having a former research relationship with this teacher, I also 
have an existing ? but inconsistent ? friendship with her.  I say inconsistent because 
our personal interaction with one another is sporadic; therefore, I believe her 
motivation to take part in this research project was mostly likely primarily motivated  
by her interest in talking about issues that African American English teachers deal 
with in their practice.  
  Ms. Kelly, the third teacher with whom I have an existing relationship is one 
of my former pre-service students and student-teaching mentees.  She student-taught 
at the same high school I worked at with Ms. Tan and Ms. X. As Ms. Kelly?s 
University Supervisor, I supervised her student teaching experience; prior to that I 
was her instructor for a required university diversity course.  The remaining two 
participants, Ms. J and Ms. Jocasta, I had no previously established relationship.  
Both joined the group after the initial first meeting, one on the recommendation of 
another focus group member and one through an invitation I extended at the 
workplace.  
 
 75 
 
Where They Worked 
County Contexts 
All five participants worked in public schools located in a large southeastern 
metropolitan area in two neighboring counties, Wesley and Prudence.  Prudence 
County is known as having a notable contingent of affluent and educated African 
Americans.  Wesley is known as an affordable alternative to the predominantly 
African American Prudence. Neither school district met Adequately Yearly Progress 
(AYP)17 for the 2010-2011 school year.   Only one participant, Ms. Kelly, worked in 
Wesley County.  However, she completed her student teaching internship in 
Prudence.  The other four teachers all worked in Prudence County, but in different 
schools.   
School-Level 
The five teachers worked in four high schools: Jefferson, Langston, Andrews, 
and Eastlake. All of the schools had a majority Black population, with the exception 
of Andrews, which, by a margin of five percent, had more Latino than Black students. 
  
Table 1: Student Racial Demographics at Jefferson High School 
 
Ethnicity Number Percent 
                                                 
17
  Adequate Yearly Progress was designed to measure the school?s continuous improvement each 
year toward the No Child Left Behind goal of 100% proficiency in 2014.  In order to meet AYP, schools 
were required to meet state-determined annual measurable objectives, which means a specified 
percentage of the entire student population (including students of all races, students for whom 
English is a second language, and student receiving special education services) must pass the high 
school  assessment exams in English, biology, and algebra. Schools who fail to meet AYP targets enter 
a school improvement process in which they are designated as developing or priority schools by the 
state.  Such schools must implement interventions based on their designations to improve student 
performance (for more information on AYP, see (For more information on AYP, see 
(http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/secletter/020724.html). 
 
 76 
 
Black 1644 62 
White 436 16 
Latino 281 10.5 
Asian 278 10.4 
Two or 
more 
races 
17 .6 
American 
Indian 
10 .4 
Total 
Enrollment 
2669  
 
Table 2: Student Racial Demographics at Langston High School 
 
Ethnicity Number Percent 
Black 1229 75 
White 21 1 
Latino 280 17 
Asian 36 2 
Two or 
more 
races 
n/a n/a 
American 
Indian 
n/a n/a 
Total 
Enrollment 
1644  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table 3: Student Racial Demographics at Andrews High School 
 
Ethnicity Number Percent 
Black 1084 44 
White 74 3 
Latino 1210 49 
Asian 69 3 
Two or 
more 
races 
n/a  
American 10 .4 
 
 77 
 
Indian 
Total 
Enrollment 
2457  
 
 
Table 4: Student Racial Demographics at Eastlake High School 
 
Ethnicity Number Percent 
Black 1165 78 
White 167 11 
Latino 67 4 
Asian 45 3 
Two or 
more 
races 
42 3 
American 
Indian 
n/a  
Total 
Enrollment 
1495  
 
 
Ms. Tan and Ms. X both worked at Jefferson High School, which had a total 
enrollment of approximately 2,700 students, 1,644 (75%) of whom were African 
American. This school had the largest White population of all the participants? 
schools, with 436 in attendance, and a growing Latino population totaling 10% of the 
student population (State18 Report Card, 2011-2012). They were one of three racial 
minority teachers in the English department and the only two African Americans.  
At the second school, Langston, where Ms. Jocasta worked, there was less 
diversity.  Out of an enrollment of 1644 students, the majority were African 
American.  White students make up only 1% of the student population and Latinos 
                                                 
18
  To protect the identities of the research participants, I have omitted the name of the state 
throughout the document.  However, I retrieved all demographic information from the official state 
report card site for the state in which the teachers worked.   
 
 78 
 
17%.   The fourth school?s demographics, Eastlake, the school in the neighboring 
county and where Ms. Kelly worked, were similar to Jefferson?s. Out of a total 
enrollment of 1,574, the majority of the student population was African American, 
but there was a substantial White population (16%).  Latino students, however, made 
up only 4% of the population.   Eastlake met AYP  in 2011.  The three schools in 
Prudence County -- Jefferson, Langston, Andrews -- all failed to meet AYP in 2011.  
Jefferson failed because not enough members of its special education population 
passed the math assessment. Langston failed because not enough members of its 
special education and English language learner populations passed the reading and 
math exams. Andrew failed because not enough members of its free and reduced 
lunch and limited English proficiency populations passed the reading exam and not 
enough of its special education and limited English proficiency populations passed 
the math exam.  
Ms. X, Ms. Tan, and Ms. Jocasta all had African American male building 
leaders, or principals, and they all criticized aspects of their respective principal?s 
leadership.  An African American female leads Eastlake.  Ms. Kelly emphasized how 
her principal ?runs? her building, meaning there is no question about who is in charge 
and that operations run efficiently and smoothly.  A man who is not Black or White 
leads Ms. J?s school, Andrews.  Ms. J, who was unsure about his ethnicity, described 
him as possibly Native American. Based on the picture of him on the school?s site, I 
would describe him as Latino or Native American. Ms. J did not comment on his 
leadership.  
Department-Level 
 
 79 
 
 
 
Table 5: Departmental Racial Make-Up and Tracks Taught for Each Teacher 
 
Teacher School Departmental  
Racial Make-
 up of 
Teachers 
Tracks 
Taught 
Ms. Tan Jefferson 
High  
Majority 
White 
Comprehensive 
and Honors 
Ms. X  Jefferson 
High 
Majority 
White 
Comprehensive 
Ms. 
Jocasta 
Langston 
High 
Majority 
Black 
Comprehensive  
Ms. Kelly Eastlake 
High 
Majority 
White 
Comprehensive 
and Honors 
Ms. J Andrews 
High 
Equally 
mixed, Black 
and White 
Comprehensive 
 
Ms. Tan, Ms. X, and Ms. Kelly all worked in predominantly White 
departments in which they were each one of only two Black teachers. 
Ms. Jocasta?s department was comprised of majority Black teachers.  The White 
teachers taught most of the Advanced Placement, honors, and specialty courses like 
yearbook or journalism. Most of the Black teachers taught the required grade-level 
English courses.  Only one White teacher taught a tested course and she was a Special 
Education teacher.  Ms. Tan, Ms. X, and Ms. Jocasta perceived the environment of 
their English departments to be competitive and divided.  Ms. Tan and Ms. X saw the 
division among racial lines, but Ms. Tan said she did not think race was always a 
factor, but that sometimes there were divisions and schisms due to personality 
differences. Ms. J, whose department had nearly an equal number of Black and White 
teachers, said she sometimes ? but rarely ? saw race as problematic within her 
 
 80 
 
department. Ms. Kelly?s description of her department suggested it was united, with a 
spirit of sharing amongst the teachers.  
Ms. X chose not to teach any honors classes and she feels the environment in 
her department is one in which the minority students who are not in honors class ? 
and even some of those who are ? are labeled the ?lesser able? students.  She also said 
she felt the department lacked unity and that the chair of the department was secretly 
trying to prevent the hiring of any more Black teachers. Ms. Tan, who taught in the 
same department, did not believe race was the undergirding reason for the lack of 
unity in the department.  She said sometimes it boiled down to just personality 
differences. Ms. Jocasta taught all regular-level and special education courses, many 
of which were filled with students who were repeating the course due to previous 
failure.   Ms. Kelly taught both honors and regular level courses, as did Ms. Tan.  Ms. 
J taught regular-level classes, but in the previous years had taught specialty classes 
such as SAT19 prep, speech, and drama.  
4.1.3: Nurturing Community Amongst Participants 
 To nurture community, comfort, and non-coerced participation for all 
participants, I emphasized the voluntary nature of the research project by stating in 
writing, through the Signed Consent Form (Appendix L), and verbally, at each 
meeting and interview, that they could withdraw from the study at any time with no 
explanation.  I also encouraged participants to ask me to clarify anything they did not 
understand and to ask me at any time any questions they may have about the study.  I 
also stressed the confidential nature of all data collected and that all resulting reports 
                                                 
19
  Scholastic Aptitude Test 
 
 81 
 
or publications, pseudonyms would be used for names of all teachers, schools, 
districts, and any other potential identifiable place, person, or organization.  I also 
told participants that only I, the Principal Investigator, and transcribers would have 
access to the data.  Participant journals and artifacts were kept in my locked home 
office and, when in electronic format, on my password protected personal computer. 
All data will be destroyed and/or returned to the participants no later than five years 
after the conclusion of the entire dissertation project.  
 To encourage full and consistent participation, I provided free meals at each 
focus group meeting and offered to construct a proposal in relation to the project for 
the entire group to present at a National Council of Teachers of English Conference.  
In addition to these tangible incentives, the opportunity to reflect upon and discuss 
their practice with other colleagues, as well as the real possibility for fresh 
perspectives and inspiration for teaching, I believed, were the strongest motivating 
factors for participating in the study. 
4.1.4: Research Site  
The focus groups were originally scheduled to take place in a conference 
room on the campus of a local university; however, after the first meeting at this site, 
the research participants decided meeting for breakfast at a local diner would not only 
be more convenient geographically but that it would also provide a more comfortable 
and relaxed environment for conversation.  I agreed, believing that meeting in a more 
informal ?unofficial? place would facilitate the comfort needed for the women to 
speak freely (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2008) and that the open group format would 
create the safety and distance that make sharing less daunting (McClelland & Fine, 
 
 82 
 
2008).  I amended the IRB to reflect this change. There was the option for one-on-one 
follow-up interview sites to vary from teachers? classrooms, to neighborhood parks, 
to coffee shops, based on each individual teacher?s preference and comfort. All 
teachers agreed to meet at their schools, but one teacher, Ms. X, asked that we meet 
during one of her planning periods instead of after the school day.  I suggested this 
might seem rushed and asked that if we did not finish that she would grant a 
continuation interview with me at another time.  She agreed, but we ended up meeting 
off-site after she needed to cancel the original meeting scheduled to take place in her 
classroom due to a family emergency. We eventually met at a hamburger restaurant 
near her home.  Only one of the follow-up interviews (Ms. J?s) took place in a 
teacher?s classroom.  Ms. Tan?s interview took place on a leisurely stroll around the 
grounds of her school.  It was originally scheduled for her classroom, but after 
meeting her there I suggested we take our talk outside as a way to enjoy the 
uncharacteristically warm weather we were having in mid-January.  She jumped at 
the opportunity. Ms. Kelly?s interview took place at Panera? over meals that 
appeared to be comfort food for us both.  We could not find a mutually convenient 
time to meet in her classroom.   
4.1.5: Critical Methodological Dilemma and Release Point Theory  
While the challenge of negotiating relationships occurs throughout the entire 
research process (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997), there is a particular aspect of 
my study that presented another significant methodological dilemma (Gallagher, 
2008): the nature of my research question. The nature of the research question is 
problematic because, at the core, the question seeks answers to a topic that is sensitive 
 
 83 
 
and controversial in the Black community: personal responsibility and accountability 
for the advancement and success of the race.  The comedian and actor Bill Cosby 
(2004) has been criticized for suggesting Black Americans look in the mirror for the 
answer to their social and economic challenges.  Prominent scholars such as Michael 
Eric Dyson (2005) criticized Cosby for ignoring the structural systems and forces that 
contribute to economic and social distress in the Black community and instead 
emphasizing the actions of the African American people themselves as the problem 
(Dyson, 2005). Similarly, studies of Black teachers indicate that teachers have 
recognized the class gulf that exists between many of them and their Black students, 
but are reluctant to admit it publicly (Fordham, 1996). Additionally, studies show that 
Black teachers have failed to consider their teaching practices as a possible culprit in 
the problem of Black student underachievement (Lynn et al., 2010) and that they have 
also displayed resistance to talking about race and its impact on their perception of 
their teaching (Harper Lee, 2002).   
In essence, these collective claims, reports, and views suggest that the answer 
to Beverly Daniel Tatum?s (2007) question ?Can We Talk About Race? Do we know 
how?? (p. xiii) is ?no? or ?it depends on the message.?   The silence, resistance, and 
omission reported in the Black teacher literature, as it relates to issues of race, class 
and Black teacher effectiveness all indicate the answer is ?no.?  The outrage over Bill 
Cosby?s comments suggests the answer is ?no.? And, while Tatum?s question was 
meant for the education community at-large, I suggest her conclusion is directly 
relevant to this discussion of Black English teachers.  Tatum argued that living in a 
society ?that does not encourage ? indeed actively discourages ? talk about race? (p. 
 
 84 
 
xiii), prevents us from having meaningful conversations about race and sustains the 
silent dialogue (Delpit,1988) that has become the norm in our institutions of 
education.   I was concerned about encountering a similar silence in my study as I 
asked teachers to reflect on their own practice in relation to Black student 
achievement.    
To address this difficult methodological dilemma, I drew from the feminist 
literature the idea of methodological release points (McClelland & Fine, 2008), which 
the authors define as ?ways of making potential openings in the ?assumed? and the 
?common sense?? (p. 242). These ?methodological release points? were designed to 
help McClelland and Fine (2008) deal with the challenge of what they called ?writing 
and researching on cellophane? (p. 243), a challenge they encountered when studying 
teen women?s sexual desires.  Consider their explanation: 
Our title [Writing on Cellophane: Studying teen women?s sexual desires, 
inventing methodological release points] stems from a concern that young 
women?s desires come to be laminated in cellophane.  We see layers of 
cellophane being produced by: a market economy that rushes to commodify 
young female bodies; sociopolitical, moral, and heteronormative panics that 
obsess over young women?s sexualities; racist imagery and institutional 
practices that vilify the sexualities of women of color; and by schools 
increasingly kidnapped by the policy of teaching abstinence-only-until-
 marriage curricula in place of serious sexuality education?Wrapped in a kind 
of collective discursive cellophane, we believe it may be difficult for them to 
speak as their tongues are weighed down with dominant assumptions and 
 
 85 
 
panics; and, similarly, our ears may be clogged with our own dominant 
(feminist) discourses for their desires. (McClelland & Fine, 2008, p. 232, 
emphasis in original) 
Borrowing their term and idea of cellophane, I put forth the notion that Black women 
English teachers, too, are ?wrapped in a collective discursive cellophane.? This 
cellophane is constructed of a socio-political-educational context that sustains 
hegemonic racial stratification systems, privileges White middle class behaviors, 
habits, ways of thinking, and life-styles; silences and/or ignores the voices of 
educators of color, embraces the cultural deficit theory as a means to explain Black 
student underachievement, and uses White student achievement as the standard for 
success.  Furthermore, this socially-constructed cellophane consists of unhealed, 
unaddressed racial wounds from past systems of legalized segregation and slavery, 
and re-segregated unequal schools that continue to under-serve ? outright fail ? Black 
and Brown students.  Thus, as McClelland and Fine found that the true desires of the 
young women they studied were ?laminated? or hidden and embedded in society?s 
cellophane, I posit that such cellophane has also caused the silence, resistance, and 
omission in the ability and willingness of Black teachers to talk about the disconnect 
that may exist between themselves and their Black students or to self-reflect on how 
their own practices and beliefs may be implicated in the problem of Black student 
underachievement.   
To research and write on this cellophane, I took an approach like McClelland 
and Fine?s in which I ?play[ed] out the possibility that the silence is not an absence, 
but perhaps something else: an absence [I] know to be present,? prompting me to 
 
 86 
 
adjust my researcher lens to view ?missingness ?. [as] present but laminated in 
political and cultural cellophane? (p. 233).   This approach required methods that 
employ methodological release-point theory (McClelland & Fine, 2008). The 
elements of release-point theory I employed in this study included asking obvious 
questions, using focus groups for collective interrogations, and using theory as 
method. I will discuss each of these strategies in more detail in the methods section.  
4.1.6: Methods 
Teachers? Attitudes, Beliefs, and Practices Questionnaire  
This questionnaire, which utilized Hilliard?s (2003) ?gap closers? criteria 
(Appendix F) as a source for the questions (Appendix G), is the tool I used to begin to 
understand how the teachers viewed their practice in relationship to what Hilliard 
conceptualized as the qualities and practices of gap-closing teachers.   The 
questionnaire answers also served as data used to begin a profile for each teacher that 
was used during the data analysis period. In the questionnaire, teachers were asked to 
indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with a number of statements about their 
attitudes, beliefs, and practices, as it relates to Black students; they also had the 
option to select ?unable to answer.?   However, ?theory and design as method? says 
?unable to answer? may be an answer that is trapped within the metaphorical 
cellophane, an answer that the teacher may be afraid to submit due to how she has 
internalized society?s expectations, requirements, and limits for her as a Black person, 
and more specifically as a Black English teacher.  ?Theory and design as method? 
takes this fear into account in the design of the questions, enabling the researcher and 
research environment to give teachers permission to give honest, heartfelt responses 
 
 87 
 
to questions that beg for a politically correct answer, simply by asking obvious 
questions and then giving teachers an opportunity to elaborate upon their answers.  
Furthermore, in the event that teachers declined permission to speak their truth, 
theory and design as method allowed me to still recognize its existence and give voice 
to it in the analysis.  I talk more about analyzing ?missingness? in the interview 
portion of this chapter.  
Focus Groups 
Using a focus group in which writing prompts began the discussion allowed 
me to collect data in a way that utilized English teachers?presumed major strengths 
and interests: writing, interpretation, and discussion. Moreover, conducting these 
writing workshops in the form of consciousness-raising focus groups (CRG) 
(Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2008) not only provided useful data for me, but it was 
also a constructive reflective activity for the teachers, one that I hoped would help 
them reflect on their practices and their educational world views.  Focus groups 
provide freedom for the participants to be more involved in the research process, 
making the researcher less of an authoritative presence (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 
2008).  Additionally, ?the interaction occurring within the group accentuates empathy 
and commonality of experiences and fosters self-disclosure and self-validation? 
(Madriz, 2003, p. 375), gestures that are necessary when discussing sensitive and 
personal subject matter such as race, teacher self-efficacy, and Black student 
achievement. ?These groups constitute spaces for generating collective ?testimonies,? 
and these testimonies help both individual women and groups of women to find or 
produce their own unique and powerful ?voices? (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2008, p. 
 
 88 
 
384).  All of the women expressed gratitude for having the opportunity to come 
together to discuss their experiences as Black teachers, one of them leaving as their 
final comment that ?perhaps there is a continuing need for Black teachers to interact 
more often? (Jocasta, Final Journal Thoughts). 
Ultimately, I chose to have teachers talk as a group, in a setting in which 
talking about race was encouraged, because of my desire to discuss core issues related 
to Black achievement, from a Black perspective. The following quote explains my 
intent:  
We were interested in getting to the roots of problems in society ? we wanted 
to pull up weeds in the garden by their roots of roots, not just pick off the 
leaves at the top to make things look good momentarily.  
(Sarchild, as cited in Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2008, p. 144)  
Similarly, my hope was to get to the root of problems with Black student achievement 
and how Black teachers see their impact on it.  While the groups were initially 
conceptualized simply to gain teachers? perceptions, the voices of the women 
themselves changed the meetings into spaces where they could give voice to the 
mistreatment they felt by the students themselves and the districts in which they 
worked.  Thus, as CRGs were originally established within the second-wave of 
feminism to be not only a place to share but a place for women to organize for social 
change in the struggle for equal rights (Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2008), these focus 
groups became places where teachers discussed educational problems they felt 
needed addressing.   
 
 89 
 
  Focus groups are also noted as a methodological release point method 
(McClelland & Fine, 2008), a type of method this project required because of the 
sensitive and controversial nature of the subject under study.   Prior research has 
shown that some Black teachers resist speaking about how race influences their 
practice (Harper Lee, 2002) or they offer responses that reflect conventional, deficit 
views about Black student underachievement (Fordham, 1996; Foster, 1993; Lynn et 
al., 2010) or they say what socially-conscious Black people would expect them to 
say: that they feel a special sense of responsibility to Black students because of their 
shared racial identity (Dickar, 2008; Madsen & Hollins, 2000) and that they embrace 
an emancipatory teaching philosophy with regard to Black students (Foster, 1990; 
Irvine, 2002; Lynn, Johnson, & Hassan, 1999).   The group environment of focus 
groups offers a safe place to discuss difficult, emotional subject matters, because ?in 
groups, anxiety is allowed to float, whereas in one-one-one data-collection processes, 
the anxiety ?often has no room to drift? (McClelland & Fine, 2008, p. 248).  These 
focus groups met weekly for an entire month in order to build community and a sense 
of openness and trust within the group, with the hopes of yielding authentic data.  The 
location of the meetings changed from a university classroom to a breakfast diner 
near most of the participants? homes.  This location change initiated a change in the 
research group?s identity from a focus group meeting to a breakfast gathering for 
Black teachers.20 All meetings were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. When I 
was not writing with the teachers, I took field notes about what I saw and how I felt 
as teachers were involved in their own writing.   
                                                 
20
  See appendix M for a more detailed description of the evolution of the morning meetings.    
 
 90 
 
The focus groups resembled African American women?s book club meetings 
? the setting was comfortable, personable, and engaging.  Other researchers (Dixson 
& Dingus, 2008; Florio-Ruane, 2001; Motha, 2006) have structured their teacher 
inquiry studies this way and found the setting conducive to producing rich data.  I, 
too, have seen the benefits of such a setting first-hand when, for a graduate class 
project, I hosted a one-time ?Teacher Talk? focus group at my home.  I invited 
African American teachers from two neighboring districts to talk about their 
perspectives on teaching writing, and particularly their views of African American 
Vernacular English. I provided dinner, but also left the option for pot-luck 
contributions.  Teachers were happy to attend and they engaged in vigorous 
discussion throughout the evening.  I wrote topics on sheets of paper and I invited 
participants to write down anything they, too, wanted to discuss.  We then randomly 
picked the papers from a cup and discussed whichever topic we drew.  This method 
was not as effective as I had hoped.  We did not get to all of the topics I wanted to 
discuss because no one picked the topics.  I had to ?force? the topics into the 
discussion, which disrupted the democratic process I was trying to facilitate.   For this 
current study, I took a less restrictive but more deliberate approach by incorporating 
researcher-designed writing prompts into the focus group sessions. 
At each meeting, I first asked participants to complete a writing prompt in 
order to facilitate the type of reflective thinking teachers would need to engage in 
throughout each session. I allocated 30-35 minutes of each meeting for writing. I 
hoped the writing prompts would focus teachers? attention on themselves ? the 
practice of the teacher ? rather than on the student outcomes.  I wanted to make it 
 
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clear that we were there primarily to think and talk about ourselves as teachers.  I 
purposely chose expressive and transactional writing prompts that would require 
focused, critical thinking on the teaching ?self,? which was critical since ?we teach 
who we are? (Palmer, 1998, p. 1).    
The focus group questions were designed to spark conversation that would 
reveal answers to my research question, ?What are Black English teachers? 
perceptions of how they impact Black student achievement??  In the first session, I 
wanted to get background information on the teachers.  The session topic was ?Who 
are we as African American English teachers?  What are our similarities and 
differences??  I chose this as the introductory topic because I recognize that context 
must be included in analysis and I also wanted the teachers to begin to know and feel 
comfortable with each other.  In the first meeting, all participants already had some 
familiarity, as two of them worked at the same school and the other was a former 
student teacher at the same school.  This is also the school where I formerly worked.  
The writing prompt was an education-focused life history and asked teachers to 
tell the story of their involvement in education ? as students and as teachers.  
Teachers had the freedom to touch on any or all of the following in their narrative:  
? Education in the home 
? Primary and Secondary Schooling 
? College and Beyond 
? First Few Years of Teaching & Learning 
? Teaching & Learning Experiences ? Past and Present 
 
 
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I believed that learning about their educational history would provide insight into the 
development of their current perspectives on education. I wanted to know about how 
their racial identity was shaped in the home, what values their parents and other 
elders instilled in them about education, and how they experienced learning in 
primary and secondary school and in college.  I believed learning about these 
teachers? educational histories would help me begin to understand their perceptions of 
how they impacted Black student achievement.   
The topic for the second session was: ?What are my responsibilities as they relate 
to Black students?? The writing prompt was entitled: Teaching Philosophy/Style.  
Teachers were invited to choose one of the following prompts to complete: 
1.  Describe your teaching philosophy as it relates to Black students.  Include 
anecdotes from your teaching experiences to illustrate your philosophy in 
practice. 
2. Write a metaphorical poem in which you depict your teaching style by 
comparing it to something (maybe an animal or a medical 
procedure/experience).  
This topic and exercise were designed to generate information and prompt discussion 
about the teachers? self-described philosophy or belief about teaching Black students.  
Such information, I had hoped, would be windows into their beliefs about their 
impact on Black student achievement.  This prompt asked for teachers to be explicit 
about how they approached teaching Black students.  Their approach would help me 
to know how they perceive their role in impacting Black student achievement and 
how they strive to impact student success.  I initially titled this session topic in the 
 
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form of a question, ?What are my responsibilities as they relate to Black students??  
All teachers were given copies of the session topics at the first meeting and they were 
all phrased as questions.  I phrased them this way because I felt questions would more 
directly prompt reflection than just topic statements.  I also used the word ?my? in 
each question-phrased session topic, in an effort to make it personal for each teacher.  
I wanted them to think about themselves personally, not teachers in general.  
However, as our meetings evolved from ?just meetings? to a breakfast club for Black 
teachers, I phrased the meeting topics differently in my reminders.  This second 
meeting is when this shift first occurred.   
The subsequent meetings continued in this vein, with the topic for the third 
meeting, ?Walking in the Students' Shoes - Black Teachers' Quality of Service,? as 
opposed to the original ?How would students describe my ?quality of service? as it 
relates to teaching? How do I describe it??    Even though I framed the meetings 
slightly differently, I always began each meeting by stating the topic as it was 
originally written.  So, as I introduced ?Walking in the Students? Shoes ? Black 
Teachers? Quality of Service,? I elaborated by inviting teachers to think about how 
students would describe their quality of service as it relates to teaching and how they 
themselves describe it.  I felt their answers to these questions would help me see how 
they think they are perceived, which would provide insight into what they are doing 
in the classroom.   
The writing prompt for the third meeting was a perspective-taking activity.  
Teachers were invited to write a letter to themselves from one of their current or 
former students.  They were to choose a student who falls into one of the following 
 
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types:  High-achieving, amicable, or cooperative, or failing, defiant, and/or 
disagreeable.    Their choice of student and letter content would help me understand 
their view of themselves.  It is sometimes easier to discuss how one thinks others 
view him or her than it is to discuss how one views him or herself. We create in our 
minds others? perceptions of us, but those creations can sometimes be based on how 
we view ourselves.   Through this exercise and the resulting discussion, I could begin 
to draw conclusions about how these teachers perceived they were impacting Black 
student achievement.  
The fourth and final meeting was ?Reflections & Revelations:  Connecting My 
Practice to Black Student Achievement.? The topic was expressed this way in the original 
group meeting schedule.  Not as a question, but as a statement.  I left it the same in my 
reminder to the teachers.  I felt this would be an appropriate final topic because it would 
prompt teachers to think reflectively about all that had been discussed over the course of 
the meetings and perhaps experience some revelations about how their practice might 
contribute to Black student success or underachievement.  I wanted them to think 
explicitly about how their practice was connected to Black student achievement.  The 
writing prompt was a retirement letter focused on reflections and final words.  
Teachers were invited to write a ?retirement? letter to past, present, and future Black 
students and teachers.  They were given the option to consider touching on any of the 
following in their letters: 
? Reflections on Teaching Career (challenges and triumphs) 
? Message to Students 
? Message to Black Community & Community at-large 
? Message to Remaining and Future Black Teachers 
 
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I chose this writing prompt because I felt writing a ?final words? to past and present 
Black students might reveal a retrospective reflection of their teaching and learning 
experiences with students.  Writing to future Black students might reveal new ways in 
which teachers hoped their practice would impact Black students.  Writing to current 
and future Black teachers and the Black community at large would inspire frank talk 
about what they think needs to be done for Black students and whether they had been 
doing it or not.  Asking teachers to reflect on their challenges and triumphs would 
prompt honest, heartfelt accounts of how they perceived their impact was felt.   
I asked teachers to write these personal reflections because as English teachers 
I assumed they would be comfortable and find joy in this activity. I also recognize 
that such expressive ? or personal ? writing is the mode of writing that is considered 
?close to the self? (Britton, 1972, p. 96).  I was looking to gain teachers? perspectives 
of themselves as teachers of African American students after they have taken time to 
self-reflect.  In other words, writing was the means for teachers to know and begin to 
bring clarity to their roles as teachers. I also used writing as a research tool, believing 
that ?writing is also a way of knowing ? a method of discovery and analysis.  By 
writing in different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to 
it? (Richardson, 2000, p. 923, as cited in Park, 2005).  Park (2005) posits that 
?through the use of language, especially writing, experience is clarified and finally 
understood, and the self conceptualized? (p. 24). Participants shared their work with 
the group in an effort to construct collaborative meaning from the dialogue. They also 
submitted all work to me for artifact analysis. I also included an opportunity for 
teachers to keep a reflective journal of their thoughts and experiences as members of 
 
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the focus group, which they were invited to complete at the end of each meeting and 
leave with me for artifact analysis.  Similar writing-as-method approaches have been 
employed in studies of National Writing Project teachers, yielding results useful at 
both the academic theory-building and school community levels (see Lieberman & 
Friedrich, 2007). With the exception of the first meeting, teachers chose not to reflect 
in writing at the end of each meeting; instead, teachers continued to chat with each 
other (and me) about the day?s topic.  
Semi-structured Interviews 
I used the results of the writing workshop artifacts, focus group transcriptions, 
and questionnaire responses to formulate questions for individual follow-up 
interviews with each participant. These interviews, which lasted for 1-1.5 hours, 
provided opportunities for me to follow up on, unpack, and clarify ideas born during 
the focus group sessions.  I used the interview-as-conversation approach (Kvale, 
1996), with the goal of setting an environment in which a blending of ?everyday 
conversation? and ?philosophical dialogue? can occur. Framing it as an everyday 
philosophical conversation set a tone that encouraged mutual exchange.    I 
intentionally sought to minimize the perception of the meeting as an official 
?professional interview? in which the researcher is in charge (Kvale, 1996); still, it 
was a professional research interview, one with the goal of obtaining knowledge 
about how the informants perceived their role in impacting Black student 
achievement.  Drawing on McClelland and Fine?s (2008) methodological release 
point theory, I asked obvious questions, ?questions [s] that appear [ed] na?ve but 
[were] quite provocative? (p. 249).  For example, I asked Ms. Tan, ?What constitutes 
 
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an achievement and how do you know if students have achieved it??  One might 
assume there would be an obvious answer such as the student earns a good grade or 
the student performs well on a text.  A deeper look at the question reveals its 
provocativeness in that what constitutes an achievement for one teacher may not 
constitute an achievement for another; the answer would reveal something about the 
teacher?s philosophy on achievement. This obvious question would prompt the 
teacher to think about the answer to a question that would be presumed to have an 
obvious answer.  
4.1.7: Methods of Analysis 
The use of a non-conventional methodological approach warrants the use of 
non-traditional tools of analysis (Appendix I).  Thus, as I analyzed data, I sought to 
distance myself from literature or experiences that might inhibit my ability to see new 
possibilities in the data, to avoid standard ways of thinking about Black teachers, and 
to not take any parts of the data for granted. I strove to debunk my assumptions about 
Black teachers? roles in impacting Black student achievement, and to not rush past 
?diamonds in the rough? within the data (Strauss & Corbin, 2008, p. 67).  I also 
?questioned? the data and considered various meanings of words as two main analytic 
tools (Strauss & Corbin, 2008).  I also looked for what appeared to be ?missing? in 
the data, and then gave it presence through my analysis (McClelland & Fine, 2008).  
In the spirit of Cordova?s (2004) reflexive21 research process, with the above 
strategies in mind, I used the focus group transcripts as my primary way of 
                                                 
21
  In this context, reflexive denotes an ?in the moment? decision; not haphazard spontaneity, but, 
rather, the willingness to change and adjust as necessary.  My research process exemplified this 
reflexive process.  
 
 98 
 
identifying theoretical codes that would eventually lead me to the study?s emergent 
themes (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). Using NVivo 9 qualitative analysis 
software, I utilized open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 2008) to identify emic and etic 
substantive categories, categories taken directly from the participants? words and 
those that I created based on my own observations and interpretations (See Appendix 
J).   
Preliminary analysis started at each focus group meeting.  As teachers 
completed their writing prompts, I either completed the same writing prompt or took 
field notes on my observations of their writing processes as well as my feelings 
during the writing prompt time. I also sometimes took notes during the actual focus 
group discussions, capturing moments of silence or striking statements, or jotting 
down questions that I wanted to be sure to address.  
Analysis also occurred through the writing of poetic portraits. Shifting my 
writing from didactic prose to evocative poetry helped me to ?re-see? the data 
(Lahman et al., 2011), allowing me to overcome the crisis of representation (Denzin 
& Lincoln, 2008) I was experiencing with representing the teachers? perspectives and 
experiences.   
After the first focus group meeting, my analytic process included 11 stages: 
1. Transcription began after the first focus group meeting. I transcribed three 
of the four focus group meetings. The other meeting was transcribed by a 
professional transcription service. I read the professionally-transcribed 
transcripts while listening to the digital recording to clarify responses and 
to confirm the accuracy of the transcription. Using the open-coding 
 
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process (Corbin & Strauss, 2008), I coded22 the focus group transcripts by 
looking for frequency of words and ideas. Based on the frequency of 
words and ideas, I developed emic and etic code categories (Appendix J). 
These codes, known as emergent themes in the portraiture methodology, 
became my initial analytical categories and were used as baseline bins for 
continuing analysis of the focus groups and the interview and 
questionnaire data.  I was open to additional codes emerging throughout 
analysis, and while the initial codes remained true throughout the analysis 
process, a few new codes emerged from the interview data and writing 
prompts, including teachers? definitions of achievement and their more- 
than-content teaching philosophies.  I discuss these codes and my process 
for determining which would become the study?s emergent themes in 
stages 8 and 9 of my analytic process description.  
2. I transferred the writing prompts from teachers? journals to the computer 
by typing them into a Microsoft Word Document.  I then analyzed them 
by applying nontraditional analysis methods such as questioning the data, 
not taking anything for granted and not looking past ?diamonds in the 
rough? (Strauss & Corbin, 2008, p. 67). I did the same for the 
questionnaire data, and I also looked for how the responses connected to 
the analytical categories identified in the focus group transcripts.   
3. The focus group transcripts, the writing prompt, and the questionnaire 
were all also used to generate follow-up questions to ask at the interview.  
                                                 
22
  In portraiture, looking for emergent themes is the same process captured in the term ?coding? 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). 
 
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I read the writing prompts and the questionnaire with my research 
question and methodological and theoretical perspectives in mind.  Where 
I felt I needed more contextualizing background information, I developed 
relevant questions. Where I felt the notion of race and/or racialized 
experiences was not considered in the prompt or in the focus group, I 
generated follow-up questions (Appendix H) that I felt would better help 
me understand how these contextualizing factors may have influenced 
their perspectives.   
4. After generating follow-up questions, I scheduled one-on-one interviews 
with each participant.  The interview sessions were semi-structured, 
following an interview-as-conversation (Kvale, 1996) format.  I allowed 
my follow-up questions to guide the conversations, but I allowed 
participants to talk freely, letting the conversation go where participants 
took them unless they got far off topic, at which point I would bring the 
interview back to focus by repeating or asking a new question.  I made 
sure to have a chance to ask the questions I had designated as definitely 
needing answering in order for me to answer the research question.   
5. I transcribed the interviews following each session, focusing only on those 
portions of the interviews relevant to my research question. I did not 
transcribe unrelated, tangential interview portions.   
6. Following interviews, based on what I felt the moment dictated, I 
sometimes wrote analytic memos to capture my thoughts about the 
meetings and to think about how the interview data could move me closer 
 
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to answering my research question; other times, I immediately re-listened 
to the interview, focusing on parts that I felt were key to answering my 
research question. I transcribed those portions after listening.   I also 
recorded verbal analytic memos to myself to capture my evolving thoughts 
about the data in relation to my research question and goals.  Some of 
these audio memos eventually served as the inspiration for actual written 
portions of the dissertation.  
7. Next, I triangulated the data by performing a constant comparison (Corbin 
& Strauss, 2008) process, which entailed looking for points of 
confirmation and difference between the interview data, the focus groups, 
the writing prompts and the questionnaire answers.  I often found points of 
confirmation but I also discovered some points of contradiction, which 
highlighted the duality and complexity present in the teachers? 
perceptions.  For example, during the first focus group meeting, one of the 
teachers, Ms. X, expressed resentment toward her school and English 
department for expecting the Black teachers to teach all of the non-honors 
students, Black students she said were the school?s main discipline 
problems.  In her writing prompt for the same session, however, Ms. X 
expressed strong affinity for her school, saying ?I love it there. I love the 
kids, and the fact that on most days I am allowed to teach and not expected 
to be a baby sitter? (Writing Prompt #1).  
8. To determine the overarching emergent theme, I determined which codes 
were the most dominant by using the NVivo software to produce a visual 
 
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diagram of the words that were coded most frequently (Appendix K).  
?Disrespect,? ?culture as problem,? ?teacher emotion,? and ?race issues? 
were determined to be the most dominant themes based on the number of 
focus group references linked to these codes and based on the results of 
triangulating with the questionnaire, interview, and writing prompt data.  I 
then reviewed the most dominant theoretical codes to determine which 
ones were most strongly present across all teachers. Teacher emotion 
emerged as the choice.  I looked at the data holistically and recalled the 
tone, tempo, and content of conversations at the focus group meetings and 
in the interviews to determine which emotion was most present for all 
teachers and concluded that it was ?frustration.?  Frustration was present 
in moments of extended silences in focus groups, when I asked teachers 
challenging questions about hope for Black student achievement and in 
moments of exasperation or dumbfoundedness in interviews when I asked 
teachers to share specific ways their instructional strategies translated into 
achievement for students.  Moreover, when looking back over the 
transcripts I noticed that teachers not only implicitly expressed a feeling of 
frustration, but that both Ms. Tan and Ms. J used the term explicitly to 
describe feelings about teaching efforts and relationships with Black 
students, respectively.  ?Race issues,? ?disrespect,? ?culture as problem,? 
?student ability,? ?student as problem,? and ?teachers? upbringings,? were 
also strongly present in the data.   Data under all of these codes connected 
 
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to the frustration teachers expressed; therefore, I considered them all 
heavily in my emergent theme discussion.   
a. I determined the categories of frustration by first looking at the 
data portions that were coded to the frustration theme.  I organized 
the frustrations into two groups, ?individual frustrations? and 
?collective frustrations,? frustrations expressed by individual 
teachers and those expressed by the teachers collectively.  I then 
shared my categories with a critical friend (Merriam & Simpson, 
1995) for feedback on my designations.  Based on my critical 
friend feedback, I further broke the categories down according to 
the specific types of frustration the data reflected.  Resulting 
categories included institutional frustration, pedagogical 
frustration, relational frustration, positional frustration, and cultural 
frustration.     
9. While ?frustration? emerged as the study?s most dominant theme, my 
analysis did not stop there.  With the principles of portraiture in mind, it 
was necessary for me to continue combing the data for the ?goodness? and 
to ensure I represented the teachers? views holistically and completely 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).  I asked myself and the data, ?Is 
being frustrated the teachers? only message? Is it a complete answer to the 
research question??  Rereading and reflecting on the writing prompts and 
transcripts and looking over less-referenced focus group codes in light of 
my research question revealed additional, less dominant, but pertinent 
 
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themes pertaining to teachers? definitions of achievement and their 
pedagogical philosophies. I describe these themes as less-dominant 
because when compared to the frustration teachers expressed about 
various aspects of their teaching experiences, they did not compare. While 
teachers articulated their views of achievement and their perceptions of the 
ways they helped students achieve, they did not emphasize these views ? 
neither qualitatively nor quantitatively ? in our discussions. I had to probe 
for these views, because teachers chose to focus more on the disturbing 
situations they felt interfered with their efforts to impact Black student 
achievement; therefore, I spend the bulk of my emergent theme analysis 
describing the types of frustrations each teacher articulated.      
10. Creating the teacher poetic portraits was not a straight forward activity.  I 
initially struggled with how to depict them in portraits.  In the design of 
my study, I had not intended for internal context23  (Lawrence-Lightfoot & 
Davis, 1997) to be particularly salient for this study because the majority 
of the research would take place outside of the participants? natural 
surroundings, but because of the focus group location change to a 
neighborhood diner, I thought considering the internal context might make 
for a richer portrait.   In an attempt to attend to internal context, I initially 
tried to reconstruct the scene of the focus group meetings at the breakfast 
table, but I soon realized that the background noises of plates clattering, 
waiters and waitresses taking orders, and customers engaged in chatter 
                                                 
23
  Internal context is the physical space in which the action takes place (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 
1997.)   
 
 105 
 
provided little contextual relevance for the topics we were discussing at 
our meetings.  I then considered the physical spaces in which the 
interviews took place: around Jefferson?s school grounds, at restaurants, 
and in a teacher?s classroom.  Might there have been details in those 
scenes that would provide contextual information that would help bring 
the teachers? messages forward (Ward, 2011)?  My writing suffered at this 
point. The details of the physical spaces were not significant.  I decided to 
return to my initial plan to base my portraits on my many conversations 
with teachers and on the biographical and historical contextualizing 
information that I had learned about them.  Still, my writing did not flow.  
I felt that the perceptions and experiences the teachers shared were so 
powerful and rich that I was not quite sure how to convey them in a way 
that would capture the essence of how the teachers presented herself. At 
this point, I revisited examples of how others who had used portraiture had 
represented their participants, which is when I became drawn to Hill?s 
(2005) work with poetic portraits.   Hill (2003, 2005) extended the 
portraiture methodology to include poetry in order to meet her research 
needs, using portraiture?s two defining features ? context and voice ? to 
create poetic portraits of each participant.  Following Hill?s (2003, 2005) 
example helped me through my crisis of representation (Denzin & 
Lincoln, 2008) and resulted in rich poetic portrayals of my study?s 
research participants. Because ?poetry is a form of evocative writing that 
can create emotional and cognitive responses? (Ward, 2011, p. 358), using 
 
 106 
 
it as a medium to construct the teachers? portraits enabled me to convey 
not only their views on impacting Black student achievement, but the 
defining experiences and emotions that accompanied ? and in some cases 
shaped them ? them as well.  I strategically wrote to evoke both cognitive 
and emotional reader responses.  I recognized that poetic re-presentation is 
a deliberate form of evocative text? (Ward, 2011, p. 358), so I gave myself 
artistic license (Eisner, 2005) to experiment creatively with form and 
layout to convey the teachers? voices, experiences, and perspectives. I 
utilized the braided time (Clark et al., 2005) model of depiction to capture 
a composite snapshot of the perspectives and experiences the teachers 
shared throughout the study.   ?In braided time, the beginning, the middle, 
and the end are wound around and circle back onto one another the way 
that braided hair does. The first becomes the last becomes the middle 
strand of time just as is the case in braided hair? (Clark et al., 2005, p. 
924). The resulting poems were similar to those in Clark et al.?s (2005) 
study in that ?the poems were based on the pared down chronology and 
logic-in-use of the participants. They included what seemed to be salient 
events in the words of the respondents? (p. 918).  
11.  To construct the portraits, I reviewed the codes and themes I had already 
identified and then combed through, meditated upon, and reflected upon 
the interview and focus group transcripts, the questionnaire answers, and 
the journal writings. I also brought to mind visual and auditory memories 
of the time I spent with all of the teachers in an effort to depict the 
 
 107 
 
demeanor, mood, and voice they projected. I thought about what message 
the teachers seemed to be sending about their experiences and perceptions 
and how their backgrounds and upbringings may have influenced their 
perspectives.  For example, I considered Ms. X?s northern upbringing and 
the stories she told about racial conflicts with teachers and students as I 
conveyed the strong resistance she had to being labeled a Black teacher. I 
brought to mind Ms. Tan?s early love for books as I articulated the 
frustration she felt about novels being eliminated from the English 
education curriculum.  As I considered these types of contextualizing 
examples for each teacher, I looked for confirmation of perspectives and 
feelings across all data sources.   
Presentation of Findings 
The study?s findings are presented in two separate chapters.  The first includes 
the poetic portraits and serve as introductions to the teachers? voices, experiences, and 
perceptions.  The portraits are written to evoke the tone and style of the individual 
study participants in an effort to engage the audience as if they were actually present 
in the meetings with the teachers.  As Cahnmann (2003) explains, ?taking in the many 
different visual layouts of poems on the page offers researchers new ways to 
represent interview data that respect the tone and movement of the original 
conversation in ways that may not yet have been imagined in education research 
before? (Cahnmann, 2003, p. 31). As I created my poetic portraits, I wanted readers 
to feel the teachers? emotions, and to develop a vicarious relationship with them 
through the poems? words, form, and layout (Richardson, 2000).   The second 
 
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findings chapter depicts the teachers? perceptions and experiences in the more 
traditional emergent theme format.  
 
Subjectivity, Representation, and Validity 
?The message expressed in a painting or a research portrait is the vision of the artist 
or researcher? (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 34).   
I was not seeking to ?represent? a mirror image of these teachers? lives and 
experiences; rather, I was looking to analyze their verbal, nonverbal, and written 
contributions in an effort to develop portraits that reflected their perceptions and 
experiences.  I aimed to produce ?evocative? rather than ?representational? portraits 
(Park, 2005, p. 41), making an effort to balance evoking my voice over the 
participants? voices, recognizing that in portraiture, the researcher is the primary 
research tool (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005; Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). The 
researcher negotiates how the portrait will be represented. I recognized my subjective 
role in representation, as ?the element of self is at play in all parts of the 
implementation of the methodology ? forging relationships, determining context, 
searching for coherence, defining expression, and balancing a unified representation? 
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 35).  Throughout the research process, I was 
constantly aware of how my personal context, as well as my voices of interpretation, 
autobiography, and preoccupation influenced the questions I asked and the resulting 
analysis.24   
                                                 
24
  I discussed the roles of context and voice earlier in this chapter.  
 
 109 
 
In addition to considering and being mindful of issues of representation, I also 
considered my own subjectivity as I analyzed data, how my values and expectations 
influenced how I conducted the study and my conclusions (Maxwell, 2005). Because 
?what the informant says is always influenced by the interviewer and the interview 
situation? (Maxwell, 2005, p. 109), I had to be intentional about how I positioned 
myself to my informants.  I entered the project with a position:  I believed some 
Black teachers might have been complicit ? although they may not have realized it ? 
in the problem of Black student underachievement. I did not believe, though, that they 
were the root cause or the blame.   They were simply products of their experiences as 
raced people in a historically racist society.  I had to be careful about how I 
communicated this personal opinion, for I assumed such an opinion might offend 
some of the teachers.  Thus, I never explicitly stated this belief. As I have discussed, 
research indicates that some Black teachers adopt mainstream society?s deficit view 
of explaining Black student underachievement (Delpit, 2006; Fordham, 1996; Lynn et 
al., 2010), a view that does not encourage teachers to self-reflect on their own 
practice and how it might be contributing to student underachievement.  I had to be 
careful, however, not to be or appear judgmental or accusatory, as if I were simply a 
researcher interested in ?the exotic, the bizarre, the violent? (Weis & Fine, 2000, p. 
50).  I wanted my research process to reflect compassion and mindfulness (Conklin, 
2009), but without sacrificing honesty (North, 2009).  To remain true to my 
intentions, I intentionally looked for the goodness (Conklin, 2009) in the research 
and, in particular, in the research participants, recognizing and embracing the fact that 
even ?goodness? has imperfections (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).   
 
 110 
 
In addition to my personal opinions and positions, the subjectivity I brought to 
the research process as a doctoral candidate in education well versed in issues 
surrounding education for minorities, and experienced, pedagogically, as a former 
secondary-level classroom teacher, certainly impacted the contributions I made to 
focus group discussions as a participant observer.  As a result, I forced myself to limit 
my contributions as an active participant and I strove to be more of a third party 
observer, and to, as much as possible, allowing my subjectivity entrance into the data 
only as a contextualized analytical element (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).   
4.1.8: Methodological Limitations  
Throughout this chapter, I have addressed methodological limitations that 
existed in the form of validity threats.  I discussed the validity threats that emerged as 
I negotiated relationships with participants with whom I had varying levels and 
depths of relationships, as well as the challenges I expected to face as I tried to elicit 
sensitive, controversial information from teachers laminated in the cellophane 
(McClelland & Fine, 2008) of society?s social and political constructions of racism, 
privilege, and hegemony. Additionally, I have described the limitations I, as the 
primary tool of research, brought to the study in the form of my personal and 
professional subjectivities. In addition to these intangible, but important, limitations, I 
recognize that more general, tangible limitations also exist, such as the study?s limited 
number of participants, its absence of field observations, its short duration, and its 
focus only on female teachers.   
While I agree that increasing the longevity of the study could lead to a more 
complete picture (Becker & Geer, 1957, as referenced in Maxwell, 2005) of Black 
 
 111 
 
English teachers? perceptions, I do not believe increasing the number of participants 
would make the results any more valuable simply by virtue of studying more 
teachers.  Focusing on just five teachers allowed for stronger research relationships, 
which led to more authentic, detailed data.  Furthermore, including too many 
participants would have limited the time each participant would have had to make 
contributions to focus group discussions and may have resulted in data saturation 
(Morgan, 1996).  Another possible limitation is the absence of observations of 
teachers teaching.  Although classroom observations would have provided for greater 
contextualizing of each teacher?s portrait, I was interested in teachers? perceptions 
(i.e., self-reported data), and thus, observations were not necessary in the design of 
this study.   Lastly, my decision to focus only on women could be viewed as a 
limitation because of the exclusion of the male voice. The male voice is certainly 
important to the conversation on Black teachers and Black student achievement and 
other scholars (e.g. Bridges, 2009; Brown, 2009; Lynn, 2002) are actively engaged in 
research agendas focusing on their experiences and views.  The design of this study, 
however, aimed to create a space where Black women English teachers? voices would 
be privileged in an environment of emotional and professional safety.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 112 
 
Chapter 5:  Teacher Introductions ? Poetic Portraits 
 
The poetic portraits in this chapter depict the perceptions and experiences of 
the study participants at the time of the study, highlighting the paths that brought 
them to teaching, their teaching philosophies, the influences of their upbringings, 
educational histories, and the frustrating challenges they faced in their teaching 
careers.   Portraiture?s emphasis on context, voice, and search for goodness helped me 
create aesthetically whole and analytically powerful portraits. I strove to paint 
pictures that emphasized the perceptions and experiences most salient for each 
teacher during the course of the research project.  I aimed to evoke the presence, 
attitude, and perceptions each teacher brought to the study.  I included details and 
anecdotes from the teachers? educational life histories to contextualize the viewpoints 
they shared in the discussions and interviews.  I used the teachers? historical contexts 
as analytical shaping mechanisms for the poetic portraits. My voice as well is also 
present in the poems through my analytical insights into the perceptions, experiences, 
and persona of each teacher.  My third person omniscient voice is intertwined with 
the voices of each teacher, conveying my analytical insights in concert with the views 
teachers expressed explicitly.   I provide direct quotations from the teachers to 
support my analysis.  These composite portraits serve as introductions of the teachers, 
artful glimpses into their educational experiences and thoughts about their work with 
Black students.  
 
 
 113 
 
 
Ms. Tan    
                                    I 
Five-foot, honey brown skin, the flash of her soft,  
but broad and vibrant grin says beauty 
Ms. Tan, will-you-be-my-prom-date-beauty 
 
Almond eyes  
Transparent.  
Curious. 
Full.  
Bright. 
Sincere.  
 
She desires to improve.  
She is open to growth. 
Collegiality is her middle name.  
 
One of only two African Americans in her otherwise all White department, 
Her efforts at collaboration are not always reciprocated.  
 
?There are many frustrating aspects  
of what I'm trying to do as an English teacher 
 that I think are you know held back,  
my efforts are shot down.? 
 
Resilience empowers her. 
 
?It's just not academic enough.  
I'm definitely disappointed  
coming from the university  
to teaching  
to not find  
a more scholarly atmosphere.? 
 
Professionalism sustains and strengthens.  
                                  II 
When Ms. Tan was born she had a book in her hand.   
?So, my mother put books in my crib.  Mind you,  
that was before they came up with books that toddlers can?t rip up.   
Consequently, my mother did a lot of taping.? 
 
Mom was advised by Aunt Elma who was the Dean of a Georgia HBCU  
Mom was one of many in a long line of college educated kin 
Dad, a Panamanian American, was college-educated, too.   
 
 114 
 
?So, there was never a question that at the very least,  
I?d get my bachelor?s degree.  It was unspoken.? 
 
She earned her master?s degree and is working on National Board Certification,  
carrying on the family legacy of choosing education. 
She teaches 9th and 10th grade English  
She sponsors the National Honor Society 
She is not idle, but she is not satisfied.  
 
Still gobbling up books 
Living to read, striving to write a book (20 minutes a day!) 
A member of two book clubs 
Literature circles abound in her classroom 
Afraid books are going bye-bye 
She wonders what her future lessons will be  
 
 ?When they close Borders and Barnes and Nobles  
and everybody thinks it?s cool to read on a piece of metal,  
books are going to go the way of the video store ? the rental store.? 
 
?I feel disillusioned with what I?m doing in general.  Like, what is my objective to 
teach kids?  What am I really preparing them for?  Seriously.? 
 
 
                            III 
 ?Yes, Summer.  
No, Summer.? 
Hearing her call me Summer became more normal as I started to call her by  
her first name 
We were deepening our teacher-friend relationship 
A strong, intangible connection, but present 
We wanted the same things that all the teachers wanted:  
to be heard, to share, to be understood, to engage, to connect 
to trust 
Her participation was earnest; she was always fully present. 
 
In the late 1980s, went to a PWI25  
wanted to forge genuine cross-racial relationships with White people. 
She sat next to them in class, but they did not see her. 
 
Tried again with White colleagues on the job  
and in graduate school 
 
Unsuccessful.   
                                                 
25
  Predominantly White Institution 
 
 115 
 
 
Why, she wonders?   
 
Even her White students leave the relationship at door at the end of the year 
Why can?t she develop White friendships that work? 
Not that she is yearning for them, but she?s open to them 
She attributes the lack to way back when  
The only little boys and girls she sat next to were 
Black.  
 
?My whole world was Black.? 
 
 ?Only in junior high school did I realize that my whole world wasn?t Black.    
My history teacher had to tell me that.   
The whole time before that, I was like,  
what is the big deal about White people ? they only on T.V. and at the mall.? 
 
Teaching was good at the all-Black school, her first teaching assignment 
?I remember, like we did these paintings things,  
 I?d say like, in college you?ll take an art class  
they?ll put up a painting  
you?ll just say what you think? 
Her students said, ?What?!?  
?And then by the third or fourth one,  
they were excited to do it.?  
 
Racial uplift, advocacy ? motivating her teaching philosophy 
She could talk about race with those kids. 
 
Teaching was draining at her second and longest teaching assignment,  
 the integrated, magnet school where most of the Black kids were tracked into the 
regular (low) classes.  These Black kids were different. 
 ?I think they?ve had too much  
so they always expect to get what they want.  
It?s more of a privileged mentality.? 
 
These Black kids did not buy in  
to her ?I?m preparing you for life? teaching philosophy.  
They, like their parents, felt they were already prepared.   
What did Ms. Tan have to offer them?    
 
These Black kids were different.  
 ?I do have trouble relating to kids that don?t do their work,  
cause I was never in any classroom as a student like that.?   
 
She didn?t talk about race with these kids.  
 
 116 
 
Inhibited by integration?s freedoms.   
?I've had bad experiences  
with things I was too candid with  
coming back to me from a parent complaining? 
 
?We?re just like fighting a losing battle in the classroom,  
trying to fight this big, huge culture.? 
 
Culture of Society 
American culture 
  Values 
   Morals 
    Ways of being 
      Work habits 
?I know growing up,  
we had more positive public declarations  
of those types of expectations,  
teachers were allowed to say, it?s not cool to litter  
they could tell us some values.  
So I really feel like the culture  
is not supporting  
the values that we are trying to instill.? 
 
                              IV 
Fifteen years in and looking for a way out. 
 
?There?s no joy left in teaching.? 
If the culture of kids were different, 
If expectations for teachers were realistic, 
she would welcome staying 
 at least till the 20-year mark 
The teaching she knew and loved is,  
in her eyes,  
a hazy dream of the past 
 
Work (teaching Black students) has become a chore.  
 
?There?s no joy left in teaching.?  
 
 
Ms. Jocasta 
 ?Put this in your book.  I want this in your book.? 
Sixty-three-year-old Ms. Jocasta, the fairy godmother of education,  
 
 117 
 
leading students down the yellow brick road,  
a road full of surprises, challenges, and obstacles.   
 
In the teaching world she imagined, Ms. Jocasta would be   
Guiding her students to literary discoveries,  
global revelations and pure witty word fun.   
She would use her intellectual wand  
to tap into hearts and minds  
turning the world into a learning play land  
 With her wand she would  
repair deficiencies  
restore pride  
build bridges to opportunity. 
She would help close the minority achievement gap.    
 
But the students would not follow. 
 
?The administration and the kids.  
They see me as the outlier. I talk funny.  
They don?t know this is just me.  
I?m not putting on anything.  
Sometimes the only think I can think of is a big word.  
I?m sorry.? 
 
II 
Ms. Jocasta 
 disenchanted  
constantly rejected 
growing more weary every day 
hope and enthusiasm zapped 
she sits over in the corner 
hands on head, buried in paperwork and criticism 
 
Five years into her teaching career 
?I question my decision to become a teacher.  
I love the language and the literary marvels  
that exist in English,  
but I am not a good teacher?   
?So I started cussing a lot and I 
started smoking again. And I 
started eating again. I?ve gained, 
how much? I think I?ve gained 
close to 30 lbs in 5 years.? 
Armed with cherished childhood weapons ?  
Reading and Writing ? she is powerless in her classroom.  
A living critique of Alternative Certification Programs 
 
 118 
 
 
A pre-med turned English-major 
teaching was a third career.   
Former titles include  
Law-school student 
copy-editor 
legal assistant  
director of legal services 
corporate worker   
 
Many lives that led her down the path to teaching  
?I?m going to take some of my savings  
         and put myself on a plan to find a job 
                 that is something I really, really want to do,  
and I came up with teaching,   
cause I loved the language,  
I loved the reading and writing, I did it well,  
and I had encountered  
               so many young Black people  
                            when I was hiring who were  
painfully, always, always, always  
less well-educated  
than my other employees,   
so much so that when I hired them,  
invariably they turned out to be poorer employees as well.? 
 
 ?I deliberately was looking for African American people  
 and I didn't find too many.  
Out of all of them, I ended up with only six  
and um, they liked to talk on the phone,  
they called in a lot sick,  
they came in late a lot,  
all the, stereotypes,  
well that was a lot of the reason why I wanted to be a teacher.? 
 
