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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 11, No. 2
Publication Date: February 25, 2024
DOI:10.14738/assrj.112.16584.
Benson, K. E. (2024). Young Black Teachers Taking to Social Media to Shame Black Students and Parents: A Narrative Review.
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 11(2). 550-569.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Young Black Teachers Taking to Social Media to Shame Black
Students and Parents: A Narrative Review
Keith E. Benson
Rutgers University-Camden
Department of Political Science
ABSTRACT
Social media is a group of technologies that offers people avenues to engage with
one another in a virtual and digital space through their computer or smartphone
(Ober & Wildman, 2015) with young black Americans consuming social media
more, proportionally, than any other demographic. As such, young Black educators
are increasingly availing themselves to social media as a space to communicate and
share their professional experiences with other black educators, and the world. In
so doing, some young black educators opt to use their social media platform, and
their institutional authority to shine a negative light on their black students and
parents. In this narrative review, I explore social media consumption, shaming
within the educational context, and black teachers as distinct from lower income
black parents and students to argue that rather than using their positions as
educators to protect their students and parents, young black teachers who have
achieved middle-class status and use social media to display their professional
frustrations with their black students and parents, only accomplishes the shaming
of those with less power and agency - the very people black teachers traditionally
protected from harm.
INTRODUCTION
Upon scrolling Twitter one December morning in 2023, I came across a post that grabbed my
attention. I saw that on November 29, 2023, a video was posted to the account
@Simply_Shamaria with the caption: “I just want y’all to know that these are the parents we deal
with. But yall think we playing when we say kids’ parents don’t care”. The video starts with “Ms.
G.”, a visibly young black female teacher of an elementary grade, calling an unidentified mother
who answers the phone with, “I know who you are”, even before Ms. G. explains what prompted
the call. Ms. G. says, “I’m reaching out because I’m having a little bit of an issue coming out of
your son today. He’s not sitting down in his seat. He will not stop talking...” The mom cuts off
Ms. G. responding relieved, “Oh my God! I thought he was sick... Umm, y’all don’t handle that
[regarding the classroom behavior]?” Ms. G. replied, “Well usually, we use our behavior
management system, which requires us to call the parent if the behavior gets...”, the mother
interrupts Ms. G. again commenting, “It don’t seem like you’re managing anything if you can’t...
I mean I’m trying to work.” Ms. G explains, “I understand that, and I am also trying to work. But
I want us to work together to ensure the success of your scholar.” The unidentified mom retorts,
“Oh you’re trying to be smart... okay”. Politely, Ms. G says, “No ma’am I’m not trying to be smart.
I’m just trying to ensure the success of your scholar.” The mom asks, “I mean, what’s he doing?”
Ms. G. explains, “You know, he won’t stay seated... and he keeps talking.” “Can’t you make him
stay seated?”, asks the mom. Ms. G. replies, “No I... I can’t make him do anything” as she waves
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Benson, K. E. (2024). Young Black Teachers Taking to Social Media to Shame Black Students and Parents: A Narrative Review. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(2). 550-569.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.112.16584
her free hand as if communicating to a person off-camera. The mother continues, “I send him
up there because... because, I thought they had teachers that knew how to handle kids... I mean,
I... I don’t know what you want me to do.” The video is ended.
For the duration of the recording, Ms. G. is staring directly into the camera while the parent,
presumably, remains unaware that this conversation between a young black teacher (Ms. G.),
and a black mother (the voice on the phone) is being recorded, and will subsequently be
uploaded to social media, and subject to the reactions of millions of social media consumers. As
of that December morning, the video of Ms. G.’s exchange with the unidentified black mother,
garnered 5.9M views, 25,000 likes, 7,300 shares and 930 comments on that initial account and
does not include the number of views, likes, shares, and comments on accounts that shared the
video and posted it to their own account.
Curious as to whether Ms. G’s content of young black teachers sharing negative experiences
with parents was a rarity, or if there was a burgeoning genre of young black teacher videos
posting similar content, I clicked on another link. The link was posted on November 22, 2023
of another video that was uploaded by another young black educator to the account,
@unwinewithtashak. The caption for the video read: “Black teacher breaks down in tears as she
calls out parents of this generation on how they’re raising their kids!!” In this video, the unnamed
teacher laments the parental response to problematic behaviors of her pre-kindergarten and
kindergarten students. Exasperated, she laments to the camera, and all of social media
consuming her post, “I’m calling out all the parents. If your child is in pre-kindergarten to high
school, I’m calling you out. They [your children] don’t respect any authority. You ask them to
stand on their designated spot, they’re telling you, ‘No’ and to ‘shut up.’ They’re throwing things
at each other. They’re throwing things at other people, at other classmates. You say, ‘Can
everyone sit in their spots?’ They say, ‘I don’t want to... I’m not doing that... You don’t get to tell
me what to do. You’re not my mom.’” The teacher continues explaining her classroom trevails
for about another minute, including the negative reactions she gets from parents when she
requests their assistance in improving their child’s behaviors. She then starts crying because,
“Your daughters... your five-year-old daughters are asking me to play ‘Pound Town’, (an
extremely sexually explicit rap by Sexxy Red), while I’m trying to play Princess Tiana and ballet
music. They are asking me, ‘can we hear Poun...’” and the video cuts off just as the teacher begins
crying on camera. The video was shared by the TikTok account, @r1miller2, an account with
47,800 followers, and as of the date of this writing, I cannot ascertain how many other accounts
shared this video and, thus, how many shares, likes, or comments this post garnered.
