Keep Your Joy!: Teaching Critical Pedagogies in Spaces of Intolerance and Resistance

Black female educators continue to face racism and discrimination in educational settings (Davis & Brown, 2017). Compounding these realities, Black female educators of multicultural and/or critical pedagogies can face resistance from their majority-white student populations in a number of ways. This autoethnographic study reflects on my experiences as a Black female instructor of a multicultural education course at a predominantly white institution (PWI). I reflect on and analyze the student opposition I experienced teaching an undergraduate course on critical pedagogies to pre-service teachers and provide much-needed respite and encouragement for other Black female teacher educators on how to maintain their joy when facing such resistance. Grounded in Black feminist thought (Collins, 2000), this article has implications for teacher education programs, higher education, and teachers of multicultural education.