Teacher Group Formation as Emancipatory Critique: Necessary Conditions for Teacher Resistance

Abstract

One of the essential problems of critical social theory in education has been the inability by critical ethnographers to practicalize the heavy theoretical formulations of resistance theory. This naturalistic case study situates a group of four middle school teachers acting both individually and collectively in an attempt to undermine the contradiction between the individual and group concepts. It is argued that, through institutional and cultural political resistant acts, teachers can build an intersubjective, group understanding that potentially opposes dominant ideological propensities. My proposal is that teachers realize their group identity and use this to form a normative stance on cultural issues at the school site.