Clicking on to another link, I noticed a video posted to TikTok by the account
@stephenwhitehead22 in February 2024, showing a young black male teacher, calling a parent
to have a conversation about their child’s behavior. The video’s caption read: “When a parent is
tired of the teacher calling about their child’s behavior in class, the conversation sounds like this...”
. In the video, a black male teacher with a phone to his ear, while the voice of an irate (Black)
mother expressed her disgust and frustration about the frequent calls she receives pertaining
to her child’s classroom conduct. During her profanity laden tirade, the mother says “If you keep
calling up here and I lose my job... if I lose my job, I’m gonna show up there, and someone there
[is] gonna lose their’s! How bout that, okay?... Because this is my job you’re messing with
because... I HAVE MOUTHS TO FEED! I HAVE MOUTHS TO FEED!” The camera cuts off.
Throughout the mother’s screed, the camera shows the male teacher saying nothing, either
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staring deadpan into the camera, or frowning into the camera. Again, there is no indication
provided that the frustrated mother is cognizant that her words are being recorded, or that they
would someday be exposed audibly, for public consumption and spectacle.
Suffice it to say, videos and social media postings by young Black teachers providing the world
a glimpse of their professional reality through social media, are readily accessible. And while I
suspect, not every video of young black educators operating within their profession are as dire
and laden with frustration as the media postings referenced above, it is postings such as those
that will be the topic of this narrative review (Green, 2006). I will begin this review by providing
a brief survey of literature on social media and teachers’ use of social media as a mechanism of
personal connection and professional utility. From there, I will shift the paper’s focus to shame
and shaming within educational spaces. Lastly, I explore the structural power imbalance
between educators and parents, including black teachers who, as representatives of both
middle-class norms and institutional authority, positions them apart from the situatedness of
the lower SES black students and parents they serve. As such, the posting of negative exchanges
between young black teachers and their black students and parents to social media, is nothing
but a form of shaming by those who possess economic and social agency unto those with less
of both.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND TEACHERS
Social media is a group of technologies that offers people mechanisms to engage with one
another in a virtual and digital space through their computer or smartphone (Ober & Wildman,
2015). Social media serves as a mechanism for communication available for anyone with the
technology to support its applications (Fox & Bird, 2017). More specifically, social media
comprises interactive technologies that allows for content creation by users, and to be shared
through and across their own and other’s social-virtual network. Social media includes, but is
not limited to:
• User-generated content like texts, posts, comments, digital photos or videos
• User-created profiles for a website or app designed by social media organizations
• Social media developed online social networks maintained by connecting a user’s profile
with other individuals or groups
• Virtual, personally created accounts that accessible via computer or smartphone (Ober
& Wildman, 2015)
• Documented memories and self-curated content through blogs podcasts, videos and
gaming sites (O’Keefe, Clarke-Pearson, 2011)
Wessels and Diale (2017) share that social media is easy to use, is in a continuous state of
development and has an extremely broad reach especially among a younger global population
who are computer savvy, grew up with the internet, and have ready access to smartphones.
Social media’s growing influence is apparent across societies, cultures, religions and economies
(Rasheed et al., 2020) as globally, 3.8B people consume social media with the most popular
social media outlets in America being Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram (Doofinder, 2024).
Social media allows individuals from all corners of the globe to connect, inform, and influence
one another, potentially facilitating an environment where the exchange and consumption of
information is democratized. With the greater ability to connect and engage, comes with some
areas of concern, namely social media’s potential to influence masses of people and direct
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Benson, K. E. (2024). Young Black Teachers Taking to Social Media to Shame Black Students and Parents: A Narrative Review. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(2). 550-569.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.112.16584
popular thought. Reasoned and rational collective understanding is not guaranteed, and
whether a crowd is influenced by the nonsensical or utilitarian, can reflect the online
information individuals avail themselves to and how they interact with it. In the social media
space where the barrier to entry is low, influential and charismatic communicators can be
amplified and influence the reasoning and decision-making process for social media
consumers. For all the democratizing of the public square and media accessibility, the
opportunity for exposure to more perspectives provided by and through social media, social
media has made people more closed-minded due to consumers’ propensity to craft their own
ideological echo-chambers coupled with proprietary algorithms from social media sites
designed to promote virtual material which the user has shown preference to consume.
