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Social and emotional learning (SEL) is critical for students' social and academic success. Students' SEL is often contingent on their teachers' social and emotional competencies and capacities (SECC; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Chapter 5) and teacher preparation to facilitate SEL in classrooms (Schonert-Reichl, Kitil, & Hanson-Peterson, 2017). Concerningly, teacher training to facilitate SEL is frequently predicated on a color-evasive perspective that ignores the ways structural racism impacts the schooling experiences of racially minoritized students and associated academic and SEL outcomes (Jagers, Rivas-Drake, & Borowski, 2018; Jagers, Rivas-Drake, & Williams, 2019). In order to support SEL for students from racially minoritized communities, we assert that teachers' social and emotional competencies and capacities must incorporate a culturally responsive pedagogical approach that explicitly acknowledges and addresses issues of race and justice (Jagers et al., 2019; Ladson-Billings, 2014; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). In this chapter we (1) provide an overview of culturally relevant pedagogy in relation to teacher social and emotional competencies and capacities; (2) outline existing models that support a culturally relevant approach to teacher social and emotional competencies and capacities; and (3) discuss future directions for education research, practice, and policy.

As a team of eight scholars at the University of Texas, we collaborate to research issues that directly focus on the development, training, and experiences of anti-racist and social justice leaders in urban secondary schools. Each of us considered a personal event, or series of events, that significantly influenced our thinking about social justice. We share experiences of personal and institutional racism, and reflect on how these experiences continue to shape our awareness of race. Our perspectives capture how issues of race and racial discrimination persist in a status quo educational system and how past experiences directly influence our work.

Research has documented how white teachers often fall short of their anti-racist intentions. However, much of this research is done with preservice teachers or teachers across disciplines. The authors investigate stories in which white English teachers who teach substantial proportions of black students and who self-reported anti-racist goals nevertheless fell short of those goals. The purpose of the study is to understand the tensions between racial liberalism and racial literacy in their pedagogy.

The authors snowball sampled 12 veteran white high school English teachers (3–27 years’ experience) who taught in schools with substantial proportions of black students. The authors used a two-stage interview process to narrow the sample to 7 teachers who confirmed their anti-racist intentions and who wrote narratives of moments when they tried to be anti-racist, but the lesson failed in some way. The authors used a three-stage narrative analysis to analyze how racial liberalism and racial literacy were reflected in the narratives.

The veteran English teachers, despite their anti-racist intentions, told narratives that reflected racial liberalism, portraying racism as an individual and interpersonal phenomenon. Some narratives showed teachers who had taken steps toward racial literacy, but no narratives showed a fully developed sense of racial literacy, portraying the layers of institutional and structural racism in English education.

The sample suggests that veteran white English teachers are subject to similar limited racial literacies as novice teachers. While the authors found glimmers of racial literacy, they still note the work necessary to equip veteran English teachers with the racial literacies necessary for anti-racist instruction. The authors propose directions for teacher education, systemic support and professional development.

This chapter draws on developmental intergroup theory, parental ethnic-racial socialization literature, anti-bias curricula, and prejudice intervention studies to address the appropriateness of discussing race and racism in early childhood settings. Existing literature about teacher discussions surrounding race and racism is reviewed, best practices are shared, and the need for more research in this area is highlighted. The construct of parental ethnic-racial socialization is mapped onto early childhood anti-bias classroom practices. The chapter also outlines racial ideologies of teachers, specifically anti-bias and colorblind attitudes, and discusses how these ideologies may manifest in classroom practices surrounding race and racism. Colorblind ideology is problematized and dissected to show that colorblind practices may harm children. Young children’s interpretations of race and racism, in light of children’s cognitive developmental level, are discussed. Additionally, findings from racial prejudice intervention studies are applied to teaching. Early literacy practices surrounding race and racism are outlined with practical suggestions for teachers and teacher educators. Moreover, implications of teacher practices surrounding race and racism for children’s development, professional development, and teacher education are discussed.

There is a pressing need to teach students how to talk critically about race to understand the personal and political implications of racism in the contemporary US society. Classroom race talk, however, often includes moments of discomfort or confusion as teachers and students navigate new norms for making sense of race and racism. The purpose of this paper is to examine how one white teacher and her multiracial class of fourth-grade students navigated race talk tensions while reading and discussing shared texts.

