Race-ing through the school day: African American educators’ experiences with race and racism in schools

This article examines the ways African American educators experience themselves as raced individuals in their school settings and explores their perceptions of racial discrimination, subordination, and isolation. For this study, five African American educators participated in in-depth phenomenological interviews. Qualitative data analysis of their stories revealed seven major thematic experiences: (1) hypervisibility/ invisibility; (2) intersecting identities; (3) challenging assumptions; (4) challenges to authority; (5) pigeonholing; (6) presumptions of failure; and (7) coping fatigue. The study confirms several tenets of critical race theory including the assertion that racism is not aberrant, but endemic and permanent in American society, and routinely exists in public schools. The study further suggests that those most directly positioned to bring about necessary, concrete change aimed at addressing racial discrimination and prejudice in schools are building-level administrators.