Social media has been credited for its potential to promote awareness of matters taking place
in the world regardless of one’s proximity to events such as the ongoing global atrocities in Gaza
and the massacre of tens of thousands of Muslims at the behest of the Israeli Defense Forces
(2024), conditions of genocide and psuedo-slavery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(2024); and domestically, the police killings of George Floyd (2020), Breonna Taylor (2020)
and Elijah McClain (2021). Additionally, social media has also been shown to amplify exposure
and provide opportunities for individuals to coalesce around anti-democratic aims like the Stop
the Steal Movement in 2019 and attacks on (non-existent) Critical Race Theory in public K-12
schools (Benson, 2022) and Diversity, Equity Initiatives in universities and corporate settings.
Because some consumers use social media to seek validation and to validate others’ opinions,
whether in thought or action, that align with their own ideology - to follow influencers -
frequent social media consumers can be more prone to ignorance, and even violence. In seeking
to understand how youth perceive, categorize, and react to aggressive and potentially violent
social media posts, Patton et al. (2013) surmises that not only can social media consumption
enhance user closed-mindedness and ignorance, but can enhance individuals’ violent
tendencies. For marginalized populations specifically, Patton et al. (2016), suggests social
media works efficiently in delivering threats as posts that can reach hundreds or thousands of
followers in a matter of seconds regardless of their location allowing confrontational contact
between opposing parties to remain ongoing.
While 84% of young adults in America aged sixteen to twenty-three, use at least one social
media platform, relative to other demographics, black Americans consume a greater proportion
of social media platforms (Pew Research Center, 2021). Of the three most popular domestic
social media applications, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, black Americans, despite
comprising only 14% of America’s population, dominate social media usage with black
Americans as the largest proportion of Facebook users in America (17.3M users); 34% of
Instagram users, and 25% of America’s Twitter users (Sharma, 2013; Florini, 2014). Black
consumption and production on Twitter is so prominent, that “Black Twitter”, a colloquial term
for posts that are shared and directed at other Black Twitter users emerged as a term to mean
“a user-generated source of culturally relevant content showcases how Twitter’s discursive
conventions and features facilitate Black cultural discourses online” (Brock, 2012, p. 530).
Black women are among the largest social media consumer groups in America as it provides
space to converse about Black womanhood, resisting structural gendered racism, navigating
structural oppression, empowerment, connectedness (Conley, 2017), social support (Davis
2019), belonging and validation (Jones et. al, 2021). Beyond information and cultural exchange
between individuals, social media is a proven technology in shaping users’ personal and
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sociocultural identity. Given its utility, social media can hold significant emotional meaning in
the lives of consumers from underrepresented populations; provides expanded opportunity to
communicate and engage with one another in addition to providing a platform from which to
share experiences with targeted users to establish consensus or widespread agreement. For
individuals from cultural minority backgrounds, social media provides a “place” for members
of such groups to voice opinions and raise awareness relevant matters within their community
highlighting their own perspective. Pertaining to black people, social media affords the freedom
to shape, through a virtual space, group identity and affiliation; as well provide opportunities
to learn from one another (Grimes, 2017; Matsuzuka et al., 2023) and promote positive self- recognition, racial resilience and racial dignity. Additionally, social media “allows space for
black youth to reclaim dignity through reversing the white gaze, recognizing and calling out
anti-blackness, and cultivating engaging communities of healing and belonging” (Gatwiri &
Moran, p. 360, 2022).
Similar to the function and potential social media presents for marginalized populations to
share and communicate with like individuals, or simply serving to get one’s perspective out to
the world, school teachers are increasingly employing social media. Use of social media as a
form of communication is increasing in all sectors of American society including education.
Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide teachers with powerful
instructional tools that fosters collaboration and facilitates a cohesive learning community, and
tech savvy educators are using social media to expand the learning space beyond the classroom
and encourage student creativity (Tarantino et al., 2013). Some teachers reported their
consumption of social media is primarily for educational purposes like professional
development and opportunities for professional learning (Hashim & Carpenter, 2019) as social
media is increasingly considered a legitimate educational instrument that is both useful and
helpful in engaging students of the 21st century when used appropriately (Ayogodmus et al,
2023). Educators’ individual and social preferences, as well as the context of whole districts,
schools, grade levels, classrooms and teachers’ backgrounds influence teachers’ social media
usage (Hashiem & Carpenter, 2019). Other teachers who use social media professionally,
reported doing so for a range of motivations including to achieve legitimacy within a
community of practice, gain credibility from peers, gather reinforcement from colleagues,
increase social recognition, and to demonstrate leadership (Kim & Canvas, 2013). Some
reported turning to social media due to not having a “local” network with whom they can
interact around professional discourses, as such, they find connectivity with like-minded,
online communities unconstrained by geography (Luehmann & Tinelli, 2008). When
researching how educators appropriate Twitter and other social media platforms, teachers who
use Twitter tended to be more eager adopters of technologies and better positioned to convey
information between members of their local communities of practice and other networks of
educators (Forte et al, 2012).
Teachers, generally, attribute meaning to their social media usage as a tool for communication
and receiving information. Ayagodmus et al. (2022) found teachers, much like other groups,
use social media for personal purposes rather than solely professional activities for reasons
such as self-expression, personal enjoyment, conducting research, passing time,
communication, sharing pictures and videos, shopping, playing games and making friends (Baz,
2018; Park & Kaye, 2019; Salzman, 2019; Tejedor et al., 2019). In investigating how teachers
navigate the tension of consuming social media as lone individuals as well as education
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Benson, K. E. (2024). Young Black Teachers Taking to Social Media to Shame Black Students and Parents: A Narrative Review. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 11(2). 550-569.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.112.16584
professionals, teachers reported a unity in their social media identities between their two
distinct worlds; that of a professional and that of a private citizen (Dunne et al., 2010, Fox &
Bird, 2017; Veletsinanos, 2013).
While some educators have a level of comfort incorporating social media usage into their
practice, others have reported being more reticent to do so. Shea (2016) found that pre-service
teachers reported feelings of reluctance and caution in exhibiting authentic self-reflection over
social media for fear that expressing doubts over their classroom abilities, particularly within
the area of classroom management, could have an adverse impact on their future placement
and ultimately, their careers. Teachers’ social media use has its drawbacks with media coverage
across the country depicting teachers using social media in unseemly ways such as
inappropriate student-teacher social networking, and teachers exhibiting inappropriate and
unprofessional speech (Vasek & Hendricks, 2016). Additionally, what has also been made
apparent in the expanding social media landscape where individuals, including teachers, can
create and share content, is that problematic behaviors that existed prior to the emergence of
social media are no longer confined to a small network, but are being made visible to broader,
once disconnected audiences; this includes online shaming. In the following section, I will
explore shame generally, and shaming within the education context.
SHAME AND SHAMING IN THE EDUCATION CONTEXT
Shame is an affective reaction that typically follows public exposure and disapproval of some
perceived shortcoming; its experience is directly about the self and a result of self-evaluation
(Klass, 1990). It is an objectionable emotion often resulting from self-reflection where one
deems oneself, generally, defective and objectionable. In shame, a person’s sense of self shrinks
and feelings of worthlessness and powerlessness emerges. “Shamed people feel exposed and
desire to escape, hide - to sink into the floor” (Tangney, et al., p. 1257, 1996) as a result of an
appraised failure or moral transgression (Lewis, 1992). The deficient perspective of the
individual is a crucial part of shame and along with eroded self-esteem. A sense of inferiority
can arise from being treated as weak and incapable, and also from being shamed or devalued.
Concerns of being seen as inferior or worthless in the eyes of others, are captured by the
concept of shame-proneness (Candea & Szentagotai-Tătar, 2018) and highly associated with
feelings of self-consciousness, inferiority, helplessness, anger, anger at self and fear of negative
evaluation (Gilbert, 1994). Further, shame may then be a strong indicator of fear of social
rejection as it involves a negative evaluation of a central aspect of the self from others leaving
one with feelings of deep loneliness, inferiority, and core inadequacy (Scheff, 2003).
Shame is differentiated from embarrassment as shame can be felt when one is alone where
embarrassment, on the other hand, seldom exists apart from an audience (Edelmann &
Hampson, 1981); though a disapproving audience, real or imagined, is a central component in
leading one to form lasting negative judgements against the self (Tangeney et al., 1996;
Goodman & Cook, 2019). Shame serves as a guiding force for overcoming an identity threat and
usually provokes two dominant reactions: self-protection through withdrawal (Bonner et al.,
2017; Greenbaum 2020) and identity repair or maintenance (Thompson & Bunderson, 2001).
Where shame and guilt result from situational mishaps or infractions of social norms, both
result in differing responses. While both shame and guilt are self-conscious emotions linked to
a negative self-evaluation and are factors associated with depression, some studies suggest that
shame, not guilt, elicits rumination, which can then lead to depression (Tangney et al., 2007;
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Pulcu et al., 2013; Green et al., 2013). Guilt tends to predict more adaptive tendencies, including
a desire to apologize to a victim of one’s wrongdoing and potentially motivate one to make
amends (Schmader & Lickel, 2006). Additionally, guilt commonly influences one to change their
actions and to repair their misdeeds through doing. Conversely, shame elicits a feeling as if the
entire self is tainted which results in a maladaptive response including withdrawal, or hiding
from others in an attempt to protect from feeling further failure (Nikolic et al., 2023). Such an
avoidant reaction leads those shamed less inclined to make reparation for any harm caused.
