Papers by Farima Pour-Khorshid, Ph.D.
The Journal of Trauma Studies in Education, 2023
There is no teaching and learning untouched by grief, and any classroom concerned with love must ... more There is no teaching and learning untouched by grief, and any classroom concