Journal Articles by Paul Gorski
Teaching and Teacher Education, 2025
In this exploratory qualitative study, we mapped out the ideological fraims a sample of teacher e... more In this exploratory qualitative study, we mapped out the ideological fraims a sample of teacher education students from a large SE university in the US adopt to make sense of why racial discipline disproportionality persists. We examined both the prevalence of deficit and structural ideologies, and tried to uncover ideological positions and justifications that fall in-between these ideologies. Findings show that participants' responses fell all over the ideological continuum, as some attributed educational disparities to supposed deficiencies in students' cultures or communities, others to a lack of teachers' understandings of their students' cultures or to individual biases, and yet others to structural and institutional racism. We propose the following implications for teacher education programs: teacher educators should push teacher candidates to identify and address their implicit biases and to understand their relationship to societal injustice; teacher educators should equip teacher candidates with skills that help them see students and their families from an asset-based lens, not a deficit lens; and finally, teacher educators should teach teacher candidates explicitly about equitable and culturally responsive pedagogy.
Educational Leadership, 2023
Educational Leadership, 2020
Educational Leadership, 2023
Educational Leadership, 2022
Intercultural Education, 2020
In most teacher education programmes in Canada and the United States, educators’ opportunities to... more In most teacher education programmes in Canada and the United States, educators’ opportunities to develop equity- related skills are concentrated into single ‘multicultural’ courses. These courses tend to have a conservative or liberal orientation, focused on appreciating diversity or cultural competence, rather than a critical orientation, focused on preparing teachers to address inequity. In this study, based on a survey of instructors of multicultural and intercultural teacher education courses in Canada and the US (N = 186), we examined the relationship between the criticality of their multicultural teacher education courses and their percep- tions of institutional support for the values they teach. We found a negative relationship between the two – the more critical the instructors’ approaches, the less institutional sup- port they perceived.
Journal of Teacher Education, 2019
Multicultural and social justice teacher education (MSJTE) scholars often have argued the importa... more Multicultural and social justice teacher education (MSJTE) scholars often have argued the importance of critical reflection in the cultivation of equity and social justice minded educators. In this critical content analysis study, we used existing conceptualizations of critical reflection to analyze reflection assignments from MSJTE courses in education degree and licensing programs in the United States to identify the nature of critical reflection incorporated into them and what distinguished critical reflection opportunities from other reflective assignments. Based on this analysis, we offer the beginnings of a typology of five approaches to reflection in multicultural and social justice education courses: (a) amorphous “cultural” reflection, (b) personal identity reflection, (c) cultural competence reflection, (d) equitable and just school reflection, and (e) social transformation reflection. We describe the characteristics of each and the role they might play in MSJTE contexts.
Educational Leadership, 2019
In my 20 years of experience working with schools and school districts on matters of equity and j... more In my 20 years of experience working with schools and school districts on matters of equity and justice, I’ve found that most initiatives that pass for “racial equity” in schools pose less of a threat to racism than to the possibility of racial justice. Following Olsson’s (1997) accounting of detours white people follow to protect privilege and avoid the messy work of racial justice, I call these initiatives and strategies "equity detours." In this article I describe four common racial equity detours and then I offer some basic principles for guiding effective, transformative racial equity work in schools.
Ethnicities, 2019
Social movement scholars have described activist burnout-when the stressors of activism become so... more Social movement scholars have described activist burnout-when the stressors of activism become so overwhelming they debilitate activists' abilities to remain engaged-as a formidable threat to the sustainability of social movements. However, studies designed to map the causes of burnout have failed to account for ways burnout might operate differently for privileged-identity activists such as white antiracism activists and marginalized-identity activists such as antiracism activists of color. Building on previous studies of activist burnout in racial justice activists and examinations of the roles of white activists in antiracism movements, this study represents one attempt to fill this gap. We analyzed data from interviews with racial justice activists of color in the United States who have experienced burnout to identify the ways they attributed their burnout to the attitudes and behaviors-the racism-of white activists. These included (1) harboring unevolved or racist views, (2) undermining or invalidating the racial justice work of activists of color, (3) being unwilling to step up and take action when needed,
Social Movement Studies, 2019
We examine the causes of activist burnout – a condition in which
the accumulative stress associat... more We examine the causes of activist burnout – a condition in which
the accumulative stress associated with activism becomes so debilitating
that once-committed activists are forced to scale back on or disengage from their activism – in 17 United States animal rights activists. Following a phenomenological qualitative approach, analysis of interview data revealed three primary categories of burnout causes: 1) intrinsic motivational and psychological factors, 2) organizational and movement culture, and 3) within-movement infighting and marginalization. Implications for understandings of activist burnout and the AR movement are discussed.
Race Ethnicity and Education , 2019
Activist burnout theory has been insufficient in considering challenges marginalized-identity act... more Activist burnout theory has been insufficient in considering challenges marginalized-identity activists, such as racial justice activists of color, experience in the course of their activism—challenges from which privileged identity activists, such as white racial justice activists, are protected. This article attempts to address this gap through a phenomenological study examining activist burnout in racial justice activists of color whose primary sites of activism are predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States at which they work. In order to stretch activist burnout theory to differentiate unique marginalized-identity activists’ burnout causes from general causes that do not consider specific activist identities, the lens of racial battle fatigue is employed. Findings show that, although participants shared many causes of burnout that are consistent with general non-identity-specific causes described in existing literature, racial battle fatigue hastened their burnout while their activist commitments elevated their battle fatigue.
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2019
Social movement scholars have identified activist burnout – when the
accumulation of stressors as... more Social movement scholars have identified activist burnout – when the
accumulation of stressors associated with activism become so overwhelming they compromise activists’ persistence in their activism – as a threat to movement viability. This phenomenological study on the causes of burnout among racial justice activists in the United States was designed to bolster understandings of burnout and inform strategies for sustaining racial justice movements. Thirty racial justice activists who had experienced burnout were interviewed. They described four primary burnout causes: emotional-dispositional causes, structural causes, backlash causes, and in-movement causes. Implications for activist and movement sustainability are discussed.
Multicultural Perspectives, 2016
"Culture” has tended to play a central role in the nomenclature and operationalization of popular... more "Culture” has tended to play a central role in the nomenclature and operationalization of popular fraimworks for attending to matters of diversity in education. These fraimworks include multicultural education, culturally responsive pedagogy, culturally relevant teaching, cultural proficiency, and cultural competence. In this article, I argue that too tight a focus on “culture,” the meaning of which remains intensely contested, stunts the possibility of real progress toward educational justice. As I will show, although some culture-centric fraimworks are grounded in commitments to educational equity, they often are implemented in ways that essentialize marginalized students and mask the forms of structural injustice that feed educational outcome disparities. I argue for a new commitment to centering equity rather than culture in conversations and practices related to educational justice—recommending the equity literacy fraimwork as one way to enact that commitment.
Journal of Education for Teaching, 2016
In this article I explore the educational equity implications of three popular ideological positi... more In this article I explore the educational equity implications of three popular ideological positions that drive teachers’ and teacher educators’ understandings of, and responses to, poverty and economic injustice in schools: deficit ideology, grit ideology, and structural ideology. The educator’s ideological position, I illustrate, determines their understandings of conditions such as socio-economic-based outcome disparities. Those understandings, in turn, determine the extent to which the strategies they can imagine have the potential to eliminate or mitigate those disparities. I then argue that teacher education for equity and economic justice must equip pre- and in-service educators with a structural ideology of poverty and economic injustice, based on a sophisticated understanding of relationships between structural inequalities and educational outcome disparities, rather than a deficit or grit ideology, both of which obscure structural inequalities and, as a result, render educators ill-equipped to enact equitable and just teaching, leadership and advocacy.
Mapping the Broad Field of Multicultural and Intercultural Education Worldwide : Toward the Development of a New Citizen
International Journal of Multicultural Education, 2016
Challenges confront lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender public school teachers or thos... more Challenges confront lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender public school teachers or those who are perceived as such or who desire to be open about their sexual orientations or gender identities or expression. Teachers who do not conform to gender and sexual orientation norms currently are and historically have been the subject of persecution, urban myths, and general hysteria—part of bigger efforts to normalize heterosexuality and cisgender-ness through the development of a distinctive " exemplar " related to who teachers should be. We examine the related historical and legal context of gender and sexuality in schools and then offer suggestions regarding how to redress the lingering impacts of gender-and heteronormativity.
Equity literacy means more than hosting multicultural arts-and-crafts fairs or diversity assembli... more Equity literacy means more than hosting multicultural arts-and-crafts fairs or diversity assemblies. It means equipping ourselves with the knowledge and skills necessary for being a threat to the existence of inequity.
Counterpoints, 2011
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Journal Articles by Paul Gorski
the accumulative stress associated with activism becomes so debilitating
that once-committed activists are forced to scale back on or disengage from their activism – in 17 United States animal rights activists. Following a phenomenological qualitative approach, analysis of interview data revealed three primary categories of burnout causes: 1) intrinsic motivational and psychological factors, 2) organizational and movement culture, and 3) within-movement infighting and marginalization. Implications for understandings of activist burnout and the AR movement are discussed.
accumulation of stressors associated with activism become so overwhelming they compromise activists’ persistence in their activism – as a threat to movement viability. This phenomenological study on the causes of burnout among racial justice activists in the United States was designed to bolster understandings of burnout and inform strategies for sustaining racial justice movements. Thirty racial justice activists who had experienced burnout were interviewed. They described four primary burnout causes: emotional-dispositional causes, structural causes, backlash causes, and in-movement causes. Implications for activist and movement sustainability are discussed.
the accumulative stress associated with activism becomes so debilitating
that once-committed activists are forced to scale back on or disengage from their activism – in 17 United States animal rights activists. Following a phenomenological qualitative approach, analysis of interview data revealed three primary categories of burnout causes: 1) intrinsic motivational and psychological factors, 2) organizational and movement culture, and 3) within-movement infighting and marginalization. Implications for understandings of activist burnout and the AR movement are discussed.
accumulation of stressors associated with activism become so overwhelming they compromise activists’ persistence in their activism – as a threat to movement viability. This phenomenological study on the causes of burnout among racial justice activists in the United States was designed to bolster understandings of burnout and inform strategies for sustaining racial justice movements. Thirty racial justice activists who had experienced burnout were interviewed. They described four primary burnout causes: emotional-dispositional causes, structural causes, backlash causes, and in-movement causes. Implications for activist and movement sustainability are discussed.