“If I'm going to be an ally, I have to walk the walk”: Negotiating Occupational Activism Within K‐12 Educational Contexts

Conservative lawmakers are increasingly passing legislation that would ban the teaching of race, gender, and sexuality within K‐12 schools. Because these bills impact both teachers and students, it is important to understand how teachers perceive, and potentially resist, these bills. Building on the theory of occupational activism, the author examines how some K‐12 teachers may exercise their activist identities and continue to teach about race, gender, and sexuality. Drawing on interviews with 26 K‐12 public school teachers, the author finds that, for some teachers, identity and student demographics are reasons why teachers continue to teach about these topics. Importantly, some respondents believed that teaching was synonymous with activism. This finding supports the need to expand on occupational activism to understand how workers, particularly educators, continue to exercise their activist identities in the wake of challenging social and political contexts.