And ?that?s why I?m getting out of it.? 
?Put this in your book.  I want this in your book.? 
   
 
                           III 
But there is power in her wand 
Funny, she never mentioned it. 
I couldn?t wait to bring it up? 
 
 
 119 
 
?Room 102, 102?there it is? 
What?!!  
It?s Ms. Jocasta?s room!  
I open the door and can barely get in for the crowd ?  
wall to wall, board to board, Ms. Jocasta?s room was bumping!   
Music blasting 
 student disc jockies  
Wii dance action going in the corner  
boxes and boxes and boxes of 
pizza 
home baked goods  
sodas 
 and a smiling Ms. Jocasta at the helm.? 
  Had she forgotten about these kids?  
 
Not her focus ? former honors students 
Present focus: her current hell ? non-honors repeaters 
In all of her classes! 
 
?Put this in your book.  I want this in your book.? 
?You racist pigs!?  
she screamed at her Black students  
who ate candy from the hands of Whitey teacher but 
ignored Ms. Jocasta?s brown hands and what they offered. 
 ?You racist pigs!? 
 
An upbringing in the North 
Living and learning with Whites, Blacks, and Jews 
did not prepare her for schooling in Jim Crow Maryland 
And neither did her parents, religious zealots who  
encouraged proselytizing instead of post-secondary school 
?I was an abused child.?  
 And an abused teacher 
Plopped into a classroom two weeks 
into her resident teacher coursework 
because the predominantly Black district 
desperately needed teachers 
She?d be given support, so she agreed.  
? I didn?t know what I was doing!? 
 
?Put this in your book.  I want this in your book.?   
 
?Perhaps there?s an ongoing need for Black teachers to continue meeting.? 
 
 120 
 
?Put this in your book.  I want this in your book.? 
   
 
Ms. X  
                                            ?My first sentences were in standard English.?   
labels 
limits 
long burgundy locks 
moved and meant 
to resist 
to object 
Ms. X. 
 ?I am the great granddaughter of a man who was a teacher.? 
comfortable in blue jeans, sneakers 
and Jefferson High School staff shirt 
15 years at the same school and 
?not to sound vain,  
but I am at the point where 
 I am pretty sure that my practices are effective.? 
?My great grandfather was the heart and soul of a one room 
school house in North Carolina. He ran his school with an iron 
fist, and a heart of gold.?   
  
After 10 days on earth, moved north to New York 
Became one of the only  
in predominantly White Catholic school classrooms 
  
?So the White kids were calling me nigger  
and the Black kids were calling me White  
or whatever, you talk White, you do this, blah, blah, blah,  
and I quickly realized 
 that they had unfortunately assigned success or standard English  
a color and that color excluded them.  
I quickly realized how sad that was 
 and how sad it was for them that they  believed it.   
Insights inspired by parents who ?would not let me go there?? 
  
But parents who insisted where  
she go to college be an HBCU 
It was a family tradition. 
  
 
 121 
 
A tradition she broke after 1 year 
?I HATED IT! 
 It was as if all the stereotypes of Black folk 
 convened upon the student body of that institution.   
I was on the dean?s list and earned good grades, 
 but because I was a ?northerner?  
who spoke standard English and had diverse interests, 
 I was ?suspect.??   
?He did not put up with any crap, and he was admired 
by the community, and his family adored him.?   
?I don?t want to pull myself into any pigeon hole 
 and I?m not gonna pull my kids into any pigeon hole 
especially if it is a negative or a narrow one.? 
?I?m tired of trying to fit into everybody?s role, screw em.? 
Resist. Reject. 
?when I was  (ahumph) consenting 
 to teach TAG26 classes,  
and I was really good at teaching tag classes ? 
I had a couple (of parents) tell me,  
well how long have you been out of college,  
how well do you know this material?? 
  
And now she doesn?t teach any tag classes.  
  
A natural comedian  
?You always laughed with us, and made each of us feel special.?  
Spontaneous breaks 
Into Madea27 impersonations  
at any moment   
 
She kept us laughing 
  
                II 
A world traveler and teacher 
Lived in Europe and Africa 
?I hope I am able to bring my students  
my authentic self, 
 to share my knowledge and love of English, 
 but also infuse it with the life lessons  
I?ve learned through living and working outside of the USA.?   
  
                                                 
26
  Talented and Gifted (TAG) 
27
  Madea is a popular movie personality created and played by actor Tyler Perry.  Madea is known for 
being loud and using foul, comical language.  
 
 122 
 
She knew there had to be more to the world 
more ways to live 
than by racism and colorism 
?He was a Renaissance man, an artist and 
musician as well as an intellectual.?   
Sensitive to and affected by race-based experiences 
She dismisses and defies the fact that 
Race matters 
  
?I don?t just teach the African American students? 
?I don?t want to get to a point  
where this is a Black school and this is a White school 
this Black teacher can only teach Black students  
this White teacher can only teach White students? 
  
She can teach them all, but only consents to teach some 
  
?Why should I be expected to teach Black students, Latino students 
and everyone else is only being expected to teach the White kids?   
That?s unfair, so if you really want to be a teacher,  
you need to know how to deal with all types of students 
just as we know how to deal with all types of students? 
  
   
         III 
Enough about her.  She has no more to say. 
She wants to know about my experiences at Jefferson High School? 
  
labels 
limits 
long burgundy locks (way down her back) 
moved, meant 
to resist 
to object 
Ms. X. 
  
?I am positive that he has been reborn in me; in 
who I am authentically, and who I aspire to be.? 
  
 
 
 123 
 
Ms. Kelly   
?The Gap ? it drives me crazy.? 
A mirror of myself ten years ago 
When I was a first-year teacher, but smarter 
And more confident 
  
Optimistic 
Mature 
Youthful 
Stylish 
Humble 
   
Deep, chocolate brown skin 
that says I?m a sista 
Almond eyes that see 
Eyes that speak 
People will listen 
Students hear her 
  
Raised by a single mother on welfare 
With grandma?s help 
Her upbringing was not middle class, in her eyes 
But she was on the talented tenth track from the beginning 
 
 124 
 
All the junior honor society students would go into honors 
   II 
Only 5:30 p.m. but dark 
As she enters Panera? 
Black tights and heels 
Black belt to match 
White blouse 
Long, straight Black hair 
Young Black professional 
Making her debut ? year two 
  
Voice 
Barely there in focus groups 
Strong and natural in writing prompts 
Loquacious in one-on-one interview 
Always crisply articulate 
Message unmistakable:  
?As a teacher my focus is success and growth for ALL students.? 
  
?The Gap ? it drives me crazy.? 
  
Casual mentions of ?my mom? live  
and move throughout her conversations and  
in her silences 
 
 125 
 
?Education was always at the forefront of everything.  My mom was an educator.? 
The source and inspiration for her quiet confidence.  
  
  III 
?Fast-forward to the year 2000:  
my mother passed away 
 and I found myself depending on my teachers for everything.   
Not resources and supplies, 
 but just conversations, college suggestions,  
career tips, life lessons?I loved my teachers? 
  
And so, after a B.A. in English 
And an M.Ed., she became one.  
All acquired at the same PWI28 
  
One of only few Blacks since high school,  
She has always been comfortable in her skin as she 
traversed the predominantly White 
environments of honors classes 
and college classrooms 
but 
she is most comfortable hanging with  
                                                 
28
  Predominantly White Institution 
 
 126 
 
her girls from the neighborhood ? her Black friends 
her best friend from childhood, though, was White 
Ms. Kelly, though, wasn?t welcomed to play at her house 
  
no animosity, just awareness and action 
in the classroom.  
 
Ms. J  
 
Planted  
in rich soil 
to dad, the degreed intellectual 
to mom, the technically-trained 
to grandma, the inspiration 
 
and to Black teachers, the early cultivators of 
Ms. J?s self pride and awareness 
 
?All of my teachers were African American teachers,  
so basically that was my experience,  
so we had that sense of pride and unity and understanding ourselves,  
and every morning we sang the negro national anthem, 
that was my growing up.? 
 
Growing pains  
Growing gains 
Ms. J. embraced 
Education as a cycle: 
 
?The cycle was watered both day and night. 
It continued on like a boxer who refused to lose the fight. 
It was filled with many doubts, trials, and tears. 
But when I look back it was worth all the years? 
 
Change. 
All Black elementary school would not cut it for mom 
 
?My mom didn?t want me to go to my neighborhood school? 
?My neighborhood school was a little rough.   
 
 127 
 
The kids, again, they were predominantly Black schools,  
the students were?um, a handful 
 (laughter),  
so, she didn?t want me to be in that kind of environment.   
She wanted me to be in a more diverse environment.? 
 
In the new, more diverse environment 
the Talented and Gifted Track of 
Ms. J excelled in during her primary years  
was no longer her home 
Enthusiasm and ambition for school waned  
Until college 
 
Ms. J attended an HBCU. 
 
While her Blackness had always been significant ?  
?I was feeling my Blackness? ? 
Profound experiences with race (ism) were absent 
Or perhaps just not discussed with me 
 
?Nothing really profound stands out in my mind  
when I think about being in high school and dealing with race.   
In terms of my peers, I think the thinking in high school was that White people were 
smart and I can remember, I don?t know if it was junior or high,  
because I was going to a more diverse school, feeling a little bit of pressure, 
 because I was not use to being around that many [White people],  
so I guess I experienced a little bit of culture shock?  
 
In college, her most memorable and impactful teacher was a White man. 
 
 
II 
 
Growth. 
?My first few years as a teacher, of 
course,  
I believed I could and would change the 
world.   
Then unbeknownst to me my desire 
would change.   
I believed I could change my school,  
then my classroom, 
 then maybe one student.   
With this reality I felt the need to 
reinvent myself 
 because I became disillusioned 
 
 128 
 
 with the status quo and the 
disappointments  
of the educational system.?    
 
From first-year teacher to nationally-board certified (after two tries) 
Ms. J not only challenged the status quo 
In her students 
But in herself as well 
 
 
 
?I wanted to be the teacher to be liked, to just be the most popular teacher, 
 but as I went through teaching,  
I had a situation with one of my colleagues  
that kind of transformed the way I thought about teaching  
and I started to I move from wanting to be  
the teacher who was being liked and loved by my students  
to the teacher who ?you?re actually learning something in my class!?? 
 
Her pedagogical thinking changed when her environment changed. 
 
?It seems that when I taught in a school that was predominantly Black 
 my focus was to instill a sense of pride, determination, and fortitude in them  
[Black students]? 
?Now that I teach at a more diverse school,  
sometimes I find 
the Black students may get lost in the process? 
 
Dissipating emphasis on Blackness disturbing 
 
?I believe I can and should do more 
as it pertains to Black students, 
partly because I am Black and understand  
the challenges they will face as they enter society? 
 
?It seemed like our teachers, Black teachers,  
gave us a sense of self pride and self hope  
and (sic) who we were as individuals 
?it seems like a lot of students, Black students 
today,  
they don?t have that same sense of pride and self 
worth? 
 
Disconnect between Black student and Black teacher disheartening  
  
 
 
 129 
 
?I felt a lot of the African American students  
were not treating me as they should  
and I said something to them 
 in front of the other students  
because I didn?t appreciate it as a teacher? 
 
?I was just so frustrated because I?m like,  
you would think that being ? having a Black 
teacher,  
somebody that looks like you, you know,  
that you would be able to get the learning that 
you need,  
you?d be able to relate, you know,  
have some type of commonality, 
but you treating me like I?m some daggone 
piece of junk off the street,  
really?? 
 
Tension, Suspicion 
between this Black teacher and her Black pupils palpable  
and perplexing. 
Should she teach the beauty and value of Blackness?   
Should students learn it? 
 
?Because I work under the premise of being ?fair? to all students,  
realizing that fairness may look different  
for the types of students I teach, 
 I believe that I may have lost  
to a degree 
the fervor for the ?fight? for Black students.? 
 
Dissipating emphasis on Blackness disturbing 
 
 
 The poems presented in this chapter are composite snapshots of the teachers, 
each depicting the voice and presence each teacher brought to the study and 
illustrating the personal and professional experiences that were salient to their 
feelings and perspectives on teaching Black students.  The poems also illuminate 
aspects of the teachers? efforts to impart more than content-knowledge to Black 
students.   Even more, the poems draw attention to the frustrating circumstances the 
 
 130 
 
teachers felt interfered with their ability to help Black students achieve.   In the next 
chapter, I discuss each teacher?s more-than-content teaching approach and I define 
and elaborate upon the frustrations alluded to in the poetic portraits: institutional 
frustrations, pedagogical frustrations, relational frustrations, positional frustrations, 
and cultural frustrations.   
 
 
 
  
 
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Chapter 6:  Emergent Themes 
 
Unpacking & Responding to the Research Question 
 
I set out to answer the following research question:  What are Black English 
teachers? perceptions of how they impact Black student achievement?   Achievement, 
from my perspective, entailed evidence of academic engagement and proficiency as 
measured by traditional assessments, such as homework, quizzes, tests, projects, and 
presentations.  I conceptualized achievement this way for this dissertation project 
because these are the traditional markers of achievement in school settings. To allow 
for organic responses, however, I did not share this conceptualization of achievement 
with the study participants, and instead left the definition of achievement open to 
teacher interpretation.   
Defining Achievement: Evidence of Growth and Independent Thinking Denote 
Achievement   
The teachers measured achievement by evidence of student growth and the 
development of students? independent thinking skills.   Ms. Tan spoke particularly 
about how when measuring student achievement, she looked for signs of independent 
thinking: 
Summer: How do you define achievement and how do you measure it in your 
students?  What constitutes an achievement and how do you know if they 
have achieved it? 
Ms. Tan:  Well, one way is if they think of something I didn?t think about; 
those times they?re like,?Ms. Tan, I kept reading, you know I?m up to? ?  
seeing them take initiative, seeing them find a way to take something out of 
 
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the material for themselves, maybe that?s it ? when I see independence and 
self-motivation.                        (Interview, January 31, 2012) 
Ms. J looked for similar evidence of independence in students? self-initiated use of 
academic language and their personal efforts at engaging in intellectual challenges 
with their peers.  
Summer:  How do you know if your teaching strategies have worked, if your 
students have understood the lessons?  How do you measure?  How do you 
know? 
Ms. J:  Well, there are a couple of ways to measure.  You could measure in 
terms of grades.  I measure in terms of their ability to communicate and use 
the language they should use, just seeing them challenge each other. 
      (Interview, March 27, 2012) 
In addition to intellectual independence, Ms. J also looked for growth as a sign of 
achievement: 
Ms. J: I measure when they look at their papers and they?re taking my 
suggestions on how to make their papers work; I measure when I see a student 
who on the first day doesn?t say two sentences who is participating on their 
own.       (Interview, March 27, 2012) 
Ms. X, too, looked for growth to denote achievement.  She described how using 
moments of student recognition of their own growth helped her to know she had 
taught them effectively: 
Ms. X: If my kids are struggling, but I'm getting them to certain benchmarks, 
certain places along the way, then I'm like wow, if I can ?  [as if she is talking 
 
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to a student] ?You know what, when we first started this year, if I had had this 
conversation with you about writing an essay, and you know what a sub-thesis 
is and a structure sentence and what analysis is and how you have to support 
that, I can talk to you about that. Can you imagine if you all walked in the first 
day and I'm talking to you about this and how crazy .you would have been? ? 
[in student?s voice} "Yeah, you're right." So that is how I also base my 
effectiveness.     (Interview, February 2, 2012) 
Like the other teachers, Ms. Jocasta and Ms. Kelly identified signs of achievement in 
students? contributions to discussions.  Ms. Jocasta said she could mark achievement 
in her honors students by almost any assessment measure: 
Summer: So, how did you measure their achievement, like, how did you know 
whether or not they were getting what you were trying to teach them - the 
ones that worked well for you? 
Ms. Jocasta: The way that they responded to questioning.  The way they 
handled discussions.  Almost every way of doing an evaluation or assessment, 
it was clear who was getting it and who wasn't. (Interview, February 3, 2012) 
Ms. Kelly noted general participation as one measure of student growth, but she 
shared several other specific, more traditional methods of assessment: 
Summer: Is it their excitement that lets you know they got it. How do you 
know that they get the objective? 
Ms. Kelly:  From first to second quarter, their assessment grades went up an 
average of 20 %.  They were really low first quarter. The participation rate in 
 
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that class has gone up tremendously, because they didn?t know very much, or 
they didn?t know what they knew.   
Summer: This is you?re A-Level29? 
Ms. Kelly: Yes, this is my A-Level.  So participation.  and I do these warm-up 
contests now. First one done, they raise their hands and come around and I 
have these little prizes, so that's been showing mastery. And like I said, we 
take a grammar quiz every Friday, all tenth graders, the same DGP30 quiz, 
from my resource teachers, and we can add and change it.  And then just like 
dialogue and conversation. (Interview, February 6, 2012) 
Overall, teachers agreed that growth and independence were markers of achievement. 
However, their conversations did not focus heavily on these cognitive measures of 
achievement. They emphasized  more their desire to see students develop strong work 
habits and acquire skills that would benefit them beyond the walls of the schoolhouse, 
for at the core of their teaching philosophies was the goal of helping students develop 
the life skills they would need in the real world.  They found it difficult, however, to 
impact students? achievement in these ways because of the challenges they faced in 
their efforts, challenges that frustrated the teachers so much that some of them 
contemplated leaving the profession.   In the next section, I first discuss the teachers? 
more-than-content teaching approach. I then describe the frustrating circumstances 
that teachers felt interfered with their ability to put their pedagogical philosophies into 
practice.   
                                                 
29
  A-Level is the same as comprehensive or regular-level class.  
30
  Daily Grammar Practice 
 
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6.1: More than Teachers of Content 
The teachers in my study saw themselves as impacting Black student 
achievement in more ways than just as teachers of content. The teachers believed they 
were also preparing students for life in the real world by encouraging productive life 
skills such as punctuality, good work habits, independent thinking, and providing 
exposure to cultural capital that would be valuable in their lives after school; capital 
such as knowledge of diverse careers, the canonical literary ?classics,? and life 
beyond the United States borders. For example, Ms. X drew on her experiences living 
and working abroad to inform her pedagogy.  She said, ?I hope I am able to bring my 
students my authentic self, to share my knowledge and love of English, but also 
infuse it with the life lessons I?ve learned through living and working outside of the 
U.S.A.? (Ms. X, Writing Prompt #1). Her childhood experiences with racism led her 
to want to see what life was like beyond the U.S. borders, because she felt, ?there?s 
gotta be more than this? (Interview, February 2, 2012), referring to the racist and 
discriminatory treatment she had experienced in her youth.  Through her teaching, 
Ms. X tried to expose her students to this larger world and to provide them ?with a 
forum to bring their realities to light? (Ms. X, Writing Prompt #2).  She said she did 
this by giving ?them as much of a dose of ?the real world? as possible,? which she 
said was ?done of course with love, compassion, and a kick up the backside that they 
[would] probably not find in arenas outside of school? (Ms. X, Writing Prompt #2).   
Ms. Kelly strove to be a role model for Black students, not so they would look 
up to her but so that they would see her as evidence that they could defy stereotypes 
and achieve success  - despite the stereotypes and expectations associated with the 
color of their skin.  She said, ?With my Black students especially, I really just strive 
 
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to be a role model. Not that I want them to look up to me, but just to know, ?hey, it 
can happen. If all my other English teachers were older, White women, sometimes 
men, and Ms. Kelly is my first Black English teacher, then I, too, can bypass 
stereotypes and expectations? (Ms. Kelly, Writing Prompt #2).   Ms. Kelly even 
viewed her students as more than just students to her: ?As a teacher, my focus is 
success and growth for ALL students. But as a Black English teacher, I feel especially 
responsible for my Black students ? my little sisters, brothers, cousins, neighbors, 
friends? (Ms. Kelly, Writing Prompt #2).  Ms. Kelly saw her Black students as family 
members, children she had a vested interest in beyond one that is just about teaching 
academic skills.  
Even Ms. Jocasta, who struggled miserably to be successful with many of her 
Black students, hoped to prepare students for the reality of life post-high school. She 
stated,  
I believed I could and would be a guide for Black students into a world of 
experiences and discoveries that would prepare them for the ?slings and 
arrows of outrageous fortune? that awaited them after graduation.  I wanted to 
emphasize that the thousand shocks that flesh is heir to when one is in high 
school are nothing compared to the realizations (hopefully) that arise from just 
being an adult in the under-world.    (Ms. Jocasta, Writing Prompt #2)  
Additionally, Ms. Jocasta?s message to students in her retirement letter was about 
issues of character and successful living:  
My message to students is brief.  Value yourselves more dearly, children.  The 
world, though vast and infinitely interesting, can devour you and digest your 
 
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essence more quickly than a bubble can burst if you are ignorant and prideful.  
I have learned that pride does indeed come before a fall. Humility and 
thankfulness, along with a constant craving to know more, and more, and still 
more, may ensure your success and a modicum of joy ? Stop trying to bend 
yourselves into appreciable shapes for your friends.  Configure yourselves 
around your bliss, that which brings you the deepest most enduring 
satisfaction.  And don?t worry about being seen.  Everybody is looking and 
judging just as you look and judge.  (Ms. Jocasta, Writing Prompt #4)  
Ms. Jocasta?s philosophy as an English teacher extended beyond teaching grammar 
and literary terminology to preparing students for personal contentment and success 
in life. 
Ms. Tan, too, focused her teaching on more than academics. At the crux of her 
goal as an educator of Black students was to help students develop the life and work 
skills that would not only help students be successful, but also competitive, in college 
or in the workforce and in a ?cold, hard? world.  In her ?letter of retirement? writing 
prompt, she wrote: 
You have already learned that the world can be a cold, hard, unforgiving and 
often prejudiced place outside of the school?s walls.  As an educator, it has 
been one of my main objectives to prepare you for the reality of post-
 secondary academia and/or the workforce.  I?ve tried my best to hold you to 
guidelines, deadlines, and rules to help you form strong habits to use in any 
situation.  I?ve exposed you to a variety of texts to enrich your literary 
 
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experiences so that you can converse about the recognized literary canon with 
the best of them.? (Ms. Tan, Writing Prompt #4)   
Ms. Tan believed necessary life and work skills included being punctual, 
demonstrating appropriate manners, systematically approaching difficult tasks, and 
having knowledge of people, events, and ideas that are deemed valuable in 
mainstream society.  She articulated this goal in her teaching philosophy writing 
prompt: 
My teaching philosophy, particularly as it relates to Black students is that I 
am preparing them for life, not just teaching literature or helping them pass a 
class.  The habits that they form, or continue in my classroom will serve them 
throughout their lifetimes, so maybe I can teach them the importance of 
punctuality, manners, or systematically approaching a seemingly difficult 
task.  I try very hard to stick to the due date guidelines I have in place, taking 
off points for late papers, not allowing library computer lab visits during class 
on the day a paper is due to print it out, etc?In my lessons, I build in 
assignments or exposure to ideas or people that will prepare them for life after 
school.                                                (Ms. Tan, Writing Prompt #2) 
  Ms. Tan?s approach to teaching Black students was also grounded in her 
understanding of the challenges African Americans face in society and the need for 
students to be prepared for real-world challenges.  In her ?letter of retirement? writing 
prompt, she told students,   
Americans of African descent are often stereotyped and therefore must 
acquire airtight credentials and persevere in order to get the chances that come 
 
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more readily to others.  I hope you?ve heard me or realized that I was trying to 
prepare you. (Writing Prompt #4) 
When Ms. J taught classes that were predominantly Black, she strove to 
?instill a sense of pride, determination, and fortitude in [Black students]? because she 
felt that ?many of them did not understand the magnitude of the challenges that they 
would face in the ?real world? (Ms. J, Questionnaire). In her more integrated settings, 
Ms. J still aimed to help students develop esteem in themselves. One of the ways she 
said she did this was by creating a mantra she invited students to say everyday: ?I am 
smart. I am successful. My brain works. I will pass English 10 and the state test in 
May? (Ms. J, Interview, March 31, 2012).   She said her students embraced this 
mantra and chanted it every day.  Ultimately, she felt what made enduring the 
challenges of teaching worth it was ?when [she could] help a child to understand his 
or her value? (Ms. J, Writing Prompt #2). 
These anecdotes resonate with the way many other Black teachers are 
portrayed in the literature as mentors, cultural translators (Irvine, 1989), 
?othermothers? (Foster, 1993; Irvine, 2002), and emancipatory pedagogues (Foster, 
1990; Irvine, 2002; Lynn, Johnson, and Hassan, 1999). In this dissertation study, 
however, such experiences and perspectives did not dominate the conversations, 
writing prompts, and questionnaire answers; rather, data were more reflective of 
teachers? frustrations with the challenging situations they faced in their efforts to 
impact Black student achievement.  
 
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6.2: Teachers? Frustrations 
 The teachers? frustrations can be organized into five categories: institutional 
frustration, pedagogical frustration, relational frustration, positional frustration, and 
cultural frustration.  Institutional frustration is associated with the systems and 
processes of educational institutions and/or the effects the institutional processes and 
systems have on teachers? work life or on student learning opportunities and 
achievement.  These institutions may be at the national, state, district or school-level. 
Pedagogical frustration includes frustration with the process and product of teaching, 
including teachers? feelings of angst or discomfort with their ability to translate their 
content knowledge into lessons that students understand and enjoy. Relational 
frustration involves teachers? difficulty with sustaining mutually amicable and 
productive relationships with Black students. Teachers experiencing this type of 
frustration may feel their pedagogical efforts may result in flat out rejection from 
Black students or indifference. Rejection and indifference are troubling for such 
teachers because they feel Black students should be particularly drawn to them 
because of their shared racial background. Positional frustration involves teachers? 
push-back against the ?racial uplift? teaching philosophy that has historically 
informed Black education as well as, contrarily, teachers? sense of guilt about not 
living up to the ?racial uplift? standard set by Black teachers from previous 
generations.   Lastly, cultural frustration includes annoyance and disappointment with 
the attitudes, values, and work habits of Black students ? attitudes, values, and work 
habits that teachers felt did not support school success and that were different from 
the values, attitudes, and work habits the teachers held when they were students and 
that they believe students should hold today. 
 
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These categories of frustration do not represent frustrations all teachers 
experienced.  The discussion of frustration is organized according to the types of 
frustration salient for particular teachers.   Thus, Ms. Tan and Ms. Kelly most 
experienced institutional frustration.  Ms. Tan was frustrated with what she perceived 
as a weakening system of public education that required teachers to teach students 
what to think instead of how. She felt the teaching expectations of such of philosophy 
inhibited her ability to teach students the skills she felt they needed to acquire.  Ms. 
Kelly?s frustration was with the system of tracking that she felt created a skills and 
preparation gap between students in her honors and comprehensive-level classes.  Ms. 
Tan and Ms. Jocasta most experienced pedagogical frustration.  Ms. Tan was 
disturbed by what she perceived as students? inability to think for themselves and 
with her struggle to deliver lessons that resulted in students demonstrating 
independent thinking and application of learning.  Ms. Jocasta experienced 
pedagogical frustration with her teaching effectiveness.  She felt her lessons did not 
meet student or district expectations. Ms. J and Ms. Jocasta experienced relational 
frustration.  Ms. J?s frustration was with what she perceived as a lack of respect Black 
students showed for her and for Black teachers in general. Ms. Jocasta?s frustration 
was with feeling rejected by Black students.   Ms. X and Ms. J expressed positional 
frustration. Ms. X was frustrated with what she perceived as her school?s and 
department?s improper focus on ?race? ? the race of the students and the race of the 
teacher as it pertained to her practice and to Black student achievement.  Ms. J was 
troubled by her declining focus on the African American struggle in her own practice 
and in contemporary schools in general.  Cultural frustration was salient for all 
 
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teachers. They believed many Black students embodied an ?empty? culture, one that 
they felt did not promote school and life success. In the next section, I present 
findings that show how each teacher manifested one or more of these types of 
frustrations. 
6.2.1: Institutional Frustration ? Ms. Tan & Ms. Kelly 
 
 
Ms. Tan  
Ms. Tan was frustrated with the current goals of education as enacted by her 
school?s English department and her larger school district, goals that she believed 
were not ?academic enough? (Ms. Tan, Focus Group #1, October 22, 2011) and that 
she felt did not teach students to think independently and to embrace learning for 
learning?s sake. In Ms. Tan?s opinion, these improper goals were resulting in 
disengaged, skill-deficient students.  At the school level, Ms. Tan was frustrated with 
her school?s English department because she felt her colleagues did not value her 
professional ideas and did not value academic professionalism in general. The 
following exchange illustrates Ms. Tan?s institutional frustration.  
Ms. Tan: So, for me, there are many frustrating aspects of what I'm trying to 
do as an English teacher or as a teacher that I think are you know held back, 
my efforts are shot down, I don't always think I'm very effective. 
Ms. X: Your goals are shot down by whom? The parents? Everybody?  
Ms. Tan: All kinds of people everywhere from everywhere, different years, 
sometimes it's a different set of people, depends on the set of kids, depends on 
the set of parents, menopausal trends of the times, but it's not always exactly 
the same, but there is a lot of frustration and as far as our department is 
 
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concerned, I don't always see the problems as the Black and White thing; 
sometimes I don't even think we?re academic enough. I get frustrated that our 
focus isn't really on the academics. I feel like it's more on the statistics or the 
data -  
Ms. X:  - Data-driven definitely 
All: um hm  
Ms. Tan:  - that as a department we shouldn't just be going over an agenda that 
is just about taking care of business, technicalities, administrative things.  
What about talking about our educational backgrounds? People are writing 
about different things in education, different ways to reach the kids, different 
things to try -   
Summer:  - like best practices. 
Ms. Tan: We never talk about any of that.  We never do any kind of ummm -  
  Summer:  - except those little writing - do y?all still do the little inservices? 
Ms. X: We don?t have money for that anymore so that has been X?d out. 
Ms. Tan: And even those were rushed and just to me, it's just not scholarly 
enough, and that frustrates me more than even the Black and White thing, and 
I have tried various things to interject on a pure, this is an English department, 
we should be doing certain things level. I think I try every other year to do 
something. and nobody's interested in that, and that is very and it's not even 
just that they, and I could be wrong, it could be some kind of reaction to me, 
I'm not gonna discount that, but I don't feel like there is an interest in those 
things, just working with other departments, like working with the history 
 
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department so that when we do certain historical texts we can kind of line 
them up together. That would be great. That would make our job easier.  
(Focus Group #1, October 22, 2011) 
As one of only two Black teachers in the English department, on the surface, the root 
of Ms. Tan?s frustration with her department may appear to be racial, based on her 
repeated reference to the ?Black-White? thing, but as she explains, she is more 
frustrated with what she perceives as a rejection of her efforts at collegiality and 
professional growth. She is more agitated by her assessment that the department is 
?just not scholarly enough? than she is about whether or not they are rejecting her 
because she is Black.  She was frustrated with the push back she was getting ?from all 
kinds of people from everywhere? just for trying to be an effective English teacher; 
that is, for trying to be innovative, reflective, and collaborative by working with other 
departments or sharing educational interests and backgrounds.  
 Not only did Ms. Tan express frustration with the non-academic focus of her 
English department, but she also criticized her district?s move to the Common Core31 
curriculum, a curriculum she felt did not encourage independent thinking or a love for 
learning for learning?s sake: 
Ms. Tan:  I?m doing this workshop.  The workshop is to try to prepare to mesh 
the county?s curriculum guide with the common core.   So, when looking at 
the Common Core, and their almost eliminating novels ? or fiction.  There is a 
huge, huge, huge push for nonfiction and short informative texts, right, so 
                                                 
31
  The Common Core is a set of academic standards adopted by 45 states and three United States 
territories to reflect the knowledge and skills all students in the United States are expected to acquire 
in their K-12 educational careers and that they will need for success in post-high school college or 
workforce training programs (http://www.corestandards.org/). 
 