Whereas the perceived harmfulness of an event might uniquely preempt guilt, the publicity of
the wrongdoing is often associated with shame as shame feels more public than does guilt,
regardless of the objective publicity of the event (Tangney & Miller, 1996). Experiencing shame
indicates that one’s social standing may be in jeopardy because of one’s socially questionable
attitude or behaviors (Greenbaum et al., 2021). Flanagan writes, “For shaming to occur, people
must be observed disapprovingly by others whose values they share, and they must believe
that they deserve the criticism. When shaming does occur, it can be a very powerful experience,
entailing a painful negative scrutiny of the self - a feeling that I am unworthy, incompetent, or
bad” (Flanagan, p.1, 2017). People attempt to avoid feeling shame by obeying social norms,
which also allows them to fulfill the social goal of acceptance and group membership (Keltner
& Buswell, 1997). It should be noted that other research suggests that shaming can serve as a
measure of behavior modification (Batcho, 2017) or behavior remediation (Bynum et al., 2021)
in response to a breach of established norms and expectations.
Similar to that of any individual or group, parents are susceptible to feeling shame and
humiliation. In a schooling context, shaming and humiliation can be experienced by parents
despite their role as parents placing them outside of the school setting, and can emerge for
varied reasons. The act of humiliating has been described as bullying behavior as it is a
fundamental attack on another’s identity and sense of self (Wilson, 2017). Like shame,
humiliation has a devastating effect on people in that it leads to a loss of status and subsequent
outcomes such as feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, anxiety, powerless rage, and
possible revenge though it tends to be under-recognized, trivialized or insufficiently confronted
(Torres and Bergner, 2010; Goodman & Cook, 2019). For parents, guilt and shame can be
experienced relating to their child’s performance in schools, but tend to be less acknowledged
emotions (Simpson, 2015). Parents reported feelings of parental shame and guilt involving
homework (Katz et al., 2016) despite homework being a common education practice to
improve student learning and self-regulation, it can be a source of stress for many families
(Agha et al., 2020; Holland et al., 2021; Pressman et al., 2015). Pertaining to homework, feelings
of capacity and convenience from parents’ perspectives are inversely proportional in that lower
parents’ sense of competence when helping their child with their homework, the more likely it
will be perceived to be burdensome (DiStefano, 2020). From there, frustration emerges from
the need to be seen as competent, thus stress increases around homework when they perceive
a lack of individual competence and possessing insufficient skills to be supportive for their child
(Katz et al., 2016).
Additionally, parents are subject to feeling shame and humiliation relating to their child’s
behavior in school. Parental identity threat prompts parents to consider socially-constructed
ideas of proper parenting and question whether they are failing to satisfy such standards.
Further, parental identity threat suggests parents fear failing in their own and society’s
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Sciences Research Journal, 11(2). 550-569.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.112.16584
standard of good parenting, but also that their own shortcomings could create harm for their
children (Clark & Mills, 1979; Greenbaum, 2021). Parents may experience shame in response
to their child’s perceived misbehavior because their own identity is likely to include their role
as a parent of their child, and their child’s wrongdoing can damage this identity (Aron et al,
1991). Further, parents may also feel guilt because of their child’s misdeeds due to societal
expectations that parents will monitor and shape their child’s behavior, and that negative
evaluations from others will befall them for their child’s misbehaviors (Lickel et al., 2003).
Though studies indicate that parents’ sense of shame and guilt over their parenting is connected
to their child’s behavior (Scarnier et al., 2009), the internal struggle of one’s perception of
adequate parenting is felt inordinately by mothers. A 2017 study conducted by University of
Michigan’s CS Mott Children’s Hospital, reported that 56% of mothers polled (n= 2001)
eighteen and older, believe mothers get too much blame and not enough credit for children’s
behavior, with children’s discipline as the most frequent topic of criticism according to 70% of
respondents. Additionally, 42% of mothers polled reported that the criticism they receive made
them unsure about their parenting producing feelings of being overwhelmed and maternal
anxiety (Clark et al., 2017). To be sure, shame and humiliation can be projected onto parents
for varied reasons, some of which was covered above, but there are instances where shaming
is exhibited from classroom teachers on to students and parents due to their authority-laden
position within schools and society at large.