Data for this paper were collected as part of a larger, year-long qualitative study on antiracist pedagogy. In this paper, the author analyzes video data of classroom race talk recorded during whole-class and small-group literacy lessons. Using inductive coding and reconstructive critical discourse analysis, the author examines how the teacher and students co-constructed meaning during tense or confusing conversational moments.

The findings demonstrate that the teacher and students jointly mediated tensions by using the practices of racial literacy, which included learning about the history of racial inequality in the USA, considering racism as structural and systemic rather than individual and asking and answering questions for continued inquiry and critical self-reflection. While previous research studies have characterized race talk tensions as problems or obstacles to student learning, the findings from this study suggest that tensions can be generative to developing and enacting racial literacy.

In the current political climate, alarmist rhetoric issued by conservative politicians and media outlets has discredited race talk as harmful or damaging to children. This study offers a positive reframing of tensions, which may provide teachers encouragement to pursue literacy instruction that equips students with knowledge and skills to better understand and confront racism.

School transitions have long been associated with drops in academic motivation. Literature is reviewed on both the transition from elementary school to middle school and the transition from middle school to high school, showing how changes in school context, combined with developmental changes in the child, may lead to either positive or negative changes in academic motivation. We summarize literature on school transitions for American youth in general as well as the limited literature on these transitions and their motivational consequences among African American youth. Contextual changes that occur with school transitions (e.g., race composition of schools and classrooms) co-occur with youths’ growing awareness of race, influencing the identity development and academic motivation of African American youth through several mechanisms. Three such mechanisms are discussed in detail. Race and gender academic stereotypes have the potential to shape youths’ self-perceptions, values, and goals. Racial discrimination occurs both at an institutional level (e.g., differences in school quality that place African American youth at a disadvantage) and at a personal level (e.g., a teacher’s failure to recommend a high-achieving Black child for an honors class). Racial identity can serve both as a protective factor and as a risk factor. Suggestions for future research include a closer study of specific aspects of school contexts that shape motivation, the role of families, ways in which school policies and pedagogical practices affect transition experiences, and the examination of ways in which school transitions are opportunities for fresh starts and positive change in African American youth.

This study aims to share the development of new conceptual tools, which merge theories of critical whiteness studies (CWS), epistemic injustice and abolitionist teaching, applying them to the discourse of pre- and in-service teachers across the predominantly white institutions (PWIs) as they discuss antiracist teaching through the book Stamped and a series of online discussions.

This qualitative, collaborative practitioner inquiry derived data from video-recorded, online discussions, interviews and weekly research meetings. Critical discourse analysis revealed theoretical gaps and prompted the integration of additional theories, resulting in new conceptual tools, which are applied here to both “in the moment” exchanges between participants and individuals’ reflections in interviews.

Applying new conceptual tools to discussions of whiteness and race revealed how epistemic harm, microresistance and epistemic justice emerge in talk along with the importance of cultivating critical vigilance among antiracist educators.

This study elucidates how merging the conceptual frameworks of CWS, epistemic injustice and abolitionist teaching provides new tools for interrogating antiracism relative to whiteness in participants’ and researchers’ experiences. It challenges teacher educators, particularly at PWIs, to recognize how epistemic harm may be inflicted on students of color when centering whiteness in teacher education.

This study aims to explore the perceived barriers that a secondary English teacher faced when attempting to discuss racial injustice through young adult literature in Mississippi.

The authors rely on Critical Whiteness Studies and qualitative methods to explore the following research question: What are the barriers that a White ELA teacher perceives when teaching about racial injustice through The Hate U Give?

The authors found that there were several perceived barriers to discussing modern racial injustice in the Mississippi ELA classroom. The participating teacher indicated the following barriers: a lack of racial literacy, fears of discomfort and an urge to avoid politics.

Much has been written about the urgent need for antiracist teaching practices in secondary English classes. This article explores the barriers a white ELA teacher perceived when attempting to discuss modern racial injustice through literature instruction in a white context of the “four pandemics” (Ladson-Billings, 2021).

The research on Black underachievement is well documented. But the explanations posited as causes for this failure are problematic. They are reductive and fail to explain adequately the reasons for Black children’s underperformance. The wealth of research into Black underachievement is not matched by research into Black achievement, and explanations for this are equally flawed, as are policies designed to curtail underperformance. I argue in this paper that underachievement is the product of social and cultural forces, and success is dependent on all concerned in the educational development of the child, including the child, overcoming those forces and accommodating each other in order to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for success.