The Children, Families, and Schools Concentration

of the College of Education proudly presents

The Fortnightly Lunch Series

Antonio Nieves Martinez

Assistant Professor, Social Justice Education, UMass Amherst

Who Are We Waiting For?: Teacher-led Inquiry to Develop and Support Critical Educators

This study examines the efforts of a community-based organization of teachers creating grassroots, social justice professional development. Teacher-led inquiry was used to empower teachers in South Los Angeles to deeply understand their craft and build expertise as participants in knowledge creation. An intersectional framework provides this study with a lens of seeing, analyzing, and intervening into operations of power as it took form within the group. The participants are a convenience sample of seven teachers that range in experience, teach across academic disciplines, and work in elementary and high school settings. Using a critical ethnographic approach and in-depth interviews, findings point to the ways this teacher-led inquiry group focuses on teachers’ developing humanizing, critical and culturally relevant spaces for learning.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

12pm-1pm, Furcolo Hall, Room 20