Bullying is a long-standing negative behavior that is conducted by a group or individual and is
directed against a person who is not able to defend themselves due substantive and perceived
power imbalances (Gusfre et al., 2023). A topic that has seen scant attention within bullying
research is bullying from teacher to student. Teacher bullying research in both elementary and
secondary grades shows that teacher bullying can adversely affect a child's physical and mental
health, participation in education and occupational life, as well as threaten one’s sense of well
being into adulthood. In the schooling context, the power bestowed upon teachers by society
and their institutions vis-a-vis students and parents (especially those who are nonwhite, and
from lower income backgrounds), is normative. Symbolic power, a concept introduced by
Bourdieu (1979) accounts for the tacit, suggestive modes of cultural and social domination
occurring within everyday social habits maintained over individuals that serves to confirm
one’s place in social hierarchies and within institutions. For implementation, symbolic power
requires both an empowered individual and a hierarchical subordinate to accept their
respective positions and the social norms that occur between them (Thapar-Björkert et al,
2016). Bourdieu argues that cultural roles are stronger than economic forces in determining
how hierarchies are situated and reproduced in society as status and economic capital are both
necessary to maintain dominance in a capitalist system (Bourdieu, 1979). Further, symbolic
power is the imposition of categories of thought and perception of dominant social agents who,
once they begin observing and evaluating the world, unaware of their reasoning, perceive the
social order as organic and fair, thus, perpetuating a social structure favoring those with the
most capital and reifying the existing social order as legitimate (Siisiainen, 2008).
Armed with the appearance of meritocratic, schools are one systemic institution (of many) in
society that “seemingly objectively affirms the dominant classes’ own dominant position” by
“establishing a theodicy of their privilege’ (Bourdieu, p. 4, 1987) which, helps to maintain a
persistent power imbalance between those with agency and capital, and those without it, all
while maintaining the illusion of equality and obscuring the unequal distribution of resources
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and outcomes (Fine, 1992). Schools are government institutions where students (and parents)
are reminded of social norms, cultural values, and popular discourses. Within the school setting,
students, in addition to curricular content, also learn how society views and categorizes them;
commonly influenced by their racial, ethnic, sexual, and economic identities. The constant
exposure and eventual acceptance of such sorting impacts how students, especially of minority
low socioeconomic backgrounds, view themselves and their potential (Horwath & Thurlow,
2004).
Seemingly innocuous status messages concerning authority are reinforced to students and
parents with less social and cultural capital. With building administrators and educators
positioned as representatives of government, their possession of college degrees, mastery of
institutional linguistic norms, and by profession, granted authority as the individual who knows
about educating children, such factors coalesce to communicate a message to parents, without
similar attributes, where official power lies in their relationship. The power bestowed upon
educators who, 79.3% of whom in America are overwhelmingly white and middle-class
(National Center of Education Statistics, 2020; Will, 2020; Driehaus, 2022), due to their position
in society compared to non-white parents with comparatively less annual income, less formal
education, less command of normative speech patterns, educators’ operationalizing their
power imbalance constitutes institutionalized violence even as the power imbalance may seem
imperceptible to parents themselves (Monzo, 2013).
The incongruity in treatment from schools to parents depending on their race and
socioeconomic status is well-established in education research, still, disparities in treatment
from schools to low-income parents of color exist, often with appraisals of parents’ abilities to
raise their school-aged children. Though wildly simplistic, white middle-class parents receive
praise for their style of “authoritative parenting” as the ideal parenting style for school aged
children as it instills habits of option-weighing and self-advocacy (Hayek et al., 2022; Kuppens
& Ceulemans, 2018). It bears noting here, the collective understanding and social construction
of “middle class” is racialized in it of itself positioning whiteness and a level of affluence as
normative while masked in race neutral vocabulary (Petrella & Loggins, 2018). Conversely,
black parents are criticized for “authoritarian parenting” (McMurtry, 2013) despite the
possibility that it may benefit their child (Bornstein & Zlotnik, 2008). As is often the case,
educators associate the behavior and academic achievement of children with their parent’s
ability to parent and their judgment more generally, parents of black children, parents of
children with disabilities, and black parents of children with disabilities may be recipients of
unwarranted judgment and discrimination from school staff (Cicciarelli, 2022). Fox and
Stallworth (2005) view the discrepancy in treatment between school and parents to be one of
perception in that it leads the empowered to make assumptions and discriminate against
people who are members of marginalized groups. Bishop and Glynn suggest school staff’s
unwillingness to engage with parents of nontraditional backgrounds respectfully in honoring
their full humanity, is a matter of viewing such populations through a deficit lens (2006); seeing
parents of low socioeconomic status from a vantagepoint of their perceived shortcomings as
opposed to their unrecognized attributes (Yosso, 2005).
With the overwhelming majority of educators being white and middle class, much of the
available research attributing the prejudicial perspectives of school staff reflects the views of
educators who are white and middle class (Driehaus, 2022). What we know much less about, is
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Sciences Research Journal, 11(2). 550-569.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.112.16584
the extent to which young black teachers, who are themselves positioned within America’s
educated middle class, hold similar views about low SES black students and parents. In the
following section, I will explore the differential status black educators hold in relation to the
bulk of the black students and parents within their orbit, and how their appraisals of black
parents and students may not be too dissimilar to that of middle-class white teachers, which is
what we see reflected in social media posts of young black educators.
