Women of colour in education: an exploration of minority teacher experiences

Abstract

This research explores the lived experiences of a group of visible minority women who teach or have taught in the K-12 education system. Through narrative inquiry these women speak to and reflect on their experiences of discrimination, marginalization, empowerment, and aspirations as teachers within the ethnocentric model of Canadian education. These women deconstruct and analyze the idea of "woman of colour" as a place of being and representation. The women describe their experiences, thoughts and hopes as places of tension, compromise, and silence as they practice their own form of critical pedagogy and consciousness. One of the main research findings is how complex and multi-layered identity markers serve to represent and navigate the experiences of visible minority women. Subsequently, resiliency as an intrinsic form of knowing and acting in the personal and professional lives of these women is apparent from the negotiations of their identities as "Canadian." Through their work as educators we see the immense importance of knowledge that they, and others like them, contribute to the vast and growing ideology around diverse ways of knowing and teaching in Canadian schools.