 145 
 
that?s not fiction; they say literary nonfiction, but I?m thinking, when they 
close Borders and Barnes and Nobles and everybody thinks it?s cool to read 
on a piece of metal, books are going to go the way of the video store ? the 
rental store.  I see that.  Definitely, no question.  People are not reading as 
much for pleasure. They are reading short texts for information only.  The 
newspaper industry has learned that with FaceBook, Twitter, blazzie blah, all 
of that.  (Interview, January 31, 2012) 
Ms. Tan?s critique of the push for nonfiction texts shows her frustration with the field 
moving away from the part of teaching English that she loves the best: reading 
literature.  She worries that this move will mean a continued decrease in the amount 
of reading students are doing ? especially self-selected reading.  She definitely feels 
the direction curriculum has taken has had a negative effect on her Black students:  
Ms. Tan:  I look at my students in the comp classes: they ain?t reading 
nothing.  In the comp classes, there are one or two that let it be known, well 
it?s known to me, that they are reading outside of the classes.  And then they 
are shocked if they read outside of school.  ?Ms. Tan, I kept reading last 
night!? What is that?  They actually keep reading past what was required?   
In addition to Ms. Tan?s disappointment with her department and district, she was 
also quite exasperated by the negligible amount of reading in which her students 
engaged.  She is annoyed that her students ?ain?t reading nothing? and that students 
feel like they have done something special if they read outside of class time.  As one 
who gnawed on books in her crib, the new move away from reading just does not sit 
well with Ms. Tan.  
 
 146 
 
She continued:  
In comp classes, out of 35 kids, it?s only about five of them who are really 
avid readers where I have to be like put your book away.  And that has gone 
down since I?ve been teaching. The whole point is that people are not reading, 
Summer; they are not reading.  And I think the novel is gonna die. 
 (Interview, January 31, 2012) 
 
Ms. Tan spent at least 10 minutes of our interview discussing her frustration with the 
decreasing amount of reading she noticed students doing and with the district?s move 
away from reading full novels to only reading nonfiction texts.  These changes in 
student behavior and in district mandates caused her to question what she should even 
strive to teach students, underscoring another area of frustration for her: pedagogical 
frustration, which I will discuss in the pedagogical frustration section.  
Ms. Kelly  
The effects of institutional tracking on Black students troubled Ms. Kelly 
greatly. She was frustrated with the skills and opportunity gap between her honors 
and comprehensive-level classes, a gap she believed was a result of drastically 
different educational experiences of students in honors and regular, comprehensive-
 level classes.  In her educational life history journal entry, she tells the story of two 
students, one who is tracked into honors classes and the other who is tracked into 
regular comprehensive-level courses.  The honors students approached Ms. Kelly for 
help getting into a summer journalism camp.  Ms. Kelly delighted in helping her and 
succeeded in helping her.  The other student did not approach Ms. Kelly with such a 
request, and Ms. Kelly felt troubled about not knowing how to help her.  An excerpt 
 
 147 
 
from Ms. Kelly?s first writing prompt illustrates the frustration Ms. Kelly felt about 
the gap between the students? skills and learning opportunities: 
Changing a child?s life, making some kid fall in love with reading and 
writing. Editing an essay that would be the golden ticket for college 
admission.  Saving a student from dropping out.  Oh, I had so many 
ambitions, hopes, and dreams.  ENORMOUS GOALS, paramount 
expectations. 
And sometimes, just sometimes, I see a glimpse of those things. Ah!  I 
remember the day Darla Hayes told me she wanted to go away for the 
summer, that she hated babysitting her brother and she refused to do it another 
summer. She?d rather be writing a new script or chapters for her book.  I got 
on that computer and found a journalism camp at Brown University.  
Immediately printed the application and Darla and I read through it.  She was 
happy but said her mom didn?t have or wouldn?t pay thousands of dollars for 
her to go ?write? for the summer.  I thought about my mom, ?what would she 
do here??  I didn?t have thousands to lend ? not on this school teacher?s 
budget, but there were ways.  It had to happen. Over the next six months we 
did bake sales, cookies, brownies, cupcakes, banana pudding, etc?that was 
another one of Darla?s hobbies.  She enjoyed baking.  We made greeting cards 
for Christmas.  We sold candy-grams for Valentine?s Day.  Bottom line, on 
June 17th, Darla packed all her things and headed to Brown for the summer to 
become a better writer. 
 
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But what about the non-Darlas? What about Allison Williams, who 
unlike Darla did not have a 3.8 GPA, is not enrolled in AP Lang, AP Bio, AP 
Psych, and AP World History?  Allison still confuses nouns and verbs.  
Allison never brings a pencil to class and usually sleeps during 1st period.  
What can I do for Allison besides yell at her for not reading the assigned 
chapters for homework and having her outline ready for class? 
 (Writing Prompt #1) 
Ms. Kelly?s story about Darla and Allison reveals the inner dilemma that grips 
Ms. Kelly?s heart and mind as she thinks about helping Black students achieve.   She 
recognizes and laments the gap in skills and learning opportunities that exists between 
students like Darla and Allison, the gap between students in her honors and 
comprehensive-level classes. She does not understand how students like Allison can 
reach the 10th grade and still confuse nouns and verbs.  In our follow-up interview, 
she elaborated on her frustration with the comprehensive-level skills deficiency, 
exclaiming, ?How did they get to this point?  Who thought it was a good idea?? 
(Interview, February 6, 2012).  She also said in the interview that she could not 
believe that one of her students seriously thought ?dog? was a verb.   Ms. Kelly was 
in earnest pursuit of a solution to this gap she described as ?gross?:  
 
Brings me to my greatest feat.  I have three honors classes of 10th graders ? 
kids are scoring 97, 94, and 91% on their county benchmark.  Then I have an 
on-level (A-level comp class) and kids are scoring 34, 21, and 17% on the 
same test.  This is gross.  My ?STARS?/honors kids have a ?special? 
 
 149 
 
curriculum ? Springboard.  College Board created a Pre-AP curriculum and 
supposedly it helps increase HSA scores and the number of AP-ready students 
in our schools.  So why don?t my A-level kids get this curriculum ? Aren?t 
they the kids who need it?  The Gap ? it drives me crazy.  There are no White 
kids in my a-level class and I don?t even think that?s the issue because our 
school is 85% Black.  Then there?s the AVID program: Achievement Via 
Individual Determination, my other 10th grade class.  What?s the criteria?  
Average kid ? not too many, if any, college graduates in your family, but 
we?re promising that we will help you get to college.  I love my AVID kids, 
but again, what about my comp class, A-level babies ? they aren?t smart 
enough for honors/Stars, not average enough for AVID, not low enough for 
Special Ed, so there?s no one paying attention to them.  (Writing Prompt #1) 
Ms. Kelly paid attention to these students, challenging them as if they were in honors 
classes, drawing inspiration from her late mother, also an educator, who she had been 
told loved her students and did everything for them: 
My expectations for them can?t change ? because in May, they?ll take the 
same HSA as my STARS/Honors kids.  Talk about differentiation?what do I 
do?? I think back to my mom (as usual); all of my educational thoughts 
involve her.  What would she do?  Home visits, parent conferences, additional 
loving, supplies, etc??    (Writing Prompt #1) 
Since the gap ?drove her crazy,? Ms. Kelly went out of her way to help bridge the 
opportunity-to-learn gap between the levels.  In her third writing prompt in which she 
 
 150 
 
was invited to describe her teaching philosophy as it related to Black students, Ms. 
Kelly said, 
With my Black students, especially, and not all, but some, especially my a-
 level/comp kids, I want to make their learning experience as enriching and 
carefree as possible.  Providing them with extra resources to achieve success.  
That?s just it. So many of them have never experienced success, so I make it a 
point to celebrate their success.  I make it a point to value their learning!  
They don?t see this at home.  (Writing Prompt #3) 
Her frustration with the gap has led her to action.  In her second writing prompt in 
which she was invited to reflect on her teaching by stepping into the students? shoes 
and writing a letter to herself from the perspective of one of her students, she chose to 
write from the perspective of a student who was not achieving at high levels and who 
struggled to understand the material, but who expressed a desire to learn. This is the 
type of student Ms. Kelly was working hardest to help achieve. Consider Ms. Kelly?s 
perspective-taking prompt:   
Hey Ms. Kelly, 
 
I?ont know why you want me to write this 
letter, but I?m trying to do better this 
semester, so I?m getting all my work 
done. I don?t know what it is. I?ont 
really think English is THAT hard, but 
kinda like you said, it?s hard for me to 
focus at times. Especially with Kayla 
always yelling at me and stuff. And I 
 
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guess cause it?s 8th period, and the day 
almost over, so I?m ready to go home. I 
mean, at first it got on my nerves when 
you would sit down beside me and pull up 
a desk next to me when we?re working on 
our own, but I guess what you told my 
mom about me getting my work done and 
getting stuff right when u do that is 
true. No teacher really spent as much 
time with me as you do for real for 
real. And I know I said u always riding 
me, like when u see me posted up against 
the lockers between classes and you 
always be like ?David, you should be 
heading to class so you won?t be late? 
at first it was embarrassing in front of 
my boys, but now it?s like I wait for 
you to come by and say that. And I think 
my boys get a little jealous because no 
one checks up on them like that. And 
remember when u heard that a bunch of my 
friends were fighting over the weekend 
and as soon as u saw me u asked if I was 
involved and if I was good. Well I 
really was telling the truth when I said 
I wasn?t fighting, but it kinda made me 
feel good that you even asked. Most 
 
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teachers woulda probably judged me or 
looked at me in a funny way because I 
hang out with a rough crowd. I?m gonna 
start coming to the tutoring sessions 
that you invited me too more often so I 
can pass this test u always talking 
about. And ms. Kelly, u know how u 
always say I play like I?m hard core, 
but I?m really soft on the inside?you 
know what, u might be right. I?ma try to 
get better @ grammar stuff and do more 
work on our group research project. I?m 
bring my F up, watch me! You see I got 
an 80% on that quiz last Friday.  
Alright holla at ya boy, 
Lil? Tutu?aka Fat Boy?aka David  
(Writing Prompt #3, font in original) 
 
The soft, caring, understanding tone of Ms. Kelly?s letter suggests she empathizes 
with the struggling student and does not blame him for his low academic performance 
or poor work habits. Rather, she faults the insufficient opportunities for learning the 
student has had, pointing out that the student may not have received the attention he 
needed from previous teachers:    
I mean, at first it got on my nerves when you would sit down beside me and 
pull up a desk next to me when we?re working on our own, but I guess what 
you told my mom about me getting my work done and getting stuff right when 
 
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u do that is true. No teacher really spent as much time with me as you do for 
real for real. (Writing Prompt #3) 
Highlighting the lack of teacher attention this student may have had in the past shows 
Ms. Kelly is aware that this gap in opportunity is probably part of why Black students 
like David may be underachieving. She continues to emphasize that part of the 
problem with David?s achievement may be due in part to how teachers judged and 
interacted with him: 
Well I really was telling the truth when I said I wasn?t fighting, but it kinda 
made me feel good that you even asked. Most teachers woulda probably 
judged me or looked at me in a funny way because I hang out with a rough 
crowd. (Writing Prompt #3) 
Including these examples of inadequate teacher expectations reflects Ms. Kelly?s 
view of the opportunity-to-learn gap as problematic with regards to helping students 
like David achieve. Her choice to write her perspective-taking prompt from the 
perspective of a non-honors, low-achieving student reveals the core of her heart as 
she strives to impact Black students, moving students like David from the losing to 
the winning side of the gap.   She strives to close this gap not only by providing 
individualized support and special learning opportunities for the students but also by 
delivering consistent teacher-directed but learner-centered instruction.  The sense of 
urgency she sees in closing the gap is evident in her description of her approach to 
teaching the non-honors, A-level students: 
They wear me out. I do a lot of teaching, cause I mean, I want them to do that 
group work and partners, but it?s just not, I mean I can do it for like 10 or 15 
 
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minutes, you know, but I?m just teaching, like I mean they work,  I mean, I?m 
up there, I?m just going, just doing everything I can to help them get it, 
whereas with my honors, I have a little more, I can give them more of the 
responsibility, whereas with them, and I?ve tried it, and I see that when I?m up 
there, they?re getting it and they?re learning, and the classroom is just such a 
different environment, versus when I try to let them do, so, I?m like, it?s tiring, 
but I have to. It?s like they have to have somebody at the front of the room.  
                          (Ms. Kelly, Interview, February 6, 2012) 
Based on her letter, pedagogically, Ms. Kelly finds teaching Black students 
performing at low levels extremely challenging and ?tiring? but something she must 
do: ?They wear me out.  I mean, I?m up there, I?m just going, just doing everything I 
can to help them get it. It?s tiring but, I have to? (Ms. Kelly, Interview, February 6, 
2012).  Ms. Kelly?s institutional frustration with the gap in skills and opportunities 
between her honors and comprehensive classes fuels her determination to close the 
gap by ensuring struggling students get the instruction they need to achieve at higher 
levels.    
 Ms. Tan and Ms. Kelly both experienced frustration with institutional aspects 
of the education system.  Ms. Tan felt most disturbed by the curricular aspects of the 
district and school in which she worked.  She felt the district and systemic curricular 
foci did not encourage students to think independently and to read diversely.  Ms. 
Kelly?s most significant problem was with the skills and opportunity gap that she felt 
systems of tracking perpetuated between Black students in honors and comprehensive 
 
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level classes.  From their perspectives, institutional processes and systems grossly 
interfered with their ability to positively impact Black students? achievement.  
6.2.2: Pedagogical Frustration ? Ms. Tan and Ms. Jocasta 
Ms. Tan 
?So, you know it?s frustrating.  I just feel like, I don?t know, I feel 
disillusioned with what I?m doing in general.  Like, what is my objective to 
teach kids?  What am I really preparing them for?  Seriously? (Ms. Tan, 
Interview, January 31, 2012).  
Ms. Tan?s disillusionment with what her teaching goals should be is due to 
what she perceived as a decrease in students? skill levels and independent thinking 
skills ? even in honors-level courses: 
And especially when you have kids that have so many problems that you can?t 
address, or, you?re trying to do too many levels.   Even in my honors class, 
I?m really at a C level, so I?m kind of watering it down to them, but they have 
been told they are at an A ?level, so their parents expect all A?s all the time, 
so really it?s a low-level honors class. (Interview, January 31, 2012) 
Students and parents? expectations of ?As? for ?C? work troubles Ms. Tan. She feels 
she has to ?water down? the lessons for students, even students who have been 
designated as working at an honors level. Even when Ms. Tan delivered what she 
perceived as deliberate, strategic, easy-to-follow instructions, she found that 12th 
grade students could not produce a thoughtful research paper: 
Ms. Tan: Oh, ok, research papers. We went through every step through every 
process, the whole process.  I let them pick the topic; we talked about the 
 
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topic until they made a thesis statement. Then we go to the library and we had 
talked about techniques for research. We were going to the library for two 
weeks to gather information. I gave them note cards and we talked about how 
to write it, but they were all so bad that I ended up giving them 50 points on 
meeting the page requirements and 50 points on a citation page.  And see 
those were things that I can?t tell you what the problem was.  
(Ms. Tan, Interview, January 31, 2012) 
Ms. Tan felt her instructional methods should have resulted in success.  She helped 
students talk through their topics until they arrived at a thesis statement.  She taught 
them research techniques and provided in-class time for information-gathering and 
gave direct instructions on the writing process, ?but they were all so bad? that Ms. 
Tan decided not to evaluate them and to instead just award points for their effort.  
After such painstaking efforts to instruct students, she concluded that the students? 
inability to produce the expected result revealed a problem that she could not explain.    
Ms. Tan?s frustration was amplified when she discussed a particular student?s final 
research paper.  She could not understand what more she could have done to help the 
student achieve at a higher level: 
Ms. Tan: I said to him, how about, ?Let?s think about chicken?s nutritional 
value or the difference between organic and nonorganic.?  When I?m talking 
to him saying this, it does not register, he cannot process, something is not 
happening, so what am I supposed to do? What could I have done?  And I?m 
just asking you ?cause I have no idea. 
 
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Summer: Well, without having been there, it?s about meeting students where 
they are ? 
Ms. Tan:  - but he doesn?t know; he says yes and nods but doesn?t do it. 
Summer: Well, we all know we cannot accept ?yes I understand? as an 
answer.  We have to have them demonstrate their understanding -  
Ms. Tan:  - And then I get, ?you said, think about organic vs. inorganic? 
Summer:  And what does organic mean? 
Ms. Tan: I?ll look that up. 
Summer:  Ok, I?ll be waiting for the answer. 
Ms. Tan: And that?s fine, but there are 30 other people who have the same 
problem! And then it?s the next day.  So 10 of ?em got it and 20 didn?t . 
Summer: That?s when you have to become that magician they are not paying 
us to be. 
Ms. Tan:  No, then you give 50 pts, and that?s with ten people turning it in out 
of 30.  And when I looked at it, I was like what happened?! Oh, that was so 
disheartening. (Ms. Tan, Interview, January 31, 2012) 
Ms. Tan simply has ?no idea? what to do with students who just do not seem to be 
able to think for themselves.  Frustrated and paralyzed by confusion and lack of a 
solution, Ms. Tan resorted to giving students points just for meeting the page 
requirement ? not for meeting the assignment requirements.  She was not happy to do 
this, but felt she had no choice, saying ?Oh, that was so disheartening.? 
Ms. Tan?s frustration with student work habits and skills is also evident in one 
of her writing prompts.  Teachers were invited to reflect on their teaching from 
 
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students? perspectives by stepping into the students? shoes and writing a letter to 
themselves from the perspective of one of their students.  Ms. Tan chose to write 
from the perspective of a low-achieving student who, based on the letter, she felt was 
underachieving because of poor work habits and failure to take personal agency for 
his or her performance in Ms. Tan?s class. The letter has a slight sarcastic, mocking 
tone, suggesting Ms. Tan does not take the student?s concerns seriously because, 
perhaps, she sees them as just more evidence of students? irresponsibility and sub-par 
skills:   
Dear Ms. Tan, 
I have problems with your teaching methods. I don?t 
understand why I got 10 out of 100 on my last homework assignment 
because you didn?t write anything on it but the score!  You asked us to 
write a paradox from common language and I wrote, ?It?s cold as a 
mug.? A paradox is something that is seemingly impossible and it?s 
impossible to be as cold as a mug! When I asked you about it during 
class in the middle of a discussion about maxims, you said you 
couldn?t write a full explanation on so many papers and that you?d be 
glad to tell me and I said I?d talk to you after class. I forgot to talk to 
you after class, but still!   
Also, about that email I sent you.  I had my supplies and you 
said that you would come around to check supplies of everyone who 
was absent.  You never checked mine so I got a zero.  I know that was 
in august, and I didn?t check school max until last week, but still!  And 
 
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I KNOW I turned in that other thing that you gave me a zero on!  I 
don?t have it (because I know you said you gave them all back), but I 
know I turned it in. 
I don?t know why I?m still getting such a low grade in this 
class.  I?m smart.  I really should be in the honors class. I think it?s 
you.  I don?t think you like me and that?s why I?m getting such a low 
grade! 
Your student in your period six class. (Writing Prompt #3, emphasis in 
original) 
The last sentence of Ms. Tan?s letter, ?I don?t think you like me and that?s why I?m 
getting such a low grade!? sums up what I think is a major reason for Ms. Tan?s 
frustration: students are failing to take responsibility for their own achievement and 
are instead putting the responsibility into her hands.  ?I think it?s you? indicates that 
Ms. Tan feels her student thinks she is the reason for his/her lack of achievement, and 
based on the sarcastic tone of the letter, Ms. Tan finds this accusation baffling and 
troubling.  This letter is more evidence of Ms. Tan?s perception of students? inability 
to think independently and at sophisticated levels.   For example, from Ms. Tan?s 
perspective, the student in her letter either did not take seriously or obviously missed 
the point of the lesson on paradoxes, evidenced in their ?slang? response, ?It?s cold as 
a mug,?  which is a slang term in the African American community that means it?s 
very, very cold.  In this example, Ms. Tan was highlighting the student?s either 
obliviousness to the point of the lesson on maxims or the student?s unwillingness to 
take the lesson seriously.  Ms. Tan emphasized that the student did not understand 
 
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why he received a ?10 out of 100? on the maxim assignment and faulted Ms Tan?s 
?teaching methods? rather than the student?s own faulty answer.    
Ms. Tan?s mention of the student noting that Ms. Tan ?couldn?t write a full 
explanation on so many papers? draws attention to Ms. Tan?s frustration with what 
she feels are student expectations for teachers to do all the thinking for students.   In 
her letter, Ms. Tan depicts the student as one who is irresponsible and unreasonable.  
When complaining about the maxim assignment, the student said he or she would talk 
to Ms. Tan after class but admittedly forgot, ?but still? expected Ms. Tan to stop her 
current lesson on maxims to discuss the student?s grade on the paradox assignment. In 
another example of irresponsibility and lack of agency for achievement, the student 
questions Ms. Tan about a ?zero? he received for not having his supplies over two 
months after the grade was recorded in the SchoolHouse32, the school online grade 
book. Ms. Tan also highlights the student?s irresponsibility by having the student 
question a zero he received on an assignment that he had no proof he had turned in: 
?And I KNOW I turned in that other thing that you gave me a zero on!  I don?t have it 
(because I know you said you gave them all back), but I know I turned it in.? In sum, 
Ms. Tan?s letter suggests a frustration with feeling like students have put the full 
responsibility of their learning on her, refusing to exercise any independent thought or 
action.  
Ms. Jocasta  
Ms. Jocosta?s pedagogical frustration was evident on two levels ? with herself 
for not being able to deliver effective lessons and with her students for rejecting her 
                                                 
32
  SchoolHouse is a pseudonym.  
 
 161 
 
teaching efforts. At one point, her anger and frustration caused her to nearly give up 
on teaching:   
I spend all my time trying to modify lessons. Trying to get them to the point 
where they will work, somehow. I?m gonna stop that shit. I?m not gonna do it. 
Really. I?m thinking of not doing any more lesson plans at all. I really am. 
After the week I?ve had. It?s not worth it.  I mean, unless I can find some way 
to get unangry.   (Focus Group #3, November 5, 2011)  
 
Ms. Jocasta tired of her efforts to adapt her lessons, ?trying to get them to the point 
where they will work,? so much so that she planned to simply stop trying.  In our 
interview, she said she did not think she had gotten through an entire lesson the entire 
year.  She could not think of one successful lesson.  Her frustration and failure 
seemed to lead her to mock the district?s professional expectations of her.   She 
laughed while imitating administrators and district officials who would come to 
evaluate her teaching, saying in a sing-song nursery school rhyme type of way: 
 
?I?m going to scaffold now. See me scaffold!? 
?Are you scaffolding, Ms. Jocasta?? 
?As hard as I can.? (Interview, February 9, 2011) 
 
Ms. Jocasta?s repeated failures began to impact her physical and mental health:  
 
  
Ms. Jocasta: So I started cussing a lot and I started smoking 
again. 
  
Summer: Wow. The classroom done drove you ? 
  
Ms. Jocasta: And I started eating again. I?ve gained, how 
much? I think I?ve gained close to 30 lbs in 5 years.  
(Focus Group #3, November 5, 2011) 
 
 
 162 
 
In addition to her disappointment and frustration with her own teaching efficacy, Ms. 
Jocasta?s   was also distressed with the feeling of rejection she felt from students.  
The letter she wrote to herself from the perspective of one of her students reflects this 
distress: 
Dear Ms. Jocasta, 
I think you go too hard on me and don?t show me respeck (sic).  You 
always putting us down and saying things that makes up stuff that make me 
fell (sic) like no good and failure.  How you expect us to pay attention in your 
class when it is so boring.  Other teachers show us movies and play games and 
I always do my work when I listen to my music you?re the only teacher don?t 
let me use it that why I talk your class is boring boring boring. 
You don?t respect me so I don?t respect you 12 grad suppose to be 
easy. We tired of worken and you make us write and then talk about how bad 
we write and put red notes in we can?t understand. 
Sometimes you try to be nice but that?s joke cause somebody don?t do 
nothing and you go hard. When you base on me i not going 2 just cause i think 
in my self that i had another English teacher so I can have some peace. 
 Andre       (Writing Prompt #3) 
If one took Ms. Jocasta?s letter to be representative of how she perceived most of her 
students viewed her teaching, it would suggest that she thinks students see her as a 
teacher who is ?boring? and too ?hard,? one who shows no ?respect? to her students.  
Ms Jocasta was troubled by these perceived students? perceptions of her, so much so 
that she describes herself as struggling to get ?unangry? and to ?find another route? 
 
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other than teaching because she?s ?tired of fighting with these kids who don?t want to 
learn.?  In her final writing prompt in which she was invited to write a letter to past, 
present, and future Black teachers, students, and parents, she reflected on her 
experiences as a teacher sorrowfully, reiterating her feeling of being an ill-prepared 
and ineffective teacher: 
The time has come to retire and I look back on my career with a mixture of 
regret and joy.  The challenges have been many. I must admit that most of 
them I have not mastered, only went around them instead.  The biggest 
challenge was not having a proper student teaching experience or a 
demonstrative mentoring experience.  For three years, I floundered through 
the system, following the curriculum, but striving to enrich the student 
experience with information not in the curriculum.  The final years were spent 
in deep contemplation. (Writing Prompt #4) 
Due to her lack of sufficient preparation, Ms. Jocasta felt she had ?floundered? 
through her teaching experiences, failing to successfully meet nearly any of the 
challenges of teaching. Her teaching shortcomings have caused her to enter a state of 
?deep contemplation,? contemplating the experiences that led her to feel both joy and 
sorrow as she imagined herself retiring from teaching. Feelings of anguish and pain 
seem to have overcome fleeting moments of joy and hope.  The joy she must have felt 
in her efforts to ?enrich the student experience with information not in the 
curriculum? seemed lost in her feelings of regret and defeat.   
Both Ms. Tan and Ms. Jocasta were troubled by the shortcomings of their 
efforts to help Black students achieve.  Ms. Tan found it difficult to effectively teach 
 
 164 
 
students who seemed unable to think and act independently, to make connections 
between the lessons and their school work, or to apply what they have learned, and 
who put the bulk of the responsibility for their learning on the teacher.  Ms. Jocasta?s 
feelings of inadequate teaching self efficacy caused her anguish and stress.  This 
pedagogical frustration caused both teachers to contemplate leaving the teaching 
profession.  
6.2.3: Relational Frustration ? Ms. J and Ms. Jocasta 
 
Ms. J  
Ms. J was frustrated with what she perceived as the lack of respect Black students 
showed for Black teachers.  She felt that because of their shared racial background 
that they would connect to her more and treat her with respect.  She was so disturbed 
by her Black students? seemingly impartiality toward her that she shared her feelings 
with them: 
Ms. J:  I told them [Black students] that I found that a lot of 
the Hispanic, especially the young ladies, that they treat me 
better than you, the Black females. How does that happen? 
Summer:  You said that to the students? 
Ms. J: I did. 
Summer: What did they say? 
Ms. J: They just looked at me. They just looked at me. 
Because that?s the way I felt at that moment. And I?m thinking, 
?You all -,? not ? and I can?t remember how I said it to them, 
but I do remember it?s been these past 7 years ?cause I was at 
 
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Andrews ?cause they have a larger population of Hispanic kids. 
But, they just looked and I ? you know I think it was this day I 
was just so frustrated because I?m like, you would think that 
being ? having a Black teacher, somebody that looks like you, 
you know, that you would be able to get the learning that you 
need, you?d be able to relate, you know. Have some type of 
commonality, but you treating me like I?m some daggone piece 
of junk off the street, really? You know, the disrespect ?  
Summer: Yeah. 
Ms. J:  The cussing, the rolling of the eyes ?  
Ms. Tan:  Teeth sucking. 
Summer: You?re the third teacher that has said that ?cause you 
mentioned that too, right? [to Ms. Jocasta] 
 Ms. Jocasta: That?s why I?m getting out of it. 
Summer: Another teacher said that.    
(Focus Group # 3, November 5, 2011) 
Ms. J indicates an expectation of racial solidarity and the desire to be ethnic comrades 
with Black students. She felt sharing a racial background meant more than just 
sharing skin color, it meant sharing a cultural connection grounded in trust, respect, 
and a shared sense of personal responsibility for one another. She was looking for that 
connection, wanting to be an ?othermother,? but she felt rejected, like ?some daggone 
piece of junk off the street.?  Her feelings are affirmed by Ms. Tan and Ms. Jocasta 
who express agreement by commenting on the ?teeth-sucking,? and saying, ?I?m tired 
 
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of being called a bitch? and ?that?s why I?m getting out of it.?  During this same 
meeting, Ms. J chose to write her journal entry from the perspective of a Black male 
student she felt had not only been disrespectful to her but who had done so by 
blatantly disregarding her position of authority in the classroom.  Her frustration in 
dealing with this student is evident in her attempt to make sense of his disrespectful 
behavior.  It took her a while to articulate her feelings, resulting in her journal entry 
being only ? of a page: 
Dear Ms. J, 
I really wish you could see me!  I am not just a repeat 9th grader.  I am not just 
what my file says that I am.  I can really learn.  I just want someone to hear 
me and see me.  No one seems to understand. (Writing Prompt, #3) 
Indeed, Ms. J struggled to understand the student?s behavior toward her. She had 
difficulty writing down her thoughts, but she articulated her struggle in a very 
emotionally-charged description of what had recently transpired between her and the 
student: 
Ms. J: And I know this child and I are, we have a little bit of friction and it?s 
kind of intense and I don?t want it to be that way. But you just challenged my 
authority in the classroom. How dare you, you know. You just disrespected 
me. And to them that?s not disrespect. Okay I asked you to move. I asked you 
to change your seat. It wasn?t like I yelled it in the class. But what he got 
upset with was when he stretched I said, ?You have one more time.? ?What? I 
didn?t do anything.? ?You have one more time. This is in reference to the 
conversation that we had earlier today that you didn?t want to ?.? I didn?t get 
 
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in to it. So that made him mad because I called him out in the school ? in the, 
well, in the classroom. But you, I?m mad because I told you to do something 
and you didn?t do it. So I?m watching everything that you do. You breathe 
wrong, you need to move. You know and I mean that?s?  
Summer:  [Laughter] Right. 
 
Ms. J: - That?s probably wrong but ?  
 
Ms. Tan: That?s how you feel. 
 
Ms. J: Yeah. It?s how I feel. You disrespected me. How dare you.  
(Focus Group #3, November 5, 2011) 
 
Ms. J repeatedly emphasizes that the student ?disrespected? her and that disrespecting 
her was something the student should not ?dare? do.  At this point, Ms. J did not 
suggest that the student disrespected her because she was Black, suggesting that she 
would expect any student ? no matter the race ? to demonstrate the respect she was 
demanding, but at times in her discussion of this student, she indicated that being a 
Black female teacher might be part of the reason for the student?s disrespect: 
 
Summer:  What?s going on with the student? 
 
Ms. J: I think he thinks I don?t like him. And I think he thinks, like 
she was saying, I?m hard on him. But, we have a challenge of 
the wills. What I?ve come to find out is that he really has issues 
going on at home, and with his mom. And his mom is Black, 
and I?m Black, so ? to him I could be just another ? you actin? 
like my mom. I don?t know. 
 
 168 
 
She extends this ?I might remind him of his Black mother? theory to include the idea 
that his disrespect for her might be a reflection of the disrespect she perceives Black 
students at large have for Black teachers in genera:  
Ms. J: I don?t know how he responds to the White teachers, but now 
you?re making me think about it. I?m like, oh okay. Let me 
think about how it is that he really acts with other teachers. 
And I notice that a lot of the African American students, they 
tend to treat the Black teachers as, um -. Like they can say 
anything, like they can say or do anything ?  
Ms. Jocasta: Thank you. And that we?re dumb. And that White teachers are 
better. And that they?re gonna show them how well they can 
behave. 
Ms. J: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I had one student actually get out of 
my class, this was a couple years ago. I think he was Hispanic 
?cause his name was Joaquin. I guess that?s Hispanic. And he 
got transferred out of my class to go to another teacher?s class 
because, well I?m saying because I?m Black, but she was Black 
too. But he was just lazy as heck. He really didn?t want to do 
any work. But, something came out in the pipes of, that I 
wasn?t a good teacher. So, and it wasn?t worded that way, but 
really, that?s what the bottom line, this is what you?re saying. 
So his mama had him removed from the class.  
    (Focus Group #3, November 5, 2011) 
 
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Ms. J was so convinced that the mis-treatment she endured from students was because 
she was Black that even when the student?s parent had him switched from Ms. J?s 
class to another Black teacher?s class, she attributed the reason to her being a Black 
teacher.  This skewed perception may be symptomatic of the frustration she feels with 
what she sees as a disconnected relationship between herself and Black students. Her 
first inclination was that the student was moved to another teacher?s classroom 
because of Ms. J?s race. Furthermore, she reported observing that Black students 
treated Black teachers with less respect than they treated White teachers: ?And I 
notice that a lot of the African American students, they tend to treat the Black 
teachers as, um -. like they can say anything, like they can say or do anything [to 
Black teachers]? (Interview, March 27, 2012). This observation disturbed Ms. J 
because she felt that instead of being disrespectful to Black teachers that Black 
students would want to try to connect with them because of their shared race.  She 
assumed that students would ?try to find people they can relate to and connect to? 
(Interview, March 27, 2012), but she did not find that to be the case for her current 
Black students, as, from Ms. J?s perspective, Black students resisted making any 
special connection with her.   Part of Ms. J?s frustration may stem from her nostalgic 
memories of the dynamics between Black students and Black teachers when she was 
in school: 
Summer: Ok, I understand your experiences with Black teachers.  If you had a 
White teacher, it seems like that person did not stand out. 
Ms. J.:  Not really.  The African American teachers I had when I was younger, 
they were disciplinarians, you know, there was a lot of yelling and screaming 
 
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going on. I don?t know if that was just the cultural thing, but that was just the 
way they disciplined me.  I mean I went to school where you could get 
spanked, you know, and the teachers would pull your ears, and they?d spank 
you, and they?d call your parents. So, a lot of what I see in today?s schools -  
Summer: It?s ridiculous. 
Ms. J: Yeah, the kids, they have no respect for authority and we did.  The 
teachers could look at you a certain way and you knew that you needed to get 
your act together, so they, I think because they had the right to discipline us, 
not just calling home, but physically, you know, they could spank us, so, it 
was different.   The teachers could look at you a certain way and you knew 
that you needed to get your act together, so they, I think because they had the 
right to discipline us, not just calling home, but physically, you know, they 
could spank us, so, it was different.  
 (Interview, March 27, 2012)                        
Ms. J saw the relationship between Black students and teachers of today as 
?different? than the relationship between Black teachers and students when she was 
growing up because of the difference in the type of authority Black teachers exerted 
during her time and the type of respect students gave in return.  Today?s kids, she 
feels ?have no respect for authority? as she and her peers did for their Black teachers.  
These statements suggest that Ms. J sees respect as a requirement for a productive 
relationship between Black teachers and Black students to take place.   Ms. J?s 
frustration is captured in a poem she wrote for the Writing Prompt #3, which invited 
teachers to describe their teaching philosophy as it relates to Black students.  While 
 
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she does not directly state Black students in her poem, one can conclude she is 
writing with Black students in mind because that was an essential part of the prompt?s 
instructions.  Below I share the poem and then point out the words that I believe 
allude to the difficulty Ms. J experienced as she strove to impact Black student 
achievement.  
The Growth Cycle of Education 
By Ms. J  
 
The cycle of education began as a seed 
With mother and father pulling out the weeds. 
The weeds of despair, anxiety, and fear. 
The weeds that could squeeze the promises so near.  
 
The cycle was watered both day and night. 
It continued on like a boxer who refused to lose the fight. 
It was filled with many doubts, trials, and tears. 
But when I look back it was worth all the years 
 
To witness the growth of the most challenging child. 
The one who seemed never to know but insisted a smiled. 
In spite of his understanding he drudged past the games 
In hopes that his education would solidify his name. 
 
In the beginning of the teaching experience I said all students can learn. 
But little did I know it would take power, passion, and perseverance to help 
them to yearn 
 
For the little mysteries in life that sometimes go unnoticed 
Or the intricacies in the classroom that are crying out for some focus. 
 
My teaching style has evolved like a growing plant. 
Many of my experiences I would not take back. 
Because through it all the success and the pain 
I realize that I have more to gain 
When I can help a child to understand his or her value  
The world will be a better place 
Like a beautiful flower.  
 (Writing Prompt #2, emphasis and spacing in original) 
 
 
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Although Ms. J compares her teaching philosophy to a plant that grows into a 
beautiful flower, her most dominant word choice for this poem creates a mood of 
struggle.  In her reflection on her teaching style, she emphasized words like ?pain,? 
?power,? ?perseverance,? ?doubt,? ?fight,? ?trials,? and ?tears.?  This diction suggests 
multiple stages of anguish and pain have been present in her personal cycle of 
teaching and learning.  A close reading of the following lines:   ?in the beginning of 
the teaching experience I said all students can learn. /But little did I know it would 
take power, passion, and perseverance to help them to yearn,? reveals an undercurrent 
of difficulty and frustration in her teaching journey.  Perhaps she needs the ?power,? 
?passion,? and ?perseverance,? to deal with what she sees as a very disturbing and 
perplexing problem: the disconnected relationship between Black students and Black 
teachers and Black students? lack of respect for Black teachers.  
 
Ms. Jocasta    
 
Ms. Jocasta, who joined the profession with the goal of helping Black kids, was 
frustrated with being rejected by Black students.  She experienced more than one 
classroom uprising in which students revolted against her teaching and left her class 
because they were angry about ?not learning? or being called ?racist pigs.?  Ms. 
Jocasta described how she felt when students walked out of her class because they felt 
she was not a good teacher: 
Ms. Jocasta:     I mean I haven?t had a riot since [laughter from group] oh 
yesterday was sort of a riot. Cause all the good kids got up and 
walked out. 
Ms. J: The good kids? They got out and protested? 
 
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Summer: Cause they were frustrated? 
Ms. Jocasta Yeah, they weren?t learning anything. 
Ms. Tan: Oh. 
Ms. Jocasta: And I felt so ? I felt like ? you could have just ? I was just 
blown. I mean, that was just the worst feeling in the world. 
 (Focus Group #3, November 5, 2011) 
 
The feeling of being rejected by the people one so desperately wanted to help led her 
to seek ways to leave the profession:  
Ms. J: How long did you say you?ve been teaching? 
Ms. Jocasta: This is my 5th year. 
Ms. J: Fifth year? Oh, okay. 
Ms. Jocasta: Yeah, and I?m not gone take it. 
Summer: Mm-hmm. 
Ms. Jocasta: I ? you know, sat down and thought about it. You know, if I go 
for a PhD it?s gonna take me 5 years [inaudible]. So maybe that?s not the 
route. But I?ve got to find another route. I?m tired of being called a bitch. 
Ms. J: Mm-hmm. 
Ms. Jocasta: I?m tired of fighting with these kids who don?t want to learn. 
They have no ?  
Summer: ? you guys are saying they act like they want to learn when there?s 
not the Black female teacher in front of them. 
 
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Ms. Jocasta: No they don?t, really. They want to look good. 
Ms. J: I think across the board it?s like that. ?Cause I?m not the only ? well, 
she?s a Black teacher too. 
Instead of ?othermother,? students called Ms. Jocasta ?bitch.?  Getting students to be 
receptive to her teaching was a battle and she was ?tired of fighting with these kids? 
who she felt did not want to learn from her because she was Black. Ms. J confirmed 
Ms. Jocasta?s assertion, saying ?I think across the board it?s like that,? in reference to 
Black students not wanting to learn from Black teachers.   To emphasize her point 
even more, Ms. Jocasta told a story about how her Black students welcomed the 
chastisement and encouragement of a White teacher while rejecting Ms. Jocasta?s: 
Ms. Jocasta:  Now, wait a minute now. I, I?ll give you an example of what 
happened two years ago. 
Summer: Mm-hmm. 
Ms. Jocasta: A young White teacher who basically allowed kids to do ? 
listen to their iPods in class, eat in class, do whatever they wanted in class as 
long as they were orderly. Who ? that everybody was clamoring to get to her. 
And that was just the opposite of me. And so what happened was they 
basically rioted one day and the White teacher said, ?Let me come in there 
and, you know, set them straight. I know these kids from, a lot of these kids 
from journalism.? And she came in there with a bag of candy and sweet talked 
them and, ?Oh you kids-,? you know. ?I know you guys can do it. Why are 
you doing this? You wouldn?t do this to your grandmother, would you?? And 
 
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I?m standing there going, ?Oh my fucking god.? And I just couldn?t believe. 
And then when she left I said, ?You racist pigs.? I called them. 
Summer: The kids? 
Ms. Jocasta: Yes I did. I told them that they were racist pigs. And they said, 
?You can?t call us -.? They jumped up and the whole class went to the office 
to tell the principal I called them racist. And I sat right down in there and 
waited for the principal to show up. 
Summer: Did he come? 
 
Ms. Jocasta: He never did. 
 
Summer: The kids come back? Come back and sit -  
 
Ms. Jocasta: Yeah. They were told to come back. And they continued to 
hoot, ?I?m telling my mama, I?m telling my mama. I?ma see you [sic]. You 
don?t have a job. 
Summer: This is crazy! Black on Black! 
Ms. Jocasta: And then I said, you know, I said, ?I?m willing to talk to you 
about it if you?re willing to listen, but what you did was totally racist.? And 
every single one of them, ?You can?t be racist if you?re Black,? you know. 
And, ?You?re Black,? you know.   
(Focus Group #3, November 5, 2011) 
Ms. Jocasta seeing the students as ?racist pigs? is problematic and highlights the 
intra-racial distrust that is surely an impediment to teaching and learning in Ms. 
Jocasta?s classroom.  Based on her story, there appeared to be a distrust from both 
Ms. Jocasta?s and the students? points of views.  Ms. Jocasta resented the White 
 
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teacher coming in to ?mediate? the situation between her and her Black students and 
was shocked at the students? acquiescence: ?Oh my fucking God.?  She was so upset 
and dumbfounded that she called the students ?racist pigs,? demonstrating her 
frustration with the students? lack of understanding about the racial solidarity that she 
felt should exist between them because of their shared racial backgrounds. Ms. 
Jocasta was disappointed that students would not let her explain how what the 
students did was ?totally racist.?  The students, on the other hand, felt Ms. Jocasta had 
betrayed them by accusing them of being racist.  The barrier between Ms. Jocasta and 
her students is palpable.  From Ms. Jocasta?s story, it appeared as if the students felt 
Ms. Jocasta was not in racial solidarity them and she felt they did not support her as a 
Black teacher, perspectives that a critical race theorist would attribute to evidence of 
how deeply engrained race and racism are in society and how such permanence is 
interfering with Black student achievement by causing intra-racial divisions and 
distrust between Black students and Black teachers.     
 Ms. J and Ms. Jocasta both had the same source of relational frustration: they 
were not satisfied with the relationships between themselves and Black students.  Ms. 
J expected there to be a sense of racial solidarity between herself and her Black 
students because of their shared racial identity.  Ms. J found students? indifference 
and sometimes defiance toward her perplexing and troubling.  Ms. Jocasta felt 
outright rejected by her Black students, a reality that often made her feel low and 
depressed.  They both desired mutually amicable relationships with their Black 
students, relationships in which students respected them as Black teachers and 
recognized their desire to help Black students achieve.  Both teachers found it 
 
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difficult to accept and tolerate teaching situations that did not reflect such a 
relationship.  
6.3.4: Positional Frustration ? Ms. X and Ms. J  
 
 
Ms. X 
Ms. X was frustrated with the categories and labels she perceived reflected the 
education field?s improper focus on ?race? ? the race of the students and the race of 
the teacher as it pertained to her teaching and to Black student achievement. Ms. X 
rejected categories and labels categorically ? for herself and for her students, and she 
especially resisted the idea of being labeled a ?Black teacher,? insisting instead that 
she was simply a ?teacher?; In her statements, she often emphasized that she was not 
only a Black teacher and that she did not only teach Black students.   She did not want 
students to see her through the lens of race. She wanted them to see her as unique 
teacher, saying, ?I hope I am able to bring my students my authentic self, to share my 
knowledge and love of English, but also infuse it with the life lessons I?ve learned 
through living and working outside of the USA? (Writing Prompt #1).   Ms. X?s 
desire to bring students her ?authentic self? suggests she defines herself in a unique 
way, a way that cannot be captured in a racial label.  Being authentic means being 
original or true to one?s self.  Ms. X does not see herself as a Black teacher or a 
teacher of Black students; thus, she strives to put forward a teaching self that is not 
confined to those prescribed identities. She asserted, ?I am a teacher AND an 
advocate for ALL of my students who need my advocacy.  I do not ONLY teach 
Black students.  I am a teacher, not strictly a Black teacher? (questionnaire, emphasis 
in original).  Ms. X?s choice to emphasize her advocacy for ?ALL? students and not 
 
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?ONLY? Black students suggests a frustration with color-consciousness and an 
embracing of a colorblind approach to her practice.   This attitude is also articulated 
in Ms. X?s teaching philosophy.  In her second writing prompt, which invited teachers 
to describe their teaching philosophy as it relates to Black students, she wrote: 
I feel as if I owe my Black students the same thing that I owe all of my 
students: a quality education. My philosophy of teaching my students of color 
includes providing them with a forum to bring their realities to light. If I do 
not listen to them, why in the world would they want to listen to me? I am 
proud to say that I have a pretty steady stream of former students coming back 
to see me, some Black, some White, some Asian, some scientists, teachers, 
Marines, doctors, firemen, and yes, some who are between jobs. The one thing 
they all seem to have in common is that they enter my classroom, and walk 
directly to the seat that they used to have while they were students in my class. 
One of the most cherished feathers in my cap came from a student (now very 
grown up, and out of college), who told me the following, "You always 
laughed with us, and made each of us feel so special.?  
(Ms. X, Writing Prompt #2) 
Two aspects of this entry support the claim that Ms. X resists any distinctions that put 
her or her students in a race-centered category: the first statement,  ?I feel as if I owe 
my Black students the same thing that I owe all of my students: a quality education? 
and the subsequent statement about her success stories: 
I am proud to say that I have a pretty steady stream of former students coming 
back to see me, some Black, some White, some Asian, some scientists, 
 
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teachers, Marines, doctors, firemen, and yes, some who are between jobs. The 
one thing they all seem to have in common is that they enter my classroom, 
and walk directly to the seat that they used to have while they were students in 
my class. 
Even though the prompt asked her to focus specifically on her Black students, she 
chose to discuss how ?some Black, some White, some Asian? students have related to 
her in the same way, despite their different races.  She talks about ?the one thing they 
all seem to have in common,? an emphasis that clearly rejects any focus on intra-
 racial connections or distinctions and embraces colorblindness.    
Ms. X also rejected the notion that activities designed for racial uplift in schools pre-
 Brown and during the Civil Rights Movement have no place in contemporary 
classrooms, activities such as singing the Black National Anthem  
Ms. X refused to reflect upon her experiences through a purely African 
American lens.  In nearly all of her responses, she makes it a point to broaden the 
discussion beyond an African American scope.  Consider, for example, how she sums 
up her response to a question about whether she thinks some Black students 
underachieve because they lack cultural and linguistic codes that are privileged in 
mainstream academic settings: 
When teachers of some of these students do not speak in Standard English to 
their classes, they are doing a grave disservice. The students may not be 
exposed to Standard English in the home, so the school environment may be 
the last bastion of hope for these students to develop language proficiency. As 
far as codes are concerned, when some teachers and parents swear at the 
 
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students, and exhibit bad behavior themselves, I do not think that the student 
stands a real chance to learn these codes.  I also believe this to be true about 
Latino and Caucasian students as well.? (Ms. X, Questionnaire)  
Ms. X sees the problem African American students face if they do not have the 
opportunity to learn standard codes, but she also ?believe[s] this to be true about 
Latino and Caucasian students as well.? In other words, she sees no reason to limit 
the focus singularly on African American standards ? there should be no distinction: 
It is a struggle, but I often share with ALL of my students that intelligence, 
and the ability to speak standard English ?has NO COLOR.? By mid to end of 
the year, most of them actually start to believe it.? (Questionnaire) 
Ultimately, Ms. X?s frustration was with the detrimental role she had 
witnessed race playing in her school.  For example, in a discussion of the racial 
demographics of each respective teacher?s department, Ms. X expressed 
discontentment with what she perceived as the department chair?s concerted effort to 
keep the number of Black teachers in the department to a minimum: 
Ms. X: Uh yeah, and if the current head of the department has his way, I'm 
sure it will be completely White soon.  
Ms. Tan: What you mean?  They trying to get rid of us?  
Ms. X:  Let me put it this way, and of course, this is not to go outside this 
room, but, uh, in some conversations with people in the know, closer up in the 
admin, it has been told to me that the head of the department is very racist, 
and had the chance to hire some African American teachers who had been at 
 
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Jefferson before and wanted to come back, but he said no in favor of 
University graduates who had done student teaching at Jefferson.  
(short silence)  
Summer:  Hmmm, umm, sooo, with that knowledge, who are we as Black 
teachers in environments like that?  
(Extended silence)  
Ms. X: I come to work, I work hard, I get there early, I love my kids, I do my 
job, I go home, don't ask me for sh - else because I've given sh - else before 
and a lot of sh- else, and have found that no good deed goes unpunished, so 
that's who I am. I love my kids, I'm always going to give them my best, but in 
an environment like that, where you are teaching the ?lesser abled? kids or the 
?non-tag? kids or our ?struggling? kids, or whatever - I see where you're 
coming from with that, and you know, I don't need to confront you on it, 
cause you've shown me where you are, and even in a situation where the 
principal is African American, that is still going on.  
(Focus Group #1, October 22, 2011)  
In the previous exchange, Ms. X is expressing her frustration with the label-centered 
culture of her school, a culture that categorizes the Black and Latino students as 
?lesser-abled,? ?non-tag,? and ?struggling? and expects Ms. X to be able to ?deal? 
with these students because she is Black and assertive. Ms. X rejects this racial-
 labeling: 
I am known as the disciplinarian, the go to teacher. Oh Ms. X will handle you. 
Oh, you have an attitude, Ms. X will - and all these kids are Black and 
 
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everybody else in the department -  except Ms. Tan -  is White, so why should 
I be the receptacle of all of the ?quote? behavioral problems and this and that 
and the other? Why should I be expected to teach Black students, Latino 
students, etc? but these White teachers are only being expected to teach the 
White kids?  That, to me, is unfair. So if you really want to be a teacher, you 
need to know how to deal with all types of students, just as we know how to 
deal with all types of students. (Focus Group #4, November 12, 2011) 
The crux of Ms. X?s statement is that she should not be expected to teach all of the 
Black students just because she is a Black teacher, that instead she should be held to 
the same expectations that all teachers are held to, whether Black or White, and White 
teachers should also be held to the same expectations.  She is frustrated on two levels 
? with the environment in which Black students are labeled as ?lesser able? and with 
the expectation that she, the Black teacher, be expected to teach the Black students.   
She does not want to be labeled and she does not like how Black children have been 
labeled.  Ms. X?s last words at the final focus group meeting sum up to root of her 
frustration with race-centered categories:  ?I?m tired of tryin to fit into everybody?s 
role, screw em? (Focus Group #4, November 12, 2011).    
 There is a contradiction, however, in Ms. X?s perspective.  On one hand, she 
rejected any notion of race-matching; on the other hand, she was upset that her 
department chair might have been discriminating against Black teachers with relation 
to hiring.  Additionally, while she resisted any expectations of her to be the Black 
teacher for Black students, she seemed to have special expectations of her African 
American principal that he would not allow Black children to be labeled and 
 
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mistreated, evident in her claim that ?even in a situation where the principal is 
African American, that [labeling Black students] is still going on.? Her statement 
suggests that the African American principal should have taken special care to ensure 
positive outcomes for Black students ? because he is an African American principal.  
This contradiction suggests even more the inner positional dissonance Ms. X seemed 
to be experiencing.   
 
Ms. J  
 
Ms. J struggled with positional frustration in a different way than Ms. X.  She 
was disappointed in herself for not emphasizing racial uplift in her practice and she 
struggled with how to enact such a philosophy in diverse classrooms.  She felt she 
should have dedicated more classroom time to Black issues: 
I just started thinking about myself as an African American teacher, and the 
curriculum that we teach. I started thinking about Black history month. As I 
went through my years as a teacher, how it seemed like I kind of got away 
from my own Blackness, if I can say that, and I didn?t really focus a lot on 
African American issues or single out African American issues to really look 
and see the struggle until a little bit later in my teaching career ? I didn?t say 
this to kids, but I thought to myself, I?m an African American teacher and I?m 
not doing my part, as it was, as an African American teacher to make sure that 
they understand the African American struggle.  
 (Focus Group #4, November 12, 2011) 
 
 184 
 
 Ms. J?s recognition of this omission caused her to identify something missing 
in the Black teacher pedagogy, something that was very present for her when she was 
a student ? an instilling of a sense of pride: 
 
Ms. J: I started thinking about when I went to school, I went to a Black 
school, that?s how I grew up?junior high and high school were a mix, but 
when I was in elementary school, it seemed like we had a greater sense of self 
of ourselves as a people. I went to all Black schools and the teachers were 
Black, and it seemed like our teachers, Black teachers, gave us a sense of self 
pride and self hope and who we were as individuals. It seems like a lot of 
students, Black students today, they don?t have that same sense of pride and 
self worth. Their worth comes in the things that they wear. 
Ms. X: How much basketball they can watch. 
Summer: Where should they get their worth from?   
Ms. J: I think it?s two-fold.  I think because we are teachers we have a 
responsibility to help instill [pride], but it?s also the parents, because we are a 
product of not only our parents but the experiences that we go through, we?re 
a product of all of these things, and they help make us and shape us, and when 
I look back at those African American teachers I had, they gave me a different 
vision. (Focus Group #4, November 12, 2011) 
I found it striking that Ms. J said she felt like her Black teachers ?gave? students a 
sense of pride and hope, but then says that Black students today do not ?have? the 
same sense of pride.  She did not say teachers today do not ?give? Black students the 
same sense of pride; however, that is what is suggested by the previous statement.  
 
 185 
 
Seeing students as ?not having? as opposed to teachers ?not giving? takes ownership 
away from the teacher.  The question we might ask is, are contemporary Black 
teachers instilling the same sense of racial pride?  Can Black teachers of today be 
expected to exhibit and transfer such pride in the same way as teachers who taught in 
segregated schools did?  I continued to probe this issue: 
Summer: So where was that pride lost, if you say your teacher gave it to you. 
Ms. Jocasta: And how did they give it to you? 
Ms. J: This might seem like nothing, but every morning, the way our school 
was set up, it was an open space school, so we sat in a commons area and we 
said the pledge of allegiance, we sang the national anthem (negro); you ask 
the kids about the negro national anthem now and they are like, ?what?!? 
Everybody: What?! 
Summer: Did someone decide that we don?t want to do that in the school 
anymore? 
Ms. X: Well, hold on one second. I totally get your experiences ? [but] I 
don?t want to get to a point where this is a Black school and this is a White 
school. This Black teacher can only teach Black students and this White 
teacher can only teach White students and at Jefferson I think that is what they 
are systematically trying to do and I am fighting it left, right, and center, and 
I?m not going for it, and every time they try to bring it back to that, I push it 
right back to their face.  I?m not gonna do that.  I?m not gonna be labeled, so, 
why do we get away from singing the Black negro anthem or whatever, 
 
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because in my personal school, we don?t sing a White anthem, so we don?t 
sing a Black anthem. 
The simple matter of whether or not to embed ?knowledge of the African 
American struggle? in their teaching ? a matter never warranting discussing in de jure 
segregated schools ? has become a debate for these teachers.  They did not all agree 
on the position racial uplift should hold in their practice.   
There is also the ambiguity and mixed emotions surrounding where the pride 
Black students need should come from.  Ms. J acknowledged that Black students 
were not getting it, but she only alluded to the possibility that Black teachers were not 
giving it.  Her regret at having not passed down knowledge of the struggle could 
suggest that she equates teaching the knowledge of the African American struggle to 
instilling pride.   Ms. Jocasta?s question, ?How did they give it to you?? suggests she 
had never experienced giving or relieving Black pride and therefore did not even 
know where to start with her instilling it into her current students. Ms. X objected 
completely to the idea of implementing any race-based practices in contemporary 
schools.  She held a post-racial mainstream integrationist perspective in which 
anything race-centered should have been dissolved when schools were integrated.   
This confusion and resistance is problematic.  
Ms. X and Ms. J experienced positional frustration in opposing ways.  Ms. X 
was frustrated with what she perceived as society?s expectation for her to do 
something different or special for Black students just because she was a Black 
teacher. She insisted that she was a teacher of all students and that neither she nor her 
students should be thought of in terms of racial labels.  Ms. J?s frustration was with 
 
 187 
 
the opposite: she felt she and other Black teachers were failing to meet what she felt 
was their responsibility to do more than just teach content to Black students.  She felt 
guilt about her own failure to pass on self pride and knowledge of the African 
American struggle to Black students.  Ultimately, Ms. X?s and Ms. J?s frustrations 
reflect conflicting views about the role, or position, their racial identity should play in 
their practice.  
 