PRIVILEGED YOUNG, BLACK EDUCATORS HOLD A DISTINCT STATUS FROM THE MASSES
OF LOWER SES BLACK STUDENTS AND PARENTS THEY SERVE
Expansive literature explores racial and cultural disconnects between the predominant middle- class, white female educator base and the diverse K-12 student body which increasingly
comprises students of color from lower SES backgrounds (Schaeffer, 2021). Misjudgements are
common pertaining to a black parent’s perceived willingness to assist in their child’s academic
success (Cooper, 2009; La Vizzo, 2016) and in providing behavioral support as broad swaths of
white educators believe black parents to be ambivalent of educators’ efforts to address both
(Marchand et al., 2019). Sociocultural disconnects between black parents and white teachers
(Brown, 2022), the national shortage of black teachers, and research indicating positive
academic impacts black teachers have on black students, initiated modern urgent efforts to
recruit and retain black teachers. Black students seeing educators who look like them and share
a similar cultural background has been shown to improve students’ academic performance as
well as improve classroom behaviors (Gershenson et al., 2021).
Many black educators indicate a recognition of systemic racism in American society and the
harm it presents to black children, both in and out of school, that has always made black
children comparatively, more vulnerable to both physical and psychological violence
(McKinney de Royston, et al., 2021). For black children, school itself can be both physically and
psychologically threatening as common activities like walking (outside authorized spaces),
talking (too loudly), and playing can be met with swift discipline, even force (Okonofua &
Eberhardt, 2015; Greenwell, 2012; Benson, 2023). “No excuses” (Goodman & Cook, 2019) and
zero tolerance disciplinary policies are school-based iterations of “broken windows'' policing
implemented primarily within urban public schools and mission-oriented corporate charter
schools that serve near exclusively low-income students of color (Teske, 2011). Intended to
improve student both behavior and academic outcomes, “no excuses” disciplinary approaches
penalize even minor behavioral infractions including unauthorized cell phone usage,
insubordination, truancy and lateness, and being out of uniform (Golann & Jones, 2021).
Predictably, students of color from low-income backgrounds, students with behavioral
disabilities, and students who are underperforming academically are the most common targets
of such disciplinary models and punitive action (Heitzeg, 2009). Though black students make
up 15% of students nationwide (NCES, 2022), in 2018 (the year with the latest data available)
black students comprised 30% of suspensions and 36% of expulsions meted out America’s
public schools despite such exclusionary practices having far-reaching (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2022), detrimental consequences including declining academic
performance, dropping out, and greater exposure to the criminal justice system (Witt, 2007).
Unlike their white counterparts, black educators are more likely to recognize how ecological
factors impact perceived racial disparities and experiences between black and white students
in school, as well as understand commonly interpreted deficiencies have less to do with an
actual inability or disinterest of individual black children or families, but instead are byproducts
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of systemic racism and non-school based factors such as intergenerational poverty, exposure
to violence, stress, and the lack of access to health care. As such, many black educators
acknowledge the vulnerability of black children in schools and find ways to protect black
children from racialized harm in schools (Dixson, 2003, Walker, 2000). Milner suggests some
black educators intentionally enact protective stances towards Black students, to not only care
for, but to protect their well-being (Milner, 2006).
By no means, however, are the aforementioned perceptual predispositions of ecological
awareness or cultural protection universal among black educators. Some black educators,
conversely, uphold the educational values of the “status quo which centers whiteness and its
associated behavioral norms; place a primacy of respectability over the dignity of black
children, as well as hold views that are rooted in perceptions of cultural deficit” (McKinney de
Royston et al., p. 70, 2021) - similar to the fashion in which white teachers engage with lower
income black students and black parents. Exactly 50% of black households, domiciles with at
least two residents, earn up to $49,999 or less per year and 27% earning less than $25,000; and
only 26% of Black adults have a college degree or an advanced degree (Lopez & Moslimani,
2024). The requirements of being an educator, a college degree and in some states a master’s
degree, along with the financial reward of a middle-class income coupled with health benefits,
positions black educators as distinct from the majority of black Americans who are working
class and non-degreed. Black teachers who, by majority, work in lower income urban school
districts attended by black children with black parents (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2022), do share cultural and racial similarities with those communities, but also have
divergent educational and economic realities from the bulk of the students they teach, and
parents with whom they are acquainted (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022).
