Anti-Racist Professional Development for In-Service Teachers: Emerging Research and Opportunities

The "ideal" 21st century teacher in public schools has a keen understanding of the racialized history of education and has already taken a critical stance regarding that history. This teacher is a changemaker and able to create classroom conditions that enable children and youth to be changemakers as well. In order to convert teachers into this ideal educator, alternative professional development must be undertaken that has as its goal the transformation of teachers and teachings for the eventual transformation of classroom environments and educational experiences, particularly for students of color. Unfortunately, such transformative teacher professional development has been in short supply in the age of high-stakes standardized testing and the deprofessionalization of the teaching profession.

Anti-Racist Professional Development for In-Service Teachers: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a crucial reference book that addresses the historical, sociological, and pedagogical background concerning racial issues in education and proposes an alternative model for professional development as a tool for transforming schools and teachers to be critically sensitive and become changemakers. The book includes data from the author's national survey of teacher professional development, examples of assignments, teacher work products, and the author's self-critique/reflections, which draw upon 20 years of working to transform teachers and teaching on how to improve outcomes. The book also presents composite profiles of P-12 teachers such as the transformations of teachers who already "knew it all," the new teacher at a punitive public charter school with high turnover, teachers who take leadership within the school and in the larger community, and teachers who significantly changed their practice for the long-term. Moreover, the authors offer policy recommendations for funding and designing teacher professional development experiences that meet the needs of professional teachers who intend to stay in the field of education, provide immediate impact on students, and that engage all students to become critical changemakers. As such, this book is ideal for teachers, educational leaders, administrators, policymakers, academicians, researchers, and students.

Jenice L. View is an Associate Professor Emerita at George Mason University. Her work has included the critical teaching and learning of history, critical teacher professional development, and uses of arts integration. Her 15-year academic career followed nearly 20 years in the non-governmental sector at the local and national levels, and a stint as a middle school humanities teacher. One ongoing action research project “Learning Historic Places with Diverse Populations,” explores how place-based learning and history education can help Students of Color reclaim their connection with historic sites. Her curriculum design and teacher professional development work in Mississippi to teach the civil rights movement has impacted teachers and students statewide and in 14 school districts in particular. Another ongoing research project includes Examining the Trajectories of Black Mathematics Teachers: Learning From the Past, Drawing on the Present, and Defining Goals for the Future, a three- year study funded by the National Science Foundation, that includes collecting oral histories of retired Black mathematics teachers. Another exploration examines the impact of oral history collection on high schoolers’ understanding of historical content, and teachers’ experiences of teaching Black history. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, scholarly books, and popular outlets. She is a co-editor of the book Why public schools? Voices from the United States and Canada (2013), and co-editor of the award-winning book Putting the movement back into civil rights teaching: A resource guide for classrooms and communities (2004/2020). The co-authored book, Teaching the New Deal, 1932 to 1941 (2020), offers classroom teachers a multicultural examination of this period with lessons and other resources. In addition, she is the author of We Who Defy Hate: An Interfaith Preparation for Social Justice Action curriculum, written in conjunction with the 2018 Ken Burns film, “Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War.” As creator and host of “Urban Education: Issues and Solutions,” an award-winning 30-minute GMU-TV cable television program, she produced 29 shows on a variety of education topics. She has served as a board member and consultant on civil rights and social justice education for a variety of community-based, non-profit, educational, and national organizations. Her work with Meadville Lombard Theological School includes serving as a retreat leader for the Beloved Conversations Meditations on Race and Ethnicity workshops. Dr. View holds degrees from Syracuse University, Princeton University, and the Union Institute and University.

Elizabeth K. DeMulder is a Professor of Education and Academic Program Coordinator of the Transformative Teaching program, a teacher professional development master’s degree program housed in George Mason University’s College of Education and Human Development. She earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from St. John’s College, Cambridge University, studying children’s attachment relationships with parents and influences on their social and emotional development. Dr. DeMulder was a Staff Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health, conducting research on attachment relationships, family dynamics, and parental psychopathology and the influences of these factors on children’s development. She joined George Mason University under the auspices of the National Science Foundation’s Visiting Professorships for Women Grant Program. Dr. DeMulder’s research has a strong interdisciplinary, applied, and collaborative orientation and concerns the complex influences of systems, interpersonal relationships, and learning environments that support and/or create barriers to children’s and teachers’ development. In her research on young children’s development, she focuses on challenging structural barriers (e.g. related to navigating poverty, racism, second language learning, access to child care) to understand and advocate for anti-oppressive and justice-oriented systems that support families and children’s healthy development. She has been involved in community-based action research in Alexandria and in South Arlington, Virginia, where she developed a family-centered preschool program for low-income families as a university/community partnership. In her study of teacher professional development and in her teacher educator role, she uses critical theory, critical pedagogy and inquiry, and action research frameworks to understand and support the development of teachers’ complex meaning-making, critical consciousness, and anti-oppressive and justice-oriented teaching. Dr. DeMulder co-edited a book entitled Transforming Teacher Education: Lessons in Professional Development and has published her research in a variety of professional journals, including the Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, Teaching Education, Democracy and Education, Reflective Practice, Child Development, and Developmental Psychology. She serves as the Vice President of the Mason Advocacy Chapter of the American Association of University Professors and as a member of Mason’s Faculty Senate.

Stacia M. Stribling is an Assistant Professor in the George Mason University Graduate School of Education’s Transformative Teaching Master’s Program. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from Mary Washington College and her Master’s Degree from the IET Program at George Mason University. In 2010 Stacia completed her PhD in Early Childhood Education with a minor in Literacy at George Mason University. Her dissertation explored the use of critical literacy practices with kindergarten and second-grade students. Her current research interests include early childhood education, critical literacy, teacher professional development, culturally responsive pedagogy, and multiculturalism. Prior to moving to the world of academia, Stacia spent eight years as a first- and second-grade teacher in Fauquier County, three years as a member of the Language Arts Council for Fauquier County Public Schools, and three years as the lead mentor teacher for Grace Miller Elementary School. One of her passions is advocating for teacher research as an essential component of teacher professional development; she is a Consulting Editor for Voices of Practitioners, a teacher research journal published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), and is the past Secretary/Treasurer of the Teacher as Researcher Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Stacia has been involved with numerous grants, most recently a project that explores the use of equity audits and culturally responsive teaching using a core group of teachers from the same school setting in order to help facilitate socially just change. She has presented her research at national and international conferences and has published numerous journal articles and book chapters. In addition to her education background, Stacia holds a degree in music performance. In her spare time, she and her husband own and operate a “pick-ur-own” orchard in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and raise two beautiful children adopted through foster care.

Laura L. Dallman is doctoral candidate at George Mason University’s College of Education and Human Development. She is researching the influence of teacher emotional and cultural intelligence in establishing positive relationships with students whose cultural background differs from that of the teacher. Laura was an elementary school teacher for many years. She started and directed a preschool in Tbilisi, Georgia; taught in a local school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and taught in international schools in Brussels, Belgium and Moscow, Russia. She also taught second and third grade and served as a resource teacher for Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. Before becoming a teacher, Laura worked in college admissions and as a paralegal for a Wall Street Law firm. She served as a legislative aide in the U.S. Congress and then directed the federal relations program for a professional organization of marriage and family therapists. In that role, Laura raised money for the organization's political action committee and organized the association’s grassroots program, Powerlines, in addition to representing therapists on Capitol Hill. While in Tbilisi, Georgia, Laura also founded an international women’s organization which raised funds for local disability orphanages in cooperation with Georgian women leaders. Laura presently serves as an assistant editor and reviewer of the School-University Partnership Journal and as an advisor to the Tuasil Aijtimaeiun Foundation for Educational Reform in Jordan. Laura graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Augustana College, IL, and earned a Master of Divinity Degree from Yale University.