6.3.4: Cultural Frustration ? All Teachers 
 
 
The teachers in my study all viewed themselves not only as teachers of 
content but also as teachers of life skills and knowledge that would benefit students 
beyond the classroom. Teachers felt, however, that enacting their more-than-content 
teaching philosophy was difficult because of students? attitudes, values and work 
habits, attitudes, values, and work habits teachers felt were shaped by an instant-
 gratification-driven societal culture that Ms. Tan described as privileging non-middle 
class values.  Ms. Tan suggested that it was the African American ?popular culture? 
that was in the spotlight in society, not necessarily African American middle class 
culture.  As reflected in the teachers? statements, the African American popular 
culture consists of non-middle class values, nonstandard/slang linguistic culture, 
thuggish dress, glorified teen pregnancy, lack of exposure to things of significance, 
uninvolved parents, and a focus on expensive material goods.  The following 
conversation illustrates these perspectives: 
Ms. Tan: I think the culture more than anything influences the problems that 
we see and I think that (pause) I don?t know it?s kind of hurt us to be in the 
 
 188 
 
spot light, you know, our fashion, our hair, our music, our sports, all those 
things being so prominent, I think that that has hurt us in moral ways and our 
values and things that we value and ways like that, because it?s sort of 
whatever we do is right, and that?s the right way,  and certain groups are the 
right way and everybody can aspire to that,  and they were not necessarily 
middle class values that are being pushed to the forefront, and it hasn?t just 
influenced Black kids, it?s influenced a lot  -  
Ms. Jocasta: -  a lot of White kids -   
Ms. Tan: Right, and I mean it seems like, and I don?t know if it?s because 
we?re looking at it, but it seems like we?re the only ones who cringe at it and 
think that it?s just us. But I?ve heard some, here and there, I?ve seen on 
television, like the Kardashians, I?ve seen them use verbs incorrectly, but it?s 
not looked at the same, it?s not viewed as -  
Ms. Jocasta: What it is, I?ve talked to lots of White teachers who find it 
appalling that there?s, well that they feel that there?s a large number of the 
White students who are losing it, who are having the same problems we are 
talking about.   
Ms. Kelly and Ms. Tan: Culture, it?s the culture. 
Ms. Jocasta: Their watching the same shows.   The White kids are wearing 
their pants down. In Israel, I heard that. 
Ms. Tan: But that is, that?s us, that?s our influence.  It?s not like all Americans 
were doing that, we were doing that, so we got pushed to the spot light, so 
now everybody  -  
 
 189 
 
Ms. Jocasta: that?s cool 
Ms. Tan: but that?s a small segment of our community, that?s not  - 
Ms. Jocasta:  - but that?s the one that?s promoted -  
Ms. Tan:  - exactly and, I think, we?re just like fighting a losing battle in the 
classroom, trying to fight this big, huge culture and if we?re,  to me if you 
don?t get it at home, at least you can get it at school and some place else, or 
that one thing is missing,  but not everything,  and then the classroom teacher 
is the only person you know who is speaking properly? That?s crazy! How do 
you fight that? Because what is gonna make them want to be like you and 
everybody else -  
Summer:  - and the only time I have to speak proper English is at school -  
Ms. Tan:  - and not even at school, because you?re - how are we gonna fight 
that, that is what I want to know? 
Ms. Jocasta: You know, I agree with you one hundred percent. You are just so 
on, with all the same issues with the problem I view. It is so big, and it is so 
pervasive now. It?s like the pregnancy thing too, it?s like, do you know I have 
two or three pregnant girls in every senior class? (pause) And they have a 
regular - the nurse holds a class for parenting.  
Ms. Tan: And you know what, I think that?s great, cause I think that?s the 
other problem, cause nobody knows what the hell they?re doing, so people just 
having babies, so if the nurse is giving some parenting advice, thank God for 
her, at least they won?t be so uneducated about what to do with children; 
cause they don?t know what they?re doing; they are not systematically reading 
 
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to the kids. Their trips are going to the mall.  They are not going to any of the 
monuments, not doing anything educational. 
Ms. Jocasta: Never been to the Smithsonian 
Ms. Tan: No exposure to anything, no, ?how you doing in school, you doing 
ok, good?? 
Ms. Jocasta: The teacher can?t do everything.            
 (Focus Group #2, October 29, 2011) 
While the frustration with the culture students have embraced is evident, a paradox 
also exists in the above exchange.  The teachers are complaining about a culture that 
Ms. Tan describes as ?ours,? meaning Black people?s.   Her argument, though, is that 
the culture represents a ?small segment of our community,? but her statement 
suggests that she is labeling the culture a ?Black culture,? an assertion she said was 
false when I asked her to clarify in another meeting.  Instead, she called it the culture 
of society, but that ?it seems like we?re [Black people] the only ones who cringe at it 
and think that it?s just us,? a point Ms. Jocasta affirmed above, saying ?they?re [White 
kids] watching the same shows.   It?s the same thing.? Like the other teachers, Ms. 
Tan did not want to give the ownership for this ?culture? to Black people, but she 
recognized that the behaviors Black students exhibited were those adopted by society, 
even if she sees the behaviors as belonging only to a small segment of the Black 
population. I conclude that because she ? and other Black teachers ? see themselves 
as a part of Black culture, they ?cringe? when they see Black students behaving in 
ways that the teachers feel do not reflect who they are as Black people.  In essence, 
the teachers were disturbed by their association with what they perceived as the 
 
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unproductive, anti-school culture of many of their Black students. Even though they 
knew some White children embrace similar cultural preferences in entertainment, 
dress, and overall deportment, they felt more offended by ? and felt society looked 
more negatively upon ? Black students? behavior, as reflected in Ms. Tan?s statement 
that she has ?seen them [White students] use verbs incorrectly, but it?s not looked at 
the same.?  
This theme of ?culture as problem? was prevalent throughout all of the focus 
group meetings.  Ms. Jocasta put forth a striking image of this culture for the group to 
consider, that of Black students embracing ?a balloon that is completely empty? ? 
meaning a balloon that has nothing of value or worth in it, but rather is filled with 
life?s vanities.  Ms. X took the image further, saying the students had inherited an 
existence that was empty, that was merely just a show:  
Ms. Jocasta: Yes, I?ve been assaulted; I?ve been hurt and more denigrated by 
the Black community than I have by any other community, primarily because 
of my speech and my world view. My world view is that the vast majority of 
[Black] students that I have encountered have embraced a balloon that is 
completely empty -  
Ms. X:  - and inherited an existence that is pretty much like that.  It?s a show. 
Ms. Jocasta: And it?s a show and it?s a great deal of, it?s painful to watch; it?s 
painful to be around for me -   
Cultural acceptance is not evident in Ms. Jocasta?s description of Black 
students embracing ?a balloon that is completely empty.?  Cultural conflict (Depit, 
2010) better characterizes her view.  Ms. Jocasta?s perception that the Black 
 
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community has criticized her for pointing out problems she sees in Black student 
culture seems to trouble her as much as the cultural problems she sees in her Black 
students, problems she describes as ?painful to watch.?  Ms. Jocasta attributed this 
empty balloon culture to ?the vast majority of [Black] students that [she had] 
encountered,? which suggests that in her eyes, most Black students are headed toward 
nowhere.  Ms. X?s depiction of the students inheriting an existence that is also empty 
affirms Ms. Jocasta?s perspective.  Ms. X?s choice to use the word ?inherited? 
suggests she may think Black students acquired this empty existence from a previous 
generation, a perspective she alluded to  in the same discussion,  in which she 
criticized what she perceived as an African American legacy of ?children having 
children? and failing to acquire a solid education to pass on to their offspring:  
Ms. X: Put it this way, when children are having children and that culture gets 
[sic], and that is your legacy to your child, when you were only 10, 15, 16 
years older than your offspring, and you don?t even have a firm grip on 
education or the real world and that is the legacy you pass on to your 
children? I think they stand a very slim chance.  And a lot of these parents that 
I?ve seen and I?m not saying all of them have no value for education.  ?I send 
my child to school because if I don?t, I can go to jail.? 
Summer: People have actually said that? 
Ms. X, Ms. Jocasta, Ms. J (in unison): Yes, yes.  
Ms. X:  Yesterday they came to me, ?uh, Ms. X, can you give me some 
parenting skills?? (pause) You brought em in the world.  You shouldn?t be 
afraid to take him out, and as soon as he realizes you?re not afraid to take him 
 
 193 
 
out, you?ve lost the battle. But that?s me (chuckle), that?s me, so you may not 
want my advice.  Learn how to say no, learn how to not buy them all of these 
expensive things for a reward for something they haven?t even done. 
Ms. Jocasta: And set up some cameras at their houses, do you know how 
many sex parties they?re having? 
Ms. Kelly: A junior had a tattoo party, and her mother was there. 
Ms. Jocasta: And in Larkwood33, when the bus comes by for the kids who are 
slow, other kids throw bottles at it 
Summer: And are we standing by and watching?  I think the U.S. has created 
a society where we stand by and watch.  
Ms. X: Especially, speaking of  the Black community, snitches get stitches, 
that?s the mentality, so you shut your mouth and that?s the mentality, goes 
back to slavery.       (Focus Group #4, November 12, 2011) 
In essence, these teachers? comments suggest that  they believe the Black community 
(including parents and teachers) cannot seem to penetrate the empty shell of an 
existence they believe many Black students inhabit, an existence they see as  
occupied by an entertainment culture that does not promote school success.  
Moreover, the possibility that the Black community is ?standing by and watching,? 
choosing to ?shut [their] mouths? so as not to cause any trouble, to them is not far-
 fetched, but is actually quite plausible.   
When I prodded the group for more of their thoughts surrounding the idea of 
Black students embracing an empty shell of an existence and what they thought 
                                                 
33
  Larkwood is a neighborhood near Langston and Jefferson high schools in Prudence County.  
 
 194 
 
should be Black teachers? responsibility for dealing with this emptiness, Ms. X 
responded in a tone that suggested slight irritation: 
I think the responsibility needs to be shared, and you know, it?s not us [Black 
teachers] that created all of these issues and it?s not us selling $200 and $300 
dollar pair of sneakers on T.V. and making our kids think they?re somebody if 
they wear those sneakers on their feet or wearing somebody?s name across 
your ass and you have no identity of your own, but you want to identify with 
what?s across your ass. We didn?t create all of that. (Focus Group #4, 
November 12, 2011) 
Ms. X did not embrace the idea of personal ?teacher? responsibility.  She felt that 
responsibility needed to be shared, but she emphasized that Black teachers had not 
?created all of these issues? and therefore should not be responsible for dealing with 
them. Ms. Jocasta responded by saying the Black community may not have created 
the problem, but that the community is allowing the problem to persist:  
Ms. Jocasta: the Black community, we the Black community are allowing our 
children to eat it wholesale. They go out and buy 600 dollar I-pods and -  
Ms. X: and can?t bring a pen to class 
Ms. Jocasta: can?t read and they have a 600 dollar phone 
Ms. X: can?t write an essay but can text 
Ms. Jocasta: right, can text at sixty words a minute 
Group:  Laughter 
Here, teachers were critiquing the problems that they see as impeding their ability to 
positively impact their students? achievement.  Two important grievances were 
 
 195 
 
expressed: Black teachers did not create the problem, why should they be tasked with 
fixing it; and, why is the Black community allowing the problem to exist ? two 
divergent views toward the problem.  Ms. X feels it is not her responsibility. Ms. 
Jocasta feels there is a responsibility for adults ? including teachers ? who are a part 
of the Black community.  The other teachers were noticeably quiet during this 
exchange, to the point that I had to inquire about their thinking.  Their silence, 
though, is present in its non-verbal state.  They were, in Ms. J?s words, ?taking it all 
in? and considering their positions on the issue.  Though Ms. Kelly was quiet during 
this session, in the writing prompt for this session, she admonished the Black 
community to ?do better?: 
To the community, we have to do better.  We have to be present in the lives of 
our kids.  In order to hold them accountable for our future, we have to hold 
ourselves accountable NOW.  We can?t expect for our babies to uphold values 
we don?t practice or mirror.  Volunteer in your schools.  Tutor a child in math.  
Come in the school, go in the classroom and read book to some kids.  Discuss 
a novel with a group.  Share your profession and the path you traveled to get 
there.  Mentor a teen.  Use your degrees for something more than your own 
benefit.  Don?t simply congratulate teachers, get in there and assist.  Working 
together, we can make major accomplishments.   
(Ms. Kelly, Writing Prompt #4) 
Ms. Kelly stressed the need for personal responsibility in the Black community ? 
adult and student responsibility.  Her admonition to members of the Black community 
to ?use your degrees for something more than your own benefit? suggests she 
 
 196 
 
believes the Black community has a responsibility to promote the uplift of the race in 
schools.  
Troubling Sub-Culture: Non-Honors Students 
Teachers expressed having particular difficulty working with students who 
were not in honors classes. They had trouble relating to these types of students 
because the students displayed attitudes and work habits that seemed foreign to the 
teachers, all of whom had been in honors classes when they were in secondary school, 
and who were accustomed to being in classes with students who consistently did their 
work and had positive attitudes toward the classroom environment.  The teachers first 
described the disconnect they felt with their non-honors students in the focus group 
meeting dedicated to discussing teachers? educational life histories.  They indicated 
that their background as former honors students inhibited their ability to understand 
and work successfully with students in the comprehensive-level track: 
Summer: You mentioned that you sometimes feel, because you were in honors 
classes, it?s sometimes hard for you relate to the students who were not in 
those classes.  How do you guys feel - you guys teach a lot of middle class 
students, but not all are middle class.  How do you all feel, I mean what do 
you do with that feeling of lack of connection or not knowing how to reach 
and do you all feel the same thing or whatever - a gap between  -  
Ms. Kelly:  I mean my gap for me is the motivation; it is not the ?class.? I 
mean we listen to a lot of the same music, T.V. shows, stuff like that, but as 
far as being in a class with people who goof off and don?t do their work - that 
is the disconnect.  I can have a conversation with them as people. But when it 
 
 197 
 
comes to me having to beat you over the head to get you to do your work, I?m 
not use to that. 
Ms. X:  I?ll escort mine out. You will not put your head down; you will not 
sleep in my classroom.  We do not do that here. So it?s modeling behavior that 
they don?t have at home ?  
Ms. Tan: I do have trouble relating to kids who don?t do their work, cause I 
was never in any classroom as a student like that, and I don?t really associate 
with people who don?t do whatever they need to do to get what they want.  So, 
I can?t understand that mindset and I don?t know how to reach that mindset: 
that you pick and choose what you want to do, but you?re still supposed to get 
what you want to get out of it.  You want to pass, you minimally want to pass, 
but you only want to do the things that you want to do or that are interesting to 
you  or that maybe at the last minute, [sic] or you?re supposed to get credit for 
showing up or for doing something, just a little something, I should get credit 
for that - 
Summer: I wrote my name! 
Ms. Tan: Right, ?I did it!?  Yes, but it?s all wrong.    
Ms. Tan and Ms. Kelly simply do not understand the ?mindsets? of students who 
?goof off and don?t do their work.?  Ms. Tan feels the students want to get something 
for nothing, expecting high marks for little effort. She describes a culture of 
entitlement in which students ?pick and choose what [they] want to do? when it 
comes to their school work. Ms. X ?escorts? such student out of her classroom, 
refusing to accept such negative attitudes and poor work habits. Ms. Tan described 
 
 198 
 
this defiant and disinterested mindset as ?the biggest problem with the 
[comprehensive] kids?: 
Ms. Tan: I think that is the biggest problem with the comp kids. Anything that 
frustrates them or is hard or seems challenging, somehow they have gotten the 
message that they don?t have to do it, and I think that it is the most horrible 
thing, whereas even to this day ?words with friends? this phone game, I?m 
horrible with that, but I keep, like, if somebody?s gonna play me, I?m gonna 
play, like god dangit, but I am gonna get better at this thing; but their attitude 
is completely like they are going to give up if I am not doing well and I should 
automatically do well because I am me. Not because I?m practiced. Not 
because I?ve studied. Just because I?m me and everything should be 
automatically given to me.  (Focus Group #1, October 22, 2011) 
Ms. Tan?s comments suggest that she sees students in the non-honors track as selfish, 
vein, and weak-minded, making no efforts to work at ?anything that frustrates them 
or is hard or seems challenging.? 
The year of this study Ms. Jocasta only taught non-honors classes, a situation 
that depressed her sorely. Ms. Jocasta felt her class assignments were unfair, even 
though her department chair and administrators told her the reason she got all of the 
challenging classes was because she was such a good teacher.  Ms. Jocasta felt having 
to teach students who appeared so resistant to learning was setting her up for failure. 
Ms. Tan affirmed Ms. Jocasta?s feelings in a way that suggests even more frustration 
with working with this non-honors population of students: 
 
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Ms. Tan: So you?re not alone. But it is harder when you have a whole ? 
like you need to have one bright spot. And you need to say to 
the principal or your department chair, ?This is fine. I can take 
all this. Loading up my classes. But you need to give me at 
least one honors class.? 
Ms. J: Right. 
Ms. Tan: ?I need one class who will do the work. I mean one class where 
I can say, okay they?re going to do they?re work. You can?t just 
leave me like that.? You?ve been there long enough that you 
have some ability to say that. 
Ms. Jocasta:  I know, right. If they would give me some ? I paid for the AP34 
course. Can I take ? can I just go ahead and get my AP syllabus 
approved without having an AP class waiting for me. 
 
Ms. Tan: You can tell them that you need at least one. Okay if you want 
to give them to this person, that person. But you need to give 
me at least one. I need a break. This is crazy. You?re not going 
to drive me crazy. And it?s not fair. What is the problem? 
(Focus Group #3, November 5, 2011) 
A full course load of comprehensive students is not ?fair,? drives one ?crazy,? - is not 
a ?bright spot.?  Ms. J affirmed these statements.   Even more, Ms. Tan?s statement, 
?you have been there long enough that you should have some ability to say that? 
                                                 
34
  Advanced Placement 
 
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suggests that seniority should relieve teachers from the duty of teaching multiple non-
 honors classes.  Lastly, the perception some teachers have of students in 
comprehensive-level classes is spelled out in Ms. Tan?s statement: ?I need one class 
who will do the work. You can?t just leave me like that.?  In her eyes, students in 
comprehensive-level classes do not do their work and having to teach too many of 
them is like giving a teacher the short end of the stick or ?leaving [the teacher] like 
that.   Ms. Tan also explicitly expressed her own frustration with working with this 
population of students: 
Summer: What about you all in your regular level classes?  Do you all 
try to do some of the same things you do in honors classes? Are you 
able to? 
Ms. Tan: Well, it makes me very stressed and upset and unhappy -  
(Group laughter) 
 Ms. Tan: But, I just, that?s why, I?m probably gonna die early -  
Ms. Jocasta: Chuckles  
Ms. Tan: but I do it, I do it, and eventually, it gets better, they catch 
on. Um, I can?t do a full unveiling of it, but I expose them, just in 
smaller measures.     (Focus Group #2, October 29, 2012) 
Teaching students in this track made her ?stressed,? ?upset,? and ?unhappy? and in 
her eyes, could send her to an early grave.  She feels she cannot give them the full 
lessons but instead must do a small ?unveiling? of them.  
 While Ms. Kelly did not express opposition to teaching comprehensive-level 
classes, she certainly expressed her frustration with their skill level and poor work 
 
 201 
 
habits, saying ?How did they get to this point?? She also admitted that she struggled 
to understand and relate to their attitudes toward school:  
On the one hand, I have a hard time relating to these kids because I never had 
class with them when I was in school.  I was always in honors classes.  I never 
taught them during my student teaching experience.  But I understand they 
need me more than anything.  (Ms. Kelly, Writing Prompt #1) 
Ms. Kelly recognized, however, that her disconnect from these non-honors students 
was mostly related to their work habits not their cultural preferences or interests: 
Ms. Kelly: I mean my gap for me is the motivation; it is not the ?class.? I 
mean we listen to a lot of the same music TV shows etc., but as far as being in 
a class with people who don?t do their work and who goof off; that is the 
disconnect.  I can have a conversation with them as people. But when it comes 
to me having to beat you over the head to get you to do your work, I?m not 
use to that. (Focus Group #1, October 22, 2011) 
Ms. J and Ms. X spoke less explicitly about their challenges with this subgroup, but 
that they found this group problematic was still evident. Ms. X said that at her school 
the comprehensive students were typically made up of the ?discipline problems? and 
were mainly the Black and Latino students and that she felt it was not fair that only 
the Black teachers were expected to teach students in these classes (Focus Group #4). 
Ms. J did not teach any honors classes, so by default the students about whom she 
discussed having problems with were students in comprehensive-level classes.  
All of the teachers found the culture students displayed in schools to be 
problematic.  They felt the culture reflected an African American popular culture that 
 
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privileged material goods over school success, instead of a Black middle class culture 
that emphasized productive work habits and school success. All of the teachers also 
found teaching non-honors level students to be particularly challenging because of 
their poor work habits, sense of entitlement, and low skills, which the teachers felt 
reflected cultural values that did not support school success.   These cultural elements 
made helping Black students achieve emotionally and pedagogically taxing and 
challenging for teachers.    
 
 
Conclusion 
 
The teachers in my study felt they helped Black students achieve by not only 
teaching English content but by also teaching life skills that would benefit students 
beyond high school, skills such as punctuality, productive work habits, and 
independent thinking skills.  Teachers found implementing their more-than-content 
approach difficult, however, because of frustrating circumstances and situations they 
faced in their efforts.  Ms. Tan and Ms. Kelly felt frustration with the systems and 
processes of educational institutions that they thought impeded their instructional 
efforts and negatively affected Black students? chances to achieve at high levels. Ms. 
Tan and Ms. Jocasta were frustrated with what they perceived as the ineffectiveness 
of their instructional strategies.  Ms. J and Ms. Jocasta were troubled by what they felt 
were disconnected relationships with Black students, students whom they felt should 
share a connection with them because of their shared racial identity. Ms. J and Ms. X 
both struggled with how they were expected to enact their position as Black teachers, 
but in diametrically opposing ways: Ms. X did not appreciate the expectation of her to 
 
 203 
 
do anything different for her Black students than she did for other students, just 
because she was a Black teacher.  Ms. J felt because she was a Black teacher, she 
should have been doing more to ensure students gained a sense of pride and 
knowledge of the African American struggle for freedom and rights.  Collectively, 
teachers felt the anti-school culture students? depicted, especially students who were 
not in honors classes, to be extremely troubling because it was counter to the middle 
class school habits and attitudes they held as students and that they expected their 
students to display.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 204 
 
 
 
Chapter 7: Conclusion 
 
Scholars of the past two decades have written about the positive role that 
Black teachers played as role models and mentors for Black students in pre-Brown 
segregated schools and in post-Brown newly integrated schools.  Historically, Black 
teachers have been noted for their ability to work successfully with Black students 
(Fairclough, 2004; Foster, 1997; Irvine, 2002; Patterson, Mickelson, Hester, & 
Wyrick, 2011; Walker, 2001, 2009).  Considering these accounts of Black teachers? 
positive experiences with Black students alongside the knowledge of persistent 
widespread Black student underachievement made me wonder why the majority of 
Black students continue to underachieve ? even when they are taught by Black 
teachers. Moreover, I found perplexing and disturbing the recent studies which 
indicate that some Black teachers of Black students see the students, community, and 
parents as the reasons for students? underachievement (Delpit, 2006; Fordham, 1996; 
Lynn et al., 2010) and do not consider their own practice as possible causes (Lynn et 
al., 2010). These contradicting reports of Black teachers? experiences with Black 
students, while separated by two historical eras, prompted me to investigate 
contemporary Black teachers? perceptions of their impact on Black student 
achievement.  I set out to answer one over-arching research question: What are Black 
English teachers? perceptions of how they impact Black student achievement? 
To answer my research question, I recruited five Black English teachers to 
participate in four focus group discussions that occurred over a month?s time.  I also 
conducted one-on-one follow-up interviews with each teacher and asked them to 
 
 205 
 
complete an online questionnaire about their beliefs, attitudes, and practices.  
Additionally, at each focus group session, I engaged teachers in reflective writing 
activities related to the focus group session topics. The prompts consisted of writing 
an education-focused life-history narrative, a philosophy statement on teaching Black 
students, a letter to themselves from the perspectives of their Black students, and a 
retirement letter to current and future Black teachers, students, and community 
members.   
The culturally-sensitive (Tillman, 2002) nature of this study?s research 
problem led me to conceptualize this project through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) 
lens.  CRT, a theoretical framework that centralizes race and privileges the voices of 
people of color, allowed me to emphasize race in all elements of the study, from the 
identification of the problem, to the selection of participants, the content of my 
questions, and my analytic foci. CRT in education says that race is an endemic and 
permanent part of society that must be considered in the field?s quest to improve the 
educational experiences and outcomes of students of color (Ladson-Billings, 1998, 
2005 & Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). CRT in education also involves the re-
 examination of ineffective civil rights laws. I paired CRT with the alternative arts-
 based methodology of portraiture, a methodology that, like CRT, emphasizes the 
importance of providing a platform where voices of people from marginalized groups 
can be heard.  Additionally, both CRT (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) and portraiture 
encourage presenting study findings in nontraditional ways that would speak to 
diverse audiences beyond the academy (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). In this 
spirit, I extended the portraiture methodology to include poetry, specifically, creating 
 
 206 
 
poetic portraits (Childers, 2007; Hill, 2003, 2005; Schendel, 2009) as introductions 
for the teachers. Following the poetic portraits, I also presented the findings in the 
more traditional emergent theme format.   
Revisiting the Research Question  
I designed this dissertation project to answer the following question: What are 
Black English teachers? perceptions of how they impact Black student achievement?  
The teachers felt they helped Black students achieve by teaching them more than 
English content.  Teachers? teaching philosophies included teaching students life 
skills that would benefit students beyond their high school years.  Teachers found it 
difficult, however, to enact their more-than-content teaching philosophies because of 
frustrating challenges they encountered in the process.  I discuss each of these 
findings in the subsequent sections.  
More than Teachers of Content 
The teachers in my study felt they impacted Black student achievement by 
helping instill in them skills, values, and knowledge beyond what is measured on a 
quiz or test. Teachers measured achievement by students? display of growth and of 
independent thinking.  They strove to help students develop life skills and knowledge 
that would benefit them beyond high school. Ms. X, who prided herself in holding 
high expectations for students, aimed to use her international living and working 
experiences to help her students learn valuable lessons about life. She shared stories 
about former students of hers who had eventually achieved professional success and 
she tied their success, in part, to the ?tough love? she gave them.  Ms. Tan spoke 
about a student who attributed his choice to attend college to the guest speaker who 
visited him in Ms. Tan?s class. Like Ms. Tan, Ms. Jocasta wanted to make sure 
 
 207 
 
students were prepared for the difficulties and challenges they would face in life as 
African American adults.   Ms. J wanted to instill a sense of pride and esteem in her 
students because she recognized the challenges they would face in the real world. Ms. 
Kelly said she viewed her students as sisters, brothers, and cousins and she strove to 
be a role model for them.  These types of anecdotes were sprinkled about throughout 
the study and are reflective of how most scholars have portrayed Black teachers in the 
literature as othermothers (Foster, 1993; Irvine, 2002) and as holding emancipatory 
teaching philosophies (Foster, 1990; Irvine, 2002; Lynn, Johnson, and Hassan, 1999). 
Such anecdotes, however, did not dominate the conversations.  While all of the 
teachers articulated a more-than-content philosophy as reflective of their efforts to 
impact Black student achievement; findings indicate that teachers found it difficult to 
enact their more-than-content philosophies because of frustrating situations they 
faced in their efforts.  I organized these frustrating situations into five categories of 
Teacher Frustrations.   
Teacher Frustrations 
Findings indicate that the teachers in my study were frustrated with the 
challenges they faced in their efforts to impact Black student achievement. I 
organized their frustrations  into five categories: institutional frustration, frustration 
with educational systems and processes; pedagogical frustration, frustration with 
one?s ability to translate content knowledge into effective lessons; relational 
frustration, frustration with one?s ability to build mutually satisfying relationships 
with Black students; positional frustration, frustration with the role racial uplift and 
solidarity is expected to play in one?s practice; and cultural frustration, frustration 
with the attitudes, values, and work habits of Black students.  Collectively, the data 
 
 208 
 
that illustrate these frustrations have led me to two main conclusions. First, that there 
is an emerging narrative that complicates the academic literature?s dominant narrative 
during the last two decades of the Black teacher as one connected to and successful 
with Black students.  The second conclusion I arrive to is that contemporary Black 
teachers? pedagogy is centered less on racial uplift today than it was pre-Brown and in 
Brown?s immediate aftermath, shedding more light on the unintended consequences 
the Brown decision had for Black teachers and Black students. 
7.1: Complicating the Black Teacher Narrative: Black 
Teachers? Difficulties with Black Students 
 
7.1.1: Cultural & Relational Frustration: Dissonance Between Black 
Teachers and Black Students  
 
The dominant narrative in the current literature on Black teachers post-Brown 
depicts them as being culturally-connected to (Irvine, 1990, 2002) and successful 
with Black students (Fairclough, 2004); they are othermothers (Foster, 1993; Irvine, 
2002), saviors (Foster, 1993), mentors, role models (Irvine, 1989), and in racial 
solidarity with Black students (Fairclough, 2004; Foster, 1993; Walker, 2009).   
Scholars have also described Black teachers as effective with Black students because 
of their culturally-specific practices (Irvine, 2002) and cultural synchronization 
(Irvine, 1990, 2002) with Black students. The less-discussed narrative in the post-
 Brown era involves Black teachers who are not experiencing success with Black 
students and who see Black students and their parents through deficit lenses (Delpit, 
2006; Fordham, 1996; Lynn et al., 2010), and feel disconnected from them due to 
class (Fordham, 1996) or cultural (Maylor, 2009) differences. The results of my study 
 
