The ‘Professional Self’ as a Central Theme of Teachers’ Racism-Critical Self-Reflection
摘要
In this article, I explore which topics concern racialized teachers in their racism-critical self-reflection. The study on which this article is based is embedded both in education research on teacher professionalization and in racism-critical social research. Utilizing the Reflexive Grounded Theory Methodology (Breuer et al. 2019), I conducted and analyzed 14 qualitative interviews with teachers based in Germany. In this article, I will focus in particular on seven interviews with potentially racialized teachers. Drawing on the current state of research, I argue that potentially racialized teachers make specific, racialized experiences and are particularly confronted with racialized positioning by their school environment and discourses. Based on these racialized experiences and positionings, I have found that these teachers deal with particular topics as part of their racism-critical self-reflection, especially with regard to self-positioning and the professional self. I summarize and present the particular topics under the following sub-categories: (1) affectedness and racialized positioning, (2) positioning by others and ascribed roles, and (3) complexity of one’s own positioning. I conclude the article with the insight that teacher education should consider racism-critical self-reflection as an important aspect of professionalization and that potentially racialized teachers should be addressed as a specific target group with specific needs for racism-critical self-reflection.