Though young middle class blacks are most in danger of downward mobility due relatively new
access to the middle class, have less connection to financially stable networks, and a higher
likelihood of having relatives needing financial support (Jarosz et al., 2020; Page & Soriano,
2018), they still share greater commonality, experientially, with middle class whites than black
people of lower economic strata (Lareau, 2000) - the very kind of student middle-class black
teachers are most likely to encounter in their classrooms. The accumulation of black teachers’
education credentials and professional salaries comes with increased economic and societal
benefits including more frequent opportunities to assimilate and acculturate within white
middle-class life. Middle class blacks’ connection to whiteness and middle-class norms is
directly proportional with their income yielding what Claytor calls, black privilege (Massey &
Fischer, 2000; Claytor, 2020); possessing a dual sense of cultural pride and awareness while
possessing the ability to maneuver easily within white spaces and adapting to white norms. The
prolonged exposure to middle-class expectations, and adaptation to white norms, however,
may influence the way some young black teachers interpret and respond to lower SES black
students and parents.
Where a growing body of research highlights the benefits black teachers serve all students
(Motamedi & Stevens, 2018), specifically black students in terms of college readiness, college
acceptance (Papageorge et al., 2018), cultural awareness (Williams, 2018), delivery of
pedagogy (Irvine, 2009), mathematics (Frank et al., 2018), science curriculum (Smith-Mutgei,
2023), and behavior modification (Linday & Hart, 2017); and black parents pertaining to black
teacher’s cultural competency (McAllister & Irvine, 2000), community awareness (Milner &
Howard, 2004), it would be incomplete to assume the lifestyles and perspectives of black
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Sciences Research Journal, 11(2). 550-569.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.112.16584
teachers and lower-income black students and parents cleanly align. As research indicates,
educators like the rest of society are not immune from racial and class-based bias. Additionally,
the divergent lives of the black middle class and the black working class or poor, has been the
subject of sociological research since the early 1900s (DuBois, 1903), 1930s (Frazier, 1932),
and more visibly since Wilson’s Declining Significance of Race (1980). A black teacher’s mere
presence in the classroom, as a professional and institutional authority, may tacitly reinforce
the values of meritocracy demonstrating to lower income black students and parents, that if
one simply continues their education through college, is willing to fulfill the requisite
requirements, and can effectively navigate white norms, they too can become part of the
educated and the comparatively comfortable black middle class as they are. To be sure, more
research on both points warrants greater in-depth discussion and reflection.
CONCLUSION
Prior to social media, teachers who harbored frustration, disappointment and even bias against
their students limited the exposure of emotions by expressing them within a closed set of
individuals. Teachers’ appraisals of students’ academic or behavioral shortcomings,
traditionally, yielded a range of responses from student detention, requests for parent-teacher
conferences, suspension, a poor grade and in some cases, retention. It was not uncommon
however, for educators to resort to shaming tactics by employing the disdainful judgment of
others to indicate broad disapproval of the intended target by estranging them from the
comfortable space as part of the group that abides by established norms. As shaming has
commonly been part of the schooling process, like society more broadly, as a mechanism to
achieve behavioral modification on the part of the student, the educator directing the shame at
the student takes on the authoritative role in determining who should be shamed and what
offense warrants the shaming. Prior to social media, shaming too, was an affair that was
contained within a relatively closed circle, comparatively.
With the boom of social media and billions of social media consumers across various platforms,
it follows that increasingly teachers will be availing themselves to social media for similar
reasons as the rest of the public: to learn about other’s experiences, build and join a social
network along similar interests, and to share their experiences. With young black Americans
consuming social media more than any other demographic, correspondingly, young black
teachers are consuming and posting to social media much about their experiences as being both
young black Americans, as well as young black teachers. And while material shared by young
black teachers on social media is intended to establish and join network of other young black
educators, a profession in dire need of black representation as America’s classrooms
increasingly diversify, some postings within the genre of young black teachers serve to shame
and pathologize black students and parents - those who are most marginalized in our society.
Here, I considered the privileged position of young black educators who are more formally
educated and more affluent than the masses of black students they serve, yet some have
adopted a similar deficit perspective of their students and parents as that of the traditional
middle-class white educators.
Where, then, do we situate the unique space young black educators occupy? Black teachers do
belong to a historically oppressed racial minority group, yet have historically approached their
educator role with the dual responsibility to educate and protect black children from harm, as
well as be an ally for black parents in the raising of their children even while themselves being,
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educationally and economically, outsiders from the socioeconomic contexts of majority of those
black parents and children they serve. Just how divergent are the more formally educated and
economically stable young black teachers’ expectations of black parents and students from that of
the traditional teacher who is a white and middle-class? Are young black teachers that different
in their treatment and respect for lower-income black students and parents, than their white
counterparts? While this article did not touch on these questions explicitly, in order to fully
appreciate the value of black educators entering the profession where they will likely serve
students of color from lower-income populations, we need to develop a framework that not
only expresses the urgent need for, and benefit of, black educators for all students - especially
black students, we also must be open to researching potential problem areas as well; that young
black educators who develop the similar deficit framing of black students and parents due to
their own privileged economic and educational status, can possibly be as harmful to those in
their charge as traditional white teachers who do the same.
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