 209 
 
build upon this less-dominant narrative, for the teachers in my study did not all work 
productively and pleasantly with Black students and the teachers all described feeling 
a cultural disconnect with some of their Black students. Ultimately, teachers in my 
study were frustrated by the challenges they faced teaching Black students.  While 
Black teachers have reported cultural difficulties in their new roles in integrated 
schools (Milner & Howard, 2004) in which they received no guidance on how to get 
along with the White child (Foster, 1997), the reporting of feeling cultural frustration 
with how to teach Black children is a salient finding in this study. 
While the teachers in this study spoke about Black children in general, the 
students the teachers expressed most difficulty teaching and relating to were students 
who were not in honors classes.  They complained that these regular-education 
students appeared unenthused about ? and often defiant toward ? classroom learning, 
habitually failed to complete assignments or participate constructively in classroom 
activities, and showed disrespect or disregard for teachers, school officials, and the 
school environment.  The teachers, Ms. Tan and Ms. Jocasta specifically, complained 
that having a full course load of comprehensive students was not fair. Teachers said 
they struggled to teach this population of students not only because of their low 
academic skills but because of the students? lazy ? and sometimes non-existent work 
habits.   The teachers perceived these Black students as having negative attitudes 
toward schooling. Not doing class and homework and not genuinely showing an 
interest in and excitement about learning seemed to be student habits that most 
perplexed and frustrated the teachers.  Ogbu (2003) found the attitudes and work 
habits teachers in this study reported in his study of African American students in a 
 
 210 
 
northeast Ohio high school. His investigation revealed that Black students suffered 
from ?low-effort syndrome,? which means that they invested little time and effort into 
both homework and class work.  The perspectives of the teachers in this dissertation 
study resonate strongly with Ogbu?s findings.  
Not only did teachers complain about student work habits, but they also 
expressed aversion toward students? values and beliefs, describing students as having 
?embraced a balloon that is completely empty? and as having ?inherited an existence 
that is empty.?  In other words, the teachers did not see value in the entertainment-
 driven and material-centered value system they felt their Black students embraced.  
They did not value the students? ?home? cultures and instead looked at Black students 
through a deficit lens (Delpit, 2006; Gay, 2000).  Generally, Black teachers are 
known as viewing student culture as a strength and drawing upon it in their teaching 
(Irvine, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1996; Lee, 2006).  In addition to Fordham (1996) and 
Lynn et al. (2010), a few other scholars have reported Black teachers having deficit 
views toward Black students (Delpit, 2006; Foster, 1997; T. Adkins-Coleman, 
personal communication, April 23, 2011;).  Delpit (2006) noted that in her 
observations of contemporary predominantly Black schools, that: ?[teachers] judge 
their [minority students?] actions, words, intellects, families, and communities as 
inadequate at best, as collections of pathologies at worst.  ? These views are not 
limited to White adults.  In my experience in predominantly Black school districts, 
the middle-class African American teachers who do not identify with the poor 
African-American students they teach may hold similarly damaging stereotypes? (p. 
xxiv).  Additionally, in the early years of integration, Foster (1993) found that some 
 
 211 
 
Black teachers embraced dominant cultural values that privileged a White middle 
class way of life and held low expectations for Black students.  None of these 
scholars, however, have pursued a research agenda interrogating these findings. In 
fact, Adkins-Coleman stated that her knowledge of African American teachers? 
deficit-thinking is one of the reasons why she did not strive to recruit only African 
American teachers for her study (Adkins, 2006) on effective English teachers of 
Black students (T. Adkins-Coleman, personal communication, April 23, 2011).  
Adkins (2006, 2010) utilized a variation of the community nomination (Foster, 1991; 
Ladson-Billings, 1994) selection process to identify teachers for her study.  She 
sought nominations from the students and the principal.  If a teacher?s name appeared 
on both the students? and the principal?s list, the teacher was invited to participate in 
the study.  Though not by design, the teachers selected for her study were Black.  
As was the case with cultural frustration, relational frustration also runs 
counter to the idea of Black teachers experiencing cultural synchronization (Irvine, 
1990, 2002) with Black students. Cultural synchronization theory says Black students 
and Black teachers experience synchronization in the classroom because of a shared 
African American culture that includes ?identifiable norms, language, behaviors, and 
attitudes? (Irvine, 1990, p. 23) and that because of the shared cultural understanding 
teachers can relate to students personally and therefore, operationalize their practice 
more effectively.  In this dissertation study, Black teachers described experiencing 
cultural dissonance rather than synchronization with Black students.  Ms. J and Ms. 
Jocasta felt the cultural understanding described in the cultural synchronization theory 
was missing in their relationships with students.  Both teachers described feeling 
 
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rejected and dismissed by Black students.  Ms. Tan also reported that in her more 
culturally-diverse teaching setting Black students did not connect with her as they did 
in her predominantly Black teaching assignment.  
Black teachers feeling a disconnection between themselves and the Black 
students they teach is not widely discussed in educational communities of practice or 
research.  When Fordham (1996) first put forward the idea, her thinking was 
considered controversial at the time (V.M. MacDonald, personal communication, 
October 22, 2012) and resulted in no studies that I know of that strove to unpack this 
disconnect between African American teachers and African American students.   A 
study conducted in London, England, however, revealed that Black teachers and 
Black students rejected the notion of race-matching because some Black teachers did 
not want to be role models for Black students and because some Black students did 
not relate to their Black teachers (Maylor, 2009).  The population in that study, 
however, consisted of British ethnic minorities, not American, but the logic is 
applicable to American school settings. The reality that Black teachers have 
articulated feeling undesired by Black students ? and that they are bothered by it ? is 
a reality that warrants further exploration.  Fairclough (2007) explains how there were 
signs of this intra-racial dissonance when schools were first integrated:   
Although Black students directed most of their animus toward White teachers, 
Black teachers discovered that their own ability to enforce discipline and 
teach effectively also suffered.  In segregated schools, teachers had relied 
upon a structure of Black authority, usually reinforced by a stern principal, to 
back them up.  Desegregation not only removed Black principals but also 
 
 213 
 
displaced other symbols of Black authority such as counselors, coaches, and 
band directors. (p. 399) 
If there is cultural dissonance between Black students and Black teachers, as 
indicated in the results of this study, perhaps the assumption that Black teachers are, 
by default of their race, adept at helping Black students achieve, should be 
interrogated more deeply.   
Institutional & Cultural Frustration: Difficulties with Non-Honors Students 
Illuminates Teachers? Problems with Tracking and Social Class Differences  
The detrimental impact systems of tracking have on minority students has 
been well-documented in the literature (Ansalone, 2006; Oakes, 1985; Oakes & 
Lipton, 2007; Tyson, 2011).   Black teachers? perspectives on tracking, however, 
have not been discussed in depth in the literature.  Ms. Kelly gives us a window into 
how disproportionate tracking may affect Black teachers.  She described her students 
(as I often have) as cousins, sisters, brothers, nephews and nieces - as family 
members. For me, and I posit that for other teachers like Ms. Kelly, the knowledge 
that children whom one perceives as family are not receiving the best learning 
experiences and opportunities is very disturbing.   Ms. Kelly dealt with her frustration 
by raising the bar for these non-honors students and giving them honors-level 
learning standards and experiences. Nevertheless, she was still bothered by the 
negative impact institutional tracking had on teacher experiences and student 
learning.  This frustration is an emotional reaction to teaching that is much different 
than the typical frustration and exhaustion teachers ? particularly new teachers ? often 
experience (Ayers, 2001).  The nature of this frustration involves the internal ? often 
 
 214 
 
emotional ? pain and agitation that one feels as a result of seeing the struggle and 
failure of one?s own ethnic group.  Since most Black teachers teach Black students 
(Berry, 2005), repeatedly seeing Black students struggle because of inequitable access 
to high-quality learning opportunities can become emotionally and mentally taxing 
and professionally frustrating, as was the case in this study. 
Generally, Black teachers discuss the methods they use to motivate and 
liberate students by providing them with diverse, culturally-relevant opportunities to 
learn (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Irvine, 2002; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Lee, 
2006, 2007; Lynn et al., 1999; Morrell, 2004).  Scholars have not provided much 
discussion about how Black teachers have dealt with the emotional ramifications that 
come with knowing Black students are systematically being denied high-quality 
learning opportunities. A related exception includes Madsen and Hollins (2000), who 
found that teachers used spirituality, consistent interaction with the Black community, 
and isolation from the White community as defense mechanisms when faced with 
battle fatigue and discouragement in predominantly White school settings. Their focus 
on predominantly White settings provides only a modicum of insight into how Black 
teachers might deal with these internal emotional stresses when the student body is 
entirely Black.  In general, discussion of how contemporary Black teachers deal with 
battle fatigue and discouragement in predominantly Black settings is lacking in the 
literature.   
Fairclough (2004), referencing the work of Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin 
Frazier, John Dollard, and Allison Davis, notes that before Brown (1954), there were 
some reports that  ?African American teachers often favored middle-class children 
 
 215 
 
and discriminated against those of darker complexion? (p. 46).   Middle class children 
would perhaps be those children in the honors classes that the teachers in my study 
preferred.  In my study, the teachers? preferences did not appear to be based on skin 
color or class status but rather on work ethic and skill level.  Still, the thread of 
preference for certain ?types? of students was evident.     
Ms. Tan distinguished between Black middle class values and the values 
projected in the culture of Black students.  She said that Black popular culture is what 
gets spotlighted in society, a culture that she feels is not representative of Black 
middle class culture, which is the culture with which she identifies. Her views 
resonate with the intra-race class distinctions scholars have found within the Black 
middle class (Lacy, 2007; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999).   Lacy (2007) found that ?class-
 based identities reflect the tension between hip hop culture and the middle-class 
culture parents hope to socialize their children into? (p. 15).  This middle class culture 
is one that the teachers in my study seemed to embrace.   These intra-race class 
distinctions are not a new phenomenon in public schools.  In newly integrated 
schools, some Black teachers encountered resistance from Black children in relation 
to what teachers felt was acceptable deportment:  
Black teachers found that an increasing number of their Black students openly 
scorned the model of middle-class respectability that they personified and 
promoted.  ? Teachers? efforts to encourage academic achievement 
encountered more resistance than in the past.  Their ideas of what constituted 
appropriate behavior and deportment were often greeted with derision. 
                                                                    (Fairclough, 2007, p. 400) 
 
 216 
 
As Fairclough (2007) illustrates, teachers? preferences to teach certain ?types? of 
students can be problematic for Black students.  In this dissertation study, teachers? 
proclivity toward Black students tracked into honors classes and difficulty working 
with students in comprehensive-level classes sheds light on how systems of tracking 
might negatively impact Black teachers? ability to be successful with Black students 
from diverse social and class backgrounds.  
 
7.1.2: Positional Frustration: Brown?s Unintended Impact on the 
Racial Uplift Component of Black Teachers? Pedagogy 
 
 ?Have we accomplished the original intent?  If the answer is no, and I would say it 
is, then we have a lot of work to do.  We must return to the original intent and 
interrogate ourselves.?  - (Walker, 2012) 
The results of this study extend the discussion about the unintended negative 
consequences school desegregation had for Black teachers, Black students, and the 
Black community at large (Fairclough, 2004, 2007; Foster, 1993; Fultz, 2004; Milner 
& Howard, 2004; Walker, 2009, 2012). The way school integration was implemented 
suggested that schools with White people were better than Black schools (Hudson & 
Holmes, 1994), and therefore, Black schools could be eliminated, hence the closing of 
hundreds of Black schools (Cecelski, 1994; Foster, 1993; Fultz, 2004).  According to 
teachers in my study, part of their reason for neglecting to teach for racial up lift was 
because they did not feel comfortable doing so in racially integrated environments.  If 
we accept that part of what made Black teachers successful with Black students pre-
 Brown was their ability to talk frankly with students about race and the need to gain 
education in order to compete with White people and uplift the race (Foster, 1990), 
 
 217 
 
then we might question whether the expectations of colorblindness that came along 
with Brown were good for Black students.  Scholars and researchers have already 
reported that the way Brown was implemented negatively affected the Black teacher?s 
relationship with Black students, parents, and the community (Fairclough, 2004; 
Foster, 1993; Milner & Howard, 2004).  I posit that the disconnect and disrespect 
teachers in my study reported experiencing are still ramifications of the way Brown 
was implemented.  
 In today?s resegregated schools, Black teachers are experiencing the opposite 
of what scholars reported many Black teachers experienced pre-Brown. Pre-Brown, 
according to scholars, Black teachers were honored and revered (Foster, 1993; Milner 
& Howard, 2004; Walker, 1996, 2001, 2004).  Today, the teachers in my study report 
feeling disrespected and dismissed.   In segregated schools, racial uplift was 
embedded throughout the curriculum (Fairclough, 2004; Irvine, 1989; Walker, 2009, 
2012).  In today?s de facto resegregated schools, the belief in teaching racial uplift 
may not be shared by all teachers.  The teachers in my study grappled with how ? and 
in the case of Ms. X, whether ? they should enact a racial uplift teaching philosophy.  
Both Ms. J and Ms. Tan said they spoke more openly about issues of race and 
schooling when they taught in schools in which all of their students were Black.  Ms. 
J expressed a strong desire to enact a racial uplift philosophy, but she was uncertain 
about how to do so.  Ms. J admitted feeling uncomfortable talking in racial terms in 
her new integrated school because all of her students were not Black.  Ms. Tan was 
afraid her words might come back to haunt her by parents or administrators and felt 
the Black students in her second school were not as receptive to the racial uplift 
 
 218 
 
teaching philosophy she had hoped to share.  Ms. X outright felt it would be unfair to 
do anything special for Black students because she did not only teach Black students.  
Ms. Jocasta expressed confusion about how a teacher would go about giving students 
a sense of pride.   Has the ?I?m Black and I?m Proud?35 message gotten lost in the 
eras of colorblindness and post-racial America?  Is the lack of reverence from Black 
students affecting teachers? interest in and motivation to be ?racial uplift? teachers? 
While many of the teachers in my study taught classes that were 
predominantly Black, they still felt as if they could not talk about these issues of race.  
I posit that their reluctance to talk explicitly about issues of racial uplift in the 
classroom is due to the post-Brown, post-civil rights environment of colorblindness 
(Monahan, 2006) that permeates our society.  Talking about issues of race is 
considered inappropriate in public spaces and sometimes irrelevant to educational 
achievement. The widely-held meritocratic belief that everyone is equal and has equal 
opportunities to achieve causes educators and society members at-large to steer away 
from talking about race in relation to student achievement.  This conflict presents a 
conundrum for Black teachers: How can a teacher be colorblind and embrace a 
philosophy of racial uplift for educational achievement? Teachers in my study 
grappled with this conundrum, a conundrum most likely faced by many of our 
nation?s Black teachers. They are ?caught in the crossfire? (Dickar, 2008) in that they 
must navigate a pedagogical double-consciousness (Dubois, 1903) in which they 
must meet the Black community?s expectation that they be advocates for Black 
children while also meeting mainstream society?s expectation that they show no racial 
                                                 
35
  ?Say it Loud! I?m Black and I?m Proud,? by James Brown, is a song that was popular during the Civil 
Rights and Black Power Movements.     
 
 219 
 
preference or partiality in their teaching practices.  This dilemma echoes the 
frustrating situation in which many southern Black educators found themselves when 
they chose to collaborate with White organizations like the National Education 
Association (NEA) as part of the Brown desegregation agenda.  
When Black educators elected to merge their all-Black organizations with 
White organizations, they forfeited their focus on racial uplift (Walker, 2009).  
Walker (2009) depicts this situation by sharing from an interview she conducted with 
H.E. Tate, a former director of the Georgia State Teacher?s Association, in which he 
described the consequences of Black-White collaboration:  
In 1959, they still held the hope that the merger of Black and White 
teacher associations would honor the needs and interests of both 
groups as equal professionals. However, the expectation for similar 
visions for integration was short-lived. White teachers? associations 
removed the restrictive membership clauses they held and invited 
Blacks to become members, but when Black teachers? organizations 
accepted the invitations of White teachers? associations, they 
compromised their capacity to represent the interests of Black 
children. (Walker, 2009, p. 276) 
 
This early compromise that Black educators made ? not only in their choice to merge 
with the all White NEA, but also in their decision to support school desegregation 
efforts  ? affected future generations of Black teachers and students. As Walker 
(2009) found, merging meant sacrificing the advocacy agenda that Black educators 
had employed in support of Black children. As a result of this broader compromise, 
 
 220 
 
the teachers in my study struggled with the positional expectations of them as Black 
teachers.   
Ms. X did not appreciate being expected to do something special for Black 
students.  She felt that just because she is Black does not mean she should 
automatically teach Black students.  She emphasized that she is a teacher of all 
students and that all teachers should be able to teach all students.  She did not want 
the ?Black teacher? position that she felt her school, department, and society wanted 
her to take. Ms. X?s very strong opposition to being labeled the ?Black? teacher runs 
counter to the reports of Black teachers feeling a sense of duty and pride in their 
advocacy roles for Black students both pre-Brown and its aftermath (Dixson, 2003; 
Foster, 1993; Irvine, 1989; Walker, 2009, 2012).  Moreover, while researchers have 
reported Black teachers feeling annoyed by the expectation that they be the ?Black 
experts? in predominantly White schools but not do anything extra special for Black 
children (Madsen & Hollins, 2000), discussions of Black teachers objecting to the 
idea that they should do something special for Black children are rare in the literature 
on educational experiences in American schools. 
 Ms. J, on the other hand, felt like she had not done all that she should do for 
Black students and that because she was a Black teacher she had a responsibility to 
do for her students what Black teachers had done for her: help them develop a sense 
of pride about themselves and to understand the struggle that Black people have 
endured because of their race.  Ms. J was confused and frustrated about how she 
should teach for racial uplift in her classroom filled with both Black and Latino 
students.  Walker (2012) might argue that Ms. J does not know how to ?uplift the 
 
 221 
 
race? through education because the Black advocacy pedagogical agenda that 
benefitted Black students in the immediate aftermath of Brown, from which ?Black 
pedagogy was not far removed,? has been lost.  Of contemporary generations of 
educators and activists, Walker said, ?We have forgotten the [Black educator] 
pedagogical agenda.  We are ignoring the botched implementation [of the Brown 
decision] ? Black children are supposed to have everything we gave to them and 
more.?  In essence, she was saying that Ms. J struggles to enact a racial uplift 
teaching philosophy because the way Brown was implemented has caused the ?racial 
uplift? component that has historically governed Black teachers? pedagogy to be 
compromised.  Similarly, while Ms. Jocasta supported racial uplift in the classroom, 
she admitted that she had failed to enact it.  Ms. Tan, too, found it difficult to 
implement a racial uplift philosophy due to what she felt was push-back from the 
children that she felt stemmed from a sense of entitlement and a poor work ethic. 
The challenge of enacting a racial uplift agenda in post-Brown classrooms is 
not a new articulation.  Teachers in Foster?s (1990) study complained that in newly 
integrated classrooms they could not talk frankly and openly with Black students 
about the value and political consequences of choosing academic achievement.  
Walker (2009) also found that the inter-racial organizational collaboration between 
Black teachers? unions and the all White NEA, integrated collaboration Black 
activists had fought for, resulted in the Whitewashing of educational plans, programs, 
and facilities and the elimination of any pedagogical strategies or educational 
philosophies that were designed to specifically help Black students.   
 
 222 
 
The experiences and perspectives of teachers in this study provide more 
evidence that the Black teacher-Black student narrative is more complex than how it 
is currently depicted in the literature.  Their experiences also suggest that the call to 
revisit the original intent of Brown deserves high priority for research and policy 
agendas. Revisiting the original intent of Brown and reviewing how it was actually 
implemented could lead to new ideas for creating equitable learning opportunities for 
Black children, which could ultimately result in widespread increased achievement 
for Black students.   
 
7.2: Toward a Contemporary Plan for Increasing Black 
Student Achievement 
Is ?racial uplift? what is missing in today?s resegregated schools?  Is its 
dissipating presence part of why there continues to be persistent wide-spread Black 
student underachievement?  ?We are the only generation since reconstruction who 
has no plan,? says Walker (2012), regarding the state of Black education in 
contemporary times.  Researchers have looked at segregated schools and pre-Brown 
pedagogies for models of literacy and instructional strategies that might be 
implemented in modern-day schools, believing contemporary teachers and reformers 
can learn something positive from the Black teachers who taught in segregated 
schools (Murray, 2012; Patterson et al., 2011; Tompkins, 2005; Walker, 2009).  In 
her dissertation research, Murray (2012) describes how early Black female educators 
orchestrated an alternative Black history curriculum that supported the intellectual 
growth and success of Black children, a curriculum she feels should inform today?s 
social studies classrooms; Patterson et al. (2011) show how African American 
 
 223 
 
teachers in the segregated schools employed an ethic of care that they think would 
make a difference if applied in today?s schools; Tompkins (2005) gives voice to the 
pedagogies of African American reading teachers in segregated schools and suggests 
contemporary educators consider their examples; Walker (2012) argues that 
contemporary educators might learn something from the equity agenda pre-Brown 
Black educators orchestrated and delivered in segregated schools in preparation for 
the implementation of Brown.  In general, there is agreement among these educational 
researchers and scholars that examining pre-Brown methodologies may provide help 
for researchers looking to make sense of modern-day education dilemmas (Patterson 
et al, 2011; Tompkins, 2005), taking into account, of course, the vast social and 
economic change Black communities have undergone since then.   Pre-Brown, 
theories like Du Bois?s (1903b) Talented Tenth Plan for Black education carried 
substantial weight in educational thought communities. The Talented Tenth plan 
involved steering the brightest Black students ? only a tenth of the race ? into 
institutions of higher education so that they could obtain education that they would 
then use to uplift the ?masses? in the Black community.  Such a plan fit the social and 
economic environment of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, but today, Du 
Bois?s later theory of ?The Guiding One Hundreth? (Du Bois, 1948, as cited in 
Alridge, 2008) is more fitting.  This plan involves including all components of the 
Black community in the efforts to uplift the race, which means all would be worthy of 
higher education opportunities.  Perhaps a blending of both old and new theories, or 
?looking back to go forward? (Edwards et al., 2010, p.ix) in discussions of Black 
education reform efforts.   
 
 224 
 
President Barack Obama recently issued an Executive Order (July 26, 2012) 
on Educational Excellence for African Americans, the first ever Executive Order 
targeting Black education in the pre-K ? 12 levels, signaling the administration?s 
recognition of the significance of isolating Black student achievement as an issue that 
needs strategic, dedicated focus at all levels. The administration argued that 
?significantly improving the educational outcomes of African Americans will provide 
substantial benefits for our country by, among other things, increasing college 
completion rates, productivity, employment rates, and the number of African 
American teachers? (Obama, Executive Order, 2012). These desired outcomes are 
important reasons to work strategically at improving Black student achievement, but 
the last goal of increasing the number of African American teachers appears to be 
based on the belief that African American teachers are somehow the best fit for 
African American students.  This dissertation questions this taken-for-granted 
assumption; its findings ask scholars to re-inspect the relationship between the Black 
student and the Black teacher, to unpack the present but less-acknowledged data that 
suggests there is a disconnect between Black students and their Black teachers, to re-
 examine and re-theorize the element of racial uplift that has been at the root of the 
plans for Black educational development since slavery (Perry, 2003; Williams, 2005). 
I ask the educators and the scholarly community, ?How might this element be 
revived?  Replaced?   Re-theorized??   
The perspectives presented in this dissertation study problematize the 
commonly-held view of the Black teacher as the mentor, savior, and othermother for 
Black students, a view that was initially articulated two decades ago (Foster, 1993; 
 
 225 
 
Irvine, 1989, 2002).  The mentor, savior, and othermother depictions of Black 
teachers are most relevant for teachers who taught in dejure segregated or newly 
integrated schools in the aftermath of the Brown decision.  The teachers in my study 
represent a different generation of Black teachers, teachers who teach in a new era of 
school resegregation, an era in which most predominantly Black schools are failing 
(Orfield & Lee, 2006).  Additionally, the teachers in my study live in a different era 
in which the structure of the Black family has changed to one in which the ?mother? 
often serves as both the maternal and paternal figure (Barton & Coley, 2010), 
redefining the role of the mother and, perhaps, redefining what it may mean to be an 
?othermother? in the classroom.  Such a complex milieu highlights the relevancy of 
the intersections of family roles, race, and gender to the discussion of Black student 
achievement.  Furthermore, the teachers? conflicted feelings and perspectives about 
the role they play in the education of Black students provides an additional, 
admittedly troubling, lens through which to analyze the experiences and perspectives 
of Black teachers.  Without piercing through the silence of this dilemma, however, we 
cannot move forward to educationally assist contemporary Black students, 
particularly from impoverished circumstances.   
Scholars and researchers must more deeply investigate the cultural and social 
issues that seem to undermine Black teachers? attempts to help Black students 
achieve. The gulf that Fordham (1996) identified between the Black teachers in her 
study and the majority of the Black students they taught and the deficit thinking other 
scholars (Delpit, 2006; Lynn et al., 2010) have found in Black teachers? perspectives 
resonate strongly with the perspectives of the participants in my study.  The teachers? 
 
 226 
 
objections to the behavior and seemingly anti-school culture some of their Black 
students exhibit are evident again in the perspectives of the teachers in this 
dissertation study. With this massive gulf on teachers? minds, a gulf they are very-
 much resistant to crossing, it was difficult, in this dissertation study, to focus 
discussions on teachers? roles in impacting academic achievement and proficiency.  
In this dissertation study, teachers preferred, instead, to discuss gaps in student 
engagement and in their behavior, values, and work habits. Rothstein (2004) 
identified these types of gaps as social class gaps in non-cognitive skills and asserted 
that ?schools that truly narrow the Black-White gap are those where students of both 
races gain academic proficiency as well as productive and socially responsible 
behavior? (p. 101).  He argued that researchers should pay more attention to 
examining these gaps in behavior and social skills.   The results of my study suggest 
that Black teachers, such as the ones in my study, would agree.  I, too, agree. 
However, what we all must not lose sight of is the role adults other than educators 
play in shaping these behaviors. Parents and extended family members can help 
prepare students to go to school with the social skills to operate successfully in a 
school environment. Media and society play a large part, too.  All in the equation 
must combat the urge to walk right past them [academically-disengaged Black 
students] without saying a word.   
7.3: Implications 
There are four key implications I believe this study has for practice, research, 
policy, and theory in this new era of school resegregation. For practice, I call for 
intra-racial professional development and teacher education opportunities for Black 
 
 227 
 
teachers. Implications for research include an argument for more research on Black 
teachers and their experiences with Black students in resegregated schools, and 
particularly their experiences with students in different academic tracks.   The policy 
implication includes moving toward a Brown agenda for contemporary times. Lastly, 
the theoretical implication includes a call for theorizing about how the notion of racial 
uplift might be re-envisioned for implementation in today?s defacto resegregated 
school environments.    
7.3.1: Practice: Intra-racial Professional Development & Teacher 
Education 
  We must rethink the notion that Black teachers, by nature of their race, 
experience cultural synchronization (Irvine, 1990) with Black students, and, therefore 
are able to teach them effectively (Irvine, 1989, 2002)36.  This cultural-based 
assertion is based on the experiences of teachers and scholars who taught in de jure 
segregated and newly integrated schools of the 20th century, when racial uplift and 
advocacy were central to Black teachers? philosophies. In contemporary schools, we 
must take heed to Tatum?s (2007) call to talk about race and how its socializing 
impact has shaped our personal and professional outlooks. We must also realize that 
?we cannot assume that teachers of color are confident in their abilities to talk about 
                                                 
36
  While the results of this research project and others indicate that some Black teachers are not 
culturally compatible with some Black students, I find it necessary to note that I believe many Black 
teachers do possess race-based cultural knowledge that could resonate with most Black students if 
presented through a class-appropriate lens.  Specifically, Black teachers have the knowledge of the 
Black struggle for equality and equity in a racist society that has historically cast the African American 
as inferior to all other groups of people.   The teachers in my study all possessed this knowledge and 
recognized its importance, but because their students possessed attitudes, values, and ways of being 
that were different than their own, the teachers found it difficult to connect with them in a way that 
would allow for successful teaching and learning.  
 
