More Than an Ally: A Caring Solidarity Framework for White Teachers of African American Students

(Paperback)

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The Caring Solidarity framework is both descriptive and aspirational. It is an attempt to empower White teachers to do the work of interrogating their racial privilege and join in Caring Solidarity with their African American students. The framework can be used to describe teachers who are working in Caring Solidarity with their students and to develop teachers with intention toward Caring Solidarity.

We are in a unique historical moment that demands White teachers become more effective in their schools, classrooms, and communities and for researchers to find ways to describe those teachers who build relationships of solidarity with students. Considering todays tenor of the conversation around race, picking up this book and considering its contents is an act of defiance of the current climate, and/or one of devotion to the art and craft of teaching children.

Caring Solidarity is not a replacement for current frameworks such as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy or Abolitionist Pedagogy but is a map for White teachers to journey toward those pedagogies. Everyone starts from somewhere. The path is winding and long but the goal, to create an equitable and humane classroom, is worth the trip. The purpose of this theory is to point the way.

Reviews

Boucher engages race in a scholarly framework designed to guide educators through meaningful conversations with students across academic settings. Based on established theories such as critical race, critical whiteness, and multicultural understandings, this volume ushers educators through historical experiences of racial/ethnic minorities with emphasis on African Americans. In tandem with historical phenomena (e.g., slavery, disenfranchisement, discrimination), the author additionally offers insight into factors contributing to detrimental outcomes in the educational system as a result of unprepared educators (e.g., opportunity gap, educational debt, school-to-prison pipeline). Such points are addressed throughout the text. The book is well organized and supported by scholarly sources, and the epilogue successfully connects the significance of the discussion to the events of 2020. This study is notable for the author's perspective as a white, male educator. He emphasizes that the book is not intended to offer outsider commentary but rather to help white educators become meaningful, genuine allies of African American students. Considering the emergence of scholarly research and sources on the development of professional cultural competency, this text is a valuable contribution to the literature on educator preparation. Recommended. * Choice Reviews *
Michael Boucher's message is clear: if you feel that teaching is your calling to "save" Black children, you need to quit while you're ahead and find another job. However, if you are willing to understand that justice-centered teaching requires the de-centering of Whiteness and a life-long commitment to self-development, then you might have a future in this line of work. -- David Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago
More Than an Ally takes seriously the question of how White teachers can ethically engage with African American students within a system built on racism and White Supremacy. Combining work from multicultural education, culturally relevant pedagogy, antiracism, and critical whiteness studies, Boucher boldly offers a framework and practical suggestions for educators to enter this work with eyes open to both a system built on oppression and our continued complicity with it. This challenge is serious, urgently needed, and profoundly worth every educators time. -- Robert J. Helfenbein, PhD, associate dean for research and faculty affairs, Mercer University, Atlanta
Teacher education must reckon with the need to prepare teachers who are not only steeped in content knowledge and capable of delivering high-quality lessons, but are also committed to being an anti-racist educator. Given that the majority of the teacher education students are white women, Michael Boucher's Caring Solidarity framework for white teachers of Black students is a much needed powerful resource to assist those of us working to bring anti-racist pedagogies and practices into the field of teacher education. -- Denisha Jones, PhD, JD, director, Art of Teaching Sarah Lawrence College; Assistant Executive Director of The Badass Teachers Association; National Steering Committee Member for Black Lives Matter at School

Author Bio

Michael Boucher in an assistant professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas A&M University - San Antonio. He completed his Ph.D. in 2013 in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in urban education from Indiana University. As a successful urban public school teacher, Michael taught social studies, served as department chair, and coordinated programs. He has taught middle school, high school, online courses, adult diploma, GED, and instructional methods. As a teacher-leader, Michael advocated for his students every day at school, but also in the press, the district, and the statehouse. Michaels research examines the relationships of solidarity developed between successful White teachers and their students of color in de-facto segregated schools and explores researcher's responsibility to work in solidarity with participants during ethnographic research. Michael studies the interplay between race, power, and curriculum through his varied work exploring the racialization of historical understanding, the impact on White teacher candidates of student teaching experiences abroad, and a cultural studies critique of Ruby Paynes, Framework.