A Narrative Inquiry of Texas Teachers Combatting Reactionary Education Reforms

This dissertation explores how Texas secondary English teachers experience and navigate the increasingly hostile environment created by reactionary education reforms. Reactionary education reforms, or acts of censorship, have been carried out through educational gag orders, intimidation bills, and book bans. These acts intensify a culture of surveillance and censorship that restricts teachers’ professional autonomy and undermines students’ access to inclusive and critical curricula. Drawing on decolonial theory, this study situates reforms within the broader history of coloniality in the United States’ education system which has historically been used as a means to maintain and reinforce colonial practices. By positioning teachers’ stories at the center, this work interrogates how the colonial matrix of power continues to silence marginalized voices while simultaneously creating conditions for teacher resistance and solidarity. Employing narrative inquiry as the methodology, the study draws on life story interviews with ten secondary English teachers in five north central Texas school districts to answer the research questions (1) What are the perspectives on and experiences of secondary English teachers in Texas regarding recent education reforms that are restructuring the curriculum? (2) How are secondary English teachers in Texas navigating the environment created by education reforms? Teachers’ narratives reveal the emotional toll of working within a system that criminalizes discussions of race, gender, and sexuality, and the measures educators take to protect themselves while also creating an environment that is inclusive for their students. This dissertation contributes to decolonial scholarship on curriculum and education reform by documenting how teachers both endure and resist the coloniality embedded in policy, highlighting the vital role of educators as agents of change.