 228 
 
these issues ? none of us can teach what we haven?t learned ourselves? (p. 38).   A 
critical race reading of this situation reminds us that all parties have been impacted 
and influenced by our race-centered society ? no matter the race ? and, furthermore, 
that intra-racial class diversity warrants the need for professional development and 
teacher education initiatives that are grounded in the awareness of the significance of 
intersectionality to discussions of Black education.  Understanding how Black 
teachers ? not just White teachers ? navigate and manage the tensions they experience 
teaching students with whom they do not relate or connect due to class differences 
will hopefully shed light on strategies scholars can put forth to increase Black student 
achievement. Professional development and teacher education opportunities focused 
on issues of intra-racial relationships will possibly help Black teachers have a greater 
impact on Black student achievement. I posit that this type of intra-race-focused 
professional development could prompt some Black teachers to reflect upon their 
own middle class privilege and cultural ways of knowing, as well as on what they 
need to do to be more effective teachers of Black students from backgrounds different 
than their own.  This type of professional development would differ from current 
cross-cultural and cultural competency courses and workshops that focus on 
examining White privilege or embracing multiple cultures in the classroom, in that it 
will focus on intra-racial cultural issues, something other scholars have suggested are 
necessary for both White teachers and teachers of color (Milner, 2010; Tatum, 2007).    
7.3.2: Research: Ethnographic Study on Black Teachers and 
Students in Resegregated Schools 
This study suggests an imperative for more research on Black teachers and 
their experiences teaching Black-students in resegregated schools, especially students 
 
 229 
 
whose social and educational background differ from the teachers.  I put forward the 
idea of a long-term ethnographic study that would allow the researcher to identify and 
make sense of the cultural atmosphere present between Black teachers and students, 
including how Black teachers? pedagogy impact Black students? non-cognitive skills.  
This research should include inquiry into the perspectives Black students have of their 
Black teachers and of themselves. My study has shown that Black teachers? find 
teaching students in general education classes more difficult than teaching students in 
honors-level classes.  More research on the dynamic that exists between Black 
teachers and these two distinct groups is needed.  Such research might provide ideas 
for the type of intra-racial professional development I proposed for Black teachers.   
7.3.3: Policy: A Brown v. Board of Education Agenda for 
Contemporary Times 
 
This study emphasizes more of the unintended consequences of the Brown 
decision for Black teachers and students.  How might policy-makers and activists use 
the findings of this study and other related studies to make an argument for Brown 3, 
a court order that would accomplish Brown?s intended goal: equitable, first-class, 
educational experiences for all students?  This time, however, policy-makers and 
district officials might place more emphasis on strategies for creating equitable 
learning environments for all students than on strategies aimed simply at achieving 
racial balance through integration. Recent scholarship asserts that ?the dilemma 
moving forward for policy makers and scholars concerned with the educational 
advancement of students of color is not to develop new ways to integrate America?s 
public schools or reconcile the gaps in the Supreme Court?s logic, but rather to craft 
 
 230 
 
programs and policies for students of color around the human development and 
workforce needs of the global economy? (Donnor, 2011, p. 735). While I embrace 
this argument of focusing on crafting career programs for students of color, I do not 
think defacto racial segregation should be accepted as appropriate and natural, but I 
do believe that achieving racial balance does not necessarily need to be the central 
motivating factor of any contemporary reform efforts.  Other recent scholarship 
asserts that despite repeated court rulings eliminating race-based assignment criteria, 
that  ?demand for integrated education is far from dormant? (McDermott, Debray, & 
Frankenberg, 2012, p. 31). Ultimately, the possible components of a Brown 3 
decision are many and are left up for discussion between policy makers. What is not 
debatable, however, is that the results of this dissertation study, alongside the 
negative consequences related research has shown that the Brown decision has had 
for Black teachers and Black students, indicate ? unequivocally ? that Brown and its 
implementation process must be revisited and revised.  
7.3.4: Theory: Reconceptualization of ?Racial Uplift? for 
Contemporary Resegregated Schools 
Racial uplift, once the core and foundation of Black teachers? pedagogy, seems to 
have dissipated over the decades since the Brown desegregation decision.  While 
most of the teachers in my study believed in the principle of racial uplift, when it 
came to enacting it, they either did not know how, or found it difficult, to do so 
because of the racial diversity in their classrooms or due to Black students? resistance.   
The contemporary resegregated school environments in which these teachers taught 
differ from the dejure segregated and newly-integrated schools of their Black teacher 
predecessors. The differences in these teachers? experiences cause me to posit that 
 
 231 
 
there may be a need for a transformed racial uplift pedagogy for contemporary school 
environments.  Thus, I call on scholars to re-envision and reconceptualize the role of 
?racial uplift? in Black education for today?s resegregated schools.  A 
reconceptualized theory would include discussion of how racial uplift could be 
operationalized in 21st century public schools.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appendices 
Appendix A: Research Question & Methodological Dilemmas  
Research Question: What are Black English teachers? perceptions of how 
they impact Black student achievement?  
Methodological Dilemmas 
What kinds of data will 
answer the question? 
What are the barriers, if any, 
to accessing this data? 
Methodological Release 
Point Methods I will use 
to penetrate barriers 
? Focus Group 
Discussions 
? Responses to 
Questionnaire 
? Writing Prompts 
? Interviews 
? Denial ?
 ? Defensiveness?
 ? Lack of full disclosure?
 ? Lack of self reflection?
 ? Colorblindness?
 ? Lack of fully-developed 
answers ?
 ? Lack of 
awareness/acknowledge
 ment of racial 
? See absence as 
presence?
 ? Interrogate the 
obvious?
 ? Explicitly & 
repeatedly 
centralize race in 
discussions?
   
  
 
 232 
 
influences on their 
practice and perceptions?
 ? Teachers may provide 
clich? answers based on 
what they think is 
politically correct ?
 ?
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
Appendix B:  Data Collection & Analysis Timeline  
 
Total Data Collection & Analysis Time: 53 Weeks  
 
 233 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appendix C: Focus Group Conversation Topics 
 
Week Research Task(s) 
1 ?         Administration of Electronic    
Questionnaire  
?         Focus Group Meeting  
2 ?         Focus Group Meeting 
?         Data Analysis 
3 ?         Focus Group Meeting 
?         Data Analysis 
4 ?         Focus Group Meeting 
?         Data Analysis 
5-12   Focus Group Transcription & Data Analysis 
  
13-14 ?         Follow-up Interviews 
?         Data Analysis 
  
15-19 ? Data Analysis 
? Writing 
 
20-53 ? Data Analysis 
 
? Writing  
  
 
 234 
 
 
Conversation Topic Purpose Data Collection Goals 
Who are we as African American 
English teachers?  What are our 
similarities and differences? 
? To build relationships amongst group 
members  
? To foreground race as central 
contextualizing element of study 
? To personalize the experience by 
initiating reflection and introspection 
? To generate meaningful, personal 
discussion 
 
? To collect data on each teacher?s local 
and historical contexts 
? To collect inferential data on 
teachers? dispositions and attitudes 
toward research topic 
? To collect data on teachers? 
developing insights into the research 
topic 
What are my responsibilities to 
Black students? 
? To continue emphasis on race as study?s 
central contextualizing element 
? To include a focus on the Black student 
in teacher reflection and introspection 
? To begin unpacking the beliefs attitudes, 
and strategies that influence teaching 
practices 
? To prompt self-evaluation of teaching 
? To generate meaningful discussion 
? To collect data on how teachers 
approach teaching Black students 
? To collect data on teachers? beliefs 
about teaching Black students 
? To collect data on teachers? 
perceptions of their teaching 
? To collect data on teachers? 
developing insights into the research 
topic 
How would students describe my 
?quality of service?? How do I 
describe it? 
? To continue reflective focus on teacher?s 
practice in relation to Black students 
? To consider teacher?s ?quality of 
service? from the student perspective 
? To generate meaningful discussion 
? To clarify understandings, thoughts, and 
beliefs 
? To collect data on teachers? 
perceptions of how Black students 
view them 
? To collect data on teacher?s 
perceptions of the ?quality of service? 
they deliver 
? To collect data on teachers? 
developing and summative insights 
into the research topic 
Reflections & Revelations: 
Connecting My Practice to Black 
Student Achievement 
? To continue reflective focus on teacher?s 
practice in relation to Black students 
? To have teachers consider their ?quality 
of service? from the student perspective 
? To prompt thoughtful responses 
to/explanations for students? perceptions 
of teacher?s practice 
? To gain insight into relationship between 
Black teachers? practice and student 
achievement/underachievement 
? To generate meaningful discussion 
? To clarify understandings, thoughts, and 
beliefs 
? To collect data on the connections 
teachers make between their 
pedagogy and Black student 
achievement 
? To collect non-inferential data on how 
teachers view their impact on Black 
student achievement 
? To collect data on any new insights 
teachers have developed about their 
impact on Black student achievement 
throughout the course of the meetings 
? To collect data on teachers? 
developing and summative insights 
into the research topic 
 
 235 
 
Appendix D: Focus Group Meeting Agenda 
All meetings occurred during the morning. 
8:00-8:10 ? Introduction of Conversation Topic 
8:10-8:35 ? Independent Writing Time 
8:35-9:55? Participant Sharing and Discussion 
9:55-10:00 ? Concluding Reflections 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appendix E: Writing Prompts 
Writing Prompt #1: Education-Focused Life History 
 
 236 
 
Please tell the story of your involvement in education ? as a student and a teacher. 
Consider touching on the following in your narrative: 
?         Education in the home 
?         Primary and Secondary Schooling 
?         College and Beyond 
?         First Few Years of Teaching & Learning 
?         Teaching & Learning Experiences ? Past and Present 
Writing Prompt #2: Teaching Philosophy/Style 
Please choose one of the following prompts to complete: 
a.        Describe your teaching philosophy as it relates to Black students.  Include 
anecdotes from your teaching experiences to illustrate your philosophy in practice. 
b.      Write a metaphorical poem in which you depict your teaching style by 
comparing it to something (maybe an animal or a medical procedure/experience).  
Writing Prompt #3: Perspective-Taking  
Write a letter to yourself from one of your current or former students. Choose a student who falls into 
one of the following types:   
?         High-achieving/Amicable/Cooperative 
                                         or 
?         Failing/Defiant/Disagreeable 
  
Writing Prompt #4: Retirement Letter: Reflections and Final Words 
Write a ?retirement? letter to past, present, and future Black students and teachers.  Consider touching 
on the following in your letter: 
?         Reflections on Your Teaching Career (challenges and triumphs) 
?         Message to Students 
?         Message to Black Community & Community at-large 
?         Message to Remaining and Future Black Teachers 
  
End-of-Session Journaling 
Please jot down any closing reflections, questions, or comments. I will be the only person to read what 
you write.  
 
Appendix F: Hilliard?s Gap-closing Qualities  
According to Hilliard (2003), gap-closing teachers are teachers who: 
 
 237 
 
1. do not question students? intelligence   
2. question students? opportunities to learn  
3. question their own teaching  
4. do not believe IQ scores predict achievement  
5. reject cultural deprivation as a means to explain Black student underachievement  
6. do not consider socioeconomic status as a measure of students? capacity to learn  
7. believe students can achieve no matter the contextual circumstances  
8. are personally committed to students  
9. maintain a ?whatever it takes? attitude toward teaching  
10. serves as an advocate and a teacher  
11. does not see children through classifications or labels  
12. respects students? prior knowledge  
13. respects students, parents, and communities  
14. have deep knowledge of their content  
15. develop a socially supportive classroom environment  
16. use techniques to generate ?meaningful moment to moment participation? (p. 150).  
17. focus on student reasoning rather than just on the ?right? answer  
18. overcome ?oppositional attitudes? (acting White/peer pressure) with inspired 
teaching  
Appendix G: Online Questionnaire: Teachers? Beliefs, Attitudes, 
and Practices 
Reflect on your teaching experiences with African American students. For each question, 
select the option that best describes how you feel or what you believe. In the next question 
field, explain the reason (s) for your answer.  
  
Name * Please indicate your first name.  
 
 238 
 
  
Preferred Pseudonym (Do you have a preference for the pseudonym used to describe you in 
the dissertation or other publications? If so, please indicate the name. If not, you may skip 
this question.)  
  
Question 1 * I sometimes question a student's intelligence. Strongly Agree/Agree/ 
Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 1 * Explain your thinking for question 1.  
  
Question 2 * I question my own teaching strategies and decisions.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 2 * Explain your thinking for question 2.  
  
Question 3 * I believe IQ scores predict achievement.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 3 * Explain your thinking for question 3.  
  
Question 4 * I believe some Black students underachieve because they are culturally 
deprived.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 4 * Explain your thinking for question 4.  
  
 
 239 
 
Question 5 * I believe a student's socioeconomic status is an indicator of the student's 
capacity to learn.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 5 * Explain your thinking for question 5.  
  
Question 6 * My teaching causes students to reject negative peer pressure (such as the 
pressure not to "act White") and choose to learn.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 6 * Explain your thinking for question 6.  
  
Question 7 * I believe students can achieve no matter their circumstances.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
Explanation for Question 7 * Explain your thinking for question 7.  
  
Question 8 * I have deep knowledge of English/Language Arts content. 
 Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
Explanation for Question 8 * Explain your thinking for question 8.  
  
Question 9 * I create socially supportive classroom environments.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
Explanation for Question 9 * Explain your thinking for question 9.  
  
Question 10 * I use teaching techniques that result in meaningful moment-to-moment student 
participation and/or engagement.  
 
 240 
 
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
Explanation for Question 10 * Explain your thinking for question 10.  
  
Question 11 * My teaching techniques focus on student reasoning rather than just on the right 
answer.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
Explanation for Question 11 * Explain your thinking for question 11.  
  
Question 12 * I am personally committed to ensuring Black students experience academic 
success. 
 Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 12 * Explain your thinking for question 12.  
  
Question 13 * I have a "whatever it takes" attitude toward teaching.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 13 * Explain your thinking for question 13.  
  
Question 14 * I am a teacher AND an advocate for Black students.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 14 * Explain your thinking for question 14.  
  
Question 15 * My teaching and attitude toward students is influenced by their academic track, 
their reputation with other teachers, and their personal appearance or behaviors.  
 
 241 
 
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 15 * Explain your thinking for question 15.  
  
Question 16 * I demonstrate respect for the prior knowledge students bring into the 
classroom. 
 Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 16 * Explain your thinking for question 16.  
  
Question 17 * I demonstrate respect for students, their parents, and the community's from 
which they come.  
Strongly Agree/Agree/ Strongly Disagree/Disagree/Unable to Answer 
  
Explanation for Question 17 * Explain your thinking for question 17.  
 
 
 
 
Appendix H: Examples of Follow-up Interview Questions  
Ms. Tan 
1. Where did you go to college? 
2. How would you describe your college experience? 
3. Think of your different classes?  What do you see as your role in 
impacting Black student achievement?  What do you do or don?t do that 
you think has a direct impact on whether students achieve or 
underachieve? 
 
 242 
 
Ms. Jocasta 
1. Describe your resident teacher program. 
2. Where did you go to college? 
3. How old were you when you moved to D.C.? 
4. What types of challenges do you feel you haven?t (or will not have when you 
retire) mastered? 
5. Think of your different classes?  What do you see as your role (duty, 
responsibility) in impacting Black student achievement?  What do you do or 
not do that you think has a direct impact on whether students achieve or 
underachieve? 
Ms. Kelly 
1. Where were you born and raised? 
2.  What was your primary and secondary schooling like? 
3. Where did you go to undergraduate? 
4. What do you attribute the gap you mentioned to? 
5. Think of your different classes?  What do you see as your role in 
impacting Black student achievement?  What do you do or don?t do that 
you think has a direct impact on whether students achieve or 
underachieve? 
6. Is there anything you want to add to your teaching philosophy for Black 
students?   
7. Other than previous English teacher examples, what shapes your teaching 
philosophy? 
Ms. X 
1. Did you father have a degree? 
2. What HBCU did you and your family members attend?  Were the professors 
Black?  Was it the student body and/or the faculty you did not like?  Did you 
deal with racism? 
3. Were there professors at the predominantly White state school that you had 
problems with Black or White?  How was the teaching similar or different at 
this university than at the HBCU? 
4. Talk more about your overseas experience overseas and its implications for 
your teaching. 
5. Think of your different classes?  What do you see as your role in impacting 
Black student achievement?  What do you do or don?t do that you think has a 
direct impact on whether students achieve or underachieve? 
6. You have dealt a lot with racism as a child.  How have your experiences with 
racism in your own education shaped or not shaped your current practice? 
7. How old were you when you moved to New York?  Do you know why your 
parents moved?  What town in North Carolina is your family from? Did you 
ever have a Black teacher in primary, secondary school, or college? 
 
 243 
 
8. Did you spend much time with your grandfather?  Describe the times you 
spent with him.  
9. Did any other teachers inspire you to become a teacher?  Any other Black 
teachers?  Talk about them. 
10. Do you always speak in standard English in your classroom?  Do you correct 
students who do not use standard English?   
11. Do you think the application of your educational philosophy has been 
effective with all Black students?  Discuss. 
12. How do you think one knows if teaching is their true calling? Can it be a true 
calling for a teacher whose students are underachieving?  Explain. 
Ms. J 
1. Describe the racial make-up of your school. 
2. Did your family talk about race at all at home when you were growing up? 
3. Do you think about race professionally as it pertains to your professional 
experience.  Not necessarily your Black kids, you Black students, but just 
professionally.  
4. You mentioned that your change in school, going from a predominantly Black 
school to one with more diversity, changed the way you related to Black 
students and some how you feel that at the predominantly Black school you 
worked on instilling more pride in them and at your current school you feel 
like you kind of lost touch with that?  Why do you think the setting changed 
the way you related to them? 
5. How do you know if your teaching strategies have worked? If your students 
have understood the lessons.  How do you measure?  How do you know? 
 
 
 
 
Appendix I: Methods of Analysis 
Spirit of Analysis ? Systematic, Unassuming, Adventurous  
1.      Distance myself from literature and experiences that may prevent me from seeing 
new possibilities in the data 
 
 244 
 
2.      Avoid standard ways of thinking about the teachers, teaching, and Black student 
achievement 
3.      Question the data 
4.      Consider various meanings of words  
5.      Use analytical memos  
7.      Code data using emic and etic substantive categories 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appendix J: Codes 
These codes emerged as the most dominant (referenced the most) and led to the 
identification of emergent themes.  
Emic Codes ? Participant Words/Views 
? Culture as problem 
? Disrespect 
? Student ability 
 
 245 
 
? Student dislike of teacher 
? More than teachers of content 
Etic Codes ? Research-developed 
? Teacher Emotion 
o Frustration 
o Resentment 
o Defeat 
o Anger 
o Insecurity 
o Spitefulness 
o Sorrow 
? Race Issues 
? Teachers? Upbringing  
? Achievement measured by growth 
? Achievement measured by student independence 
 
 246 
 
Appendix K: Graphic Representation of Categories Compared by 
Number of Coding References 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
   
 
 247 
 
Appendix L: Teacher Consent Form  
Project Title 
  
Black English Teacher?s Perspectives and  Reflections on Their Role in Impacting 
Black Student Achievement 
Purpose of the Study 
  
  
  
  
This research is being conducted by Dr. Victoria Maria MacDonald and 
Doctoral Candidate Summer Carrol at the University of Maryland, College 
Park.  We are inviting you to participate in this research project because you 
are an African American teacher who teaches or who has taught English to 
African American students, and you have expressed an interest in participating 
in this study.  The purpose of this research project is to investigate African 
American English teachers? perspectives on their role in impacting Black 
student achievement. I am seeking this information because current research 
does not reflect Black English teachers? perspectives on this matter and I believe 
the results of this research project will provide important insights that may 
ultimately help improve education for Black students and increase Black 
students? educational achievement.     
Procedures 
  
  
  
The procedures involve the following: 
1. Completion of a 17-question online questionnaire about your beliefs on 
student intelligence, your beliefs on Black student underachievement, and 
the relationship between your teaching and Black student achievement, as 
well as your perspectives and reflections on your  practice in general.  
2. Participation in a focus group that will meet for 2.5 hours four times in 
one month on Saturday mornings. This focus group will involve you 
writing in response to prompts about teaching and identity, and sharing 
your writing with focus group members as a way to generate discussion. 
Examples of writing activities you may be asked to do include writing a 
metaphorical poem about your teaching style or a letter to yourself from 
the perspective of your students. Focus group discussion topics include 
the following: ?Who are we as African American teachers??; ?What are 
my responsibilities to Black students?; ?How do I view my quality of 
service??; ?Revelations: Connecting my practice to Black student 
achievement/underachievement.?  
3. Participation in one follow-up one-on-one interview with the researcher 
within the two weeks following the last focus group interview. Interview 
questions you may be asked include: What does your metaphorical poem 
suggest about your teaching?  How does being Black influence how you 
teach Black students?  Why do you think there is Black student 
underachievement in U.S. schools?  
4. Focus groups and one-on-one interviews will be held at a local college 
campus or at diners or coffee shops selected by participant.  
Overall, this research project will require approximately 11.5 hours of your time 
(10 hours for the focus group; one hour for the interview; thirty minutes for the 
online questionnaire)  
  
Potential Risks and There may be some risks from participating in this research study.  You may need 
to take emotional risks because of the sensitive nature of race-talk and the request 
to self-reflect and reveal personal feelings and experiences. To address these 
 
 248 
 
Discomforts 
  
emotional risks, you will be encouraged to ask the researcher questions throughout 
the duration of the study and you may withdraw from the study at any time without 
penalty. There remains, however, the potential for the breach of confidentiality. 
Potential Benefits  There are no direct benefits for participants in this study; however, the possible 
benefits to you include the opportunity to reflect upon and discuss your practice 
with other colleagues, as well as the possibility that you may gain fresh 
perspectives and inspiration for teaching African American students.  Additionally, 
we hope that in the future, other people might benefit from this study through the 
improved understanding of the experiences of Black English teachers and their 
views on their role in educating Black students.  
  
Confidentiality 
  
  
Any potential loss of confidentiality will be minimized by the following: All audio 
recordings and notebooks will be kept in a locked file cabinet located in the 
researcher?s office.  All transcripts will be stored on the researcher?s external hard 
drive, which will be stored in the researcher?s locked file cabinet in her office.   
Answers to the ?Teacher?s Beliefs? questionnaire and the contents of the profile 
the researcher develops will not be shared with anyone except the teacher who 
completed it and only during the one-on-one interview time.  Results of the 
questionnaire will not be shared publicly during the focus group meetings.  Results 
of questionnaire will be stored on the researcher?s external hard drive, which will 
be stored in a locked file cabinet in the researcher?s office.  
  
If we write a report or article about this research project, your identity will be 
protected to the maximum extent possible.  Your information may be shared with 
representatives of the University of Maryland, College Park or governmental 
authorities if you or someone else is in danger or if we are required to do so by 
law.  
  
Right to Withdraw 
and Questions 
Your participation in this research is completely voluntary.  You may choose not to 
take part at all.  If you decide to participate in this research, you may stop 
participating at any time.  If you decide not to participate in this study or if you 
stop participating at any time, you will not be penalized or lose any benefits to 
which you otherwise qualify.  
  
If you decide to stop taking part in the study, if you have questions, concerns, or 
complaints, or if you need to report an injury related to the research, please 
contact the investigator, Victoria Maria MacDonald at: 2311 Benjamin Building, 
College Park, MD, 20742; vmacdona@umd.edu, 301-405-7109 or Summer Carrol 
at 2311 Benjamin Building, College Park, MD, 20742; 301-404-8304 
smclin@umd.edu.  
  
Participant Rights  
  
If you have questions about your rights as a research participant or wish to report 
a research-related injury, please contact:  
 
 249 
 
  
University of Maryland College Park  
Institutional Review Board Office 
1204 Marie Mount 
College Park, Maryland, 20742 
 E-mail: irb@umd.edu   
Telephone: 301-405-0678 
  
This research has been reviewed according to the University of Maryland, College 
Park IRB procedures for research involving human subjects. 
Statement of Consent 
  
Your signature indicates that you are at least 18 years of age; you have read this 
consent form or have had it read to you; your questions have been answered to 
your satisfaction and you voluntarily agree to participate in this research study. 
You will receive a copy of this signed consent form. 
  
If you agree to participate, please sign your name below. 
Signature and Date 
  
PARTICIPANT NAME 
[Please Print] 
  
PARTICIPANT 
SIGNATURE 
  
  
DATE 
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
 
 250 
 
Appendix M:  Evolution of Focus Group Meetings 
 
The Morning Meetings  
I remember the first meeting.  It was a cool October day. I had gotten 
confirmation that three out of the four expected teachers would attend, but had not 
heard from them that morning or the day prior.   The fourth teacher confirmed non-
 attendance the morning of.  I got to the university early, posted ?focus group meeting 
in 45a? throughout the building, prepared the room with folders, agendas, 
composition books, and pens for each participant.  Set out a small buffet of fruit and 
mini spiral sandwiches, water and soda, tested the microphone, and waited.  The 
meeting was to start at 10 a.m. and it was already just minutes till and I had no calls 
from anyone asking me to open the door. I decided to go down to the door to make 
sure the teachers could gain entrance.  Since it was a Saturday, an authorized 
identification card was needed to gain access to the building.   I was definitely 
nervous.  More than nervous, I was worried, worried the teachers would not come and 
that if they did come, they might not come to all meetings.  I was also worried about 
what would happen at the meetings. The three teachers I was expecting at the first 
meeting were the teachers who had all worked at the same school for a period of time.  
I worried if this would cause inhibitions in their sharing.  I also worried that they did 
not all know who would be in attendance.  What if they did not expect to see only 
teachers from their school?  My nervous thoughts were interrupted by the sight of the 
first participant walking up the sidewalk to the building.  Ms. Kelly is the teacher who 
was a pre-service student I taught in a diversity class; she was also one of the student-
 teachers I supervised in the field.  We smiled and embraced and started to do a little 
catching up, when the next teacher came into view on the sidewalk, Ms. Tan.   
 
 251 
 
Ms. Tan is the teacher with whom I have the personal and professional 
relationship.  She is also the teacher I studied for a previous pilot study and the 
teacher who participated in a previous one-time focus group meeting I held for a class 
assignment.  She knew Ms. Kelly because she worked at the same school where Ms. 
Kelly did her student teaching.  We were all chit-chatting when I got a call from the 
third teacher, Ms. X, saying she was on campus grounds and just needed a little help 
finding the building.  Moments later, she emerged on the same stretch of sidewalk.   
Although we did not all have intimate relationships, the four of us were not 
strangers to one another.  I believe the experiences we had at the school where we all 
worked has a lot to do with what caused us to be interested in getting together to talk 
about our perspectives as Black English teachers. After exchanging pleasantries, we 
mounted the stairs to the second floor, had somewhat awkward small talk as we 
walked halfway down the hall to the meeting room, and started the first meeting of 
what would become fondly known as Breakfast for Black Teachers, a space where 
Black English teachers not only broke bread, but where they also broke professional 
and personal silences.  
 
 Breaking the Fast: Black Teachers at the Breakfast Table 
 
 {I} relished every moment that I sat at the ?Black Table? in the cafeteria. Why were 
we sitting together then?  It was an affirmation ? a time to relax ? a creation of 
community based on a shared experience of being one of few in an environment 
unaccustomed to our presence.  Did all Black students share in it?  No.  Were White 
students intentionally excluded from it?  Not in any active way.  They were not 
usually the focus of our attention.  We were primarily interested in ourselves and the 
experiences we were having as what W.E.B. DuBois would have called the talented 
tenth, exploring our dual consciousnesses as young Black men and women in a 
predominantly White college setting. (Tatum, 2007, p. 8) 
 
 
 252 
 
 
And so the Black teachers sat together at the breakfast table for an entire 
month, every Saturday morning. We became, for those few weeks, a breakfast club 
for Black teachers. I believe the experience was similar to the one Tatum describes 
about all of the Black kids sitting together at the cafeteria.   Somehow, coming 
together to share with other Black English teachers felt empowering and affirming.  
The teachers came ? usually promptly ? at 8:30 a.m. on their own accord to talk about 
their experiences and views on Black student achievement.   The conversations would 
probably have been different had White teachers been members of the group.  
Teachers often discussed ?White teachers? in a way that positioned them as the 
?other.?  Indeed, the breakfast meetings were times when Black teachers could 
discuss their perspectives from the frame of their ?dual consciousness? as Black 
women in a predominantly White career field.   All except two of the participants 
were one of few Black teachers in their respective English department.  The 
difference, though, is that while White teachers were not the focus of our discussions, 
they did emerge in significant ways, confirming that using the critical race theory 
framing allowed the space and opportunity for sincere ?race talk? amongst the Black 
teachers.  During the discussions, when it seemed as if teachers were discussing 
students in general, I reminded them we are focusing on Black students.  My critical 
race theory lens allowed me to make this reminder without compromising the 
integrity of the research; still, I allowed conversations to proceed naturally.  
Consequently, the focus group meetings evolved into more than research; they 
became times for Black English teachers to voice their thoughts, feelings, beliefs and 
the challenges and triumphs of their teaching lives.   
 
 253 
 
Glossary 
 
Achievement:   
Researcher Conceptualization: Evidence of academic engagement and proficiency 
as measured by traditional assessments, such as homework, quizzes, tests, projects, 
and presentations    
 
Teacher Conceptualization: Evidence of student growth and independent thinking 
skills 
 
Comprehensive-level Classes:  Classes consisting of students who are tracked at or 
below grade-level.  The terms comprehensive-level and regular-level are used 
interchangeably.    
 
Culture: In this study, culture was used in two ways: 
? To describe attitudes, values, and ways of being reflected in modern-
 day society at large 
? To describe attitudes, values, and ways of being embraced by different 
segments of the Black racial group (e.g., Black middle class culture vs. 
Black popular culture) 
 
Frustration: Feelings of angst, annoyance, and sometimes anger due to 
circumstances and situations associated with teaching 
? Institutional Frustration: Frustration associated with the systems and 
processes of educational institutions and/or the effects the institutional 
processes and systems have on teachers? work life or on student 
learning opportunities and achievement.   
? Pedagogical Frustration: Frustration with the process and product of 
teaching, including teachers? feelings of angst or discomfort with their 
ability to translate their content knowledge into lessons that students 
understand and enjoy. 
? Relational Frustration: Frustration emerging from teachers? 
difficulty with sustaining mutually amicable and productive 
relationships with Black students. Teachers experiencing this type of 
frustration may feel their pedagogical efforts may result in flat out 
rejection from Black students or indifference. Rejection and 
indifference are troubling for such teachers because they feel Black 
students should be particularly drawn to them because of their shared 
racial identity. 
? Positional Frustration: Frustration exhibited through teachers? push-
 back against the ?racial uplift? teaching philosophy that has 
historically informed Black education as well as with teachers? sense 
of guilt about not living up to the ?racial uplift? standard set by Black 
teachers from previous generations.    
 
 254 
 
? Cultural Frustration: Annoyance and disappointment with the 
attitudes, values, and work habits of Black students ? attitudes, values, 
and work habits that teachers felt did not support school success and 
that were different from the work habits, behaviors, attitudes, and 
values teachers held when they were students and that they believe 
students should hold today. 
 
HBCU: Historically Black College or University  
 
Honors Classes: Classes for students deemed as talented and gifted or advanced 
 
More-than-Content Teaching Philosophy: A philosophy that emphasizes the 
teaching of life skills and knowledge such as productive work habits, self-initiative, 
and real-world awareness  
 
PWI: Predominantly White Institution of Higher Learning 
 
Racial Uplift: An advocacy agenda that centers on taking special care to use one?s 
education and position to improve the life chances and opportunities for, in the case 
of this study, Black students  
 
Talented Tenth:  College-educated African American adults W.E.B. Du Bois 
(1903b) envisioned would use their education and professional experiences to uplift 
the Black race 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 255 
 
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