Minoritized special education teachers of color often report feeling isolated in their work environments, affecting their sense of belonging and decision to stay in their positions. Although these teachers struggle with their identity in majority White workplaces, they are also often the only voice advocating for students of color eligible for…

Beginning teachers need strong support systems. In addition to adjusting to the demands of the teaching profession, beginning teachers are often required to teach heavy classloads, manage the most challenging classrooms, and take on non-teaching responsibilities in addition to their regular teaching assignments. Although beginning teachers face…

Upon the realization that teachers inhabit a "cage" of their own, but one very different from that which ensnares school or system administrators, the author wrote the book, "The Cage-Busting Teacher," from which this article is drawn. The author spent a year interviewing a couple hundred teachers, teacher advocates, union…

Drawing from Espino, Vega, Rendón, Ranero, and Muñiz (2012), the authors of this article utilize dialogue partners to develop collaborative testimonios of Latino male faculty. We center the importance of engaging in vulnerability while embracing peer support to address issues of isolation, marginalization, and other challenges that Latino male…

Pre-service teachers need to be prepared to teach in both rural and urban contexts. Preparation to teach multi-grade classes in rural schools is excellent preparation for teaching any class, including urban single-grade classes. Based on our previous research and experience, we designed a unit to prepare our pre-service teachers for the issues…

Twenty-five years ago, American sociologist Robert Neelly Bellah (Bellah, et al., 1986: 303) critiqued the growing isolation of intellectuals within universities and called for a return to "social science as public philosophy." Little seems to have changed. My thirty-seven year experience at the University of Alberta suggests that…

Transitioning into a new role can be difficult in any walk of life, and this is no different for physical educators entering a new teaching environment. In a new setting, a physical educator may go through a socialization process where beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and teaching philosophies are influenced. Teacher socialization research suggests…

Principals play an important role in new teacher induction. The quality of the relationship with school administrators is as important to novice special education teachers as it is to novice general education teachers. Although special education teachers can benefit from general administrative support, they also may require additional supports…

Several years ago, when his college first financed a writing program administrator (WPA) position--reassigned time and a budget to pay adjunct faculty stipends for program development--the author met with all the most senior adjunct faculty. "Without you," he told them, "this effort to build a better writing program won't work. Participation and…

The Educational Alumni Support Project (EdASP) indicated that there is an urgent need for the teaching profession to support casual beginning teachers (CBTs). The EdASP that was carried out at the University of New England provided online support for primary and secondary beginning teachers, yet the majority of postings were submitted by CBTs. In…

Part-time faculty play an important role in creating a culture of integrity on campus, yet they face a number of structural constraints. This paper seeks to improve our understanding of the potentially unique experiences of part-time faculty with academic misconduct and suggests ways to more effectively involve them in campus-wide academic…

Furman Brown has spent over a decade figuring out how to design a better school. As a first-year teacher in South Central Los Angeles in the early 1990s, he got a taste of what was wrong with the traditional public school model: It was not designed to serve students "or" teachers well. Convinced there was a better way to organize and…

Educational researchers are accustomed to institutional review board (IRB) requirements (e.g., protecting participants) with students often identified as the only "vulnerable population" for IRB purposes. However, as practitioner research has gained more prominence, the vulnerability of teacher-researchers themselves has begun to…

Feelings of isolation, too little time with students, lack of administrative support, and increasing demands are challenges facing special education teachers and contributing to teacher shortages. If educators are to provide the high quality programs necessary for their children and youth with disabilities, while ensuring that they make good…

Studying one's profession, especially when done in community with others, where the learning is richer and deeper, has not been the norm in the education community. Educators typically have been physically isolated from each other because of the structure of school facilities and the schedules that dominate the school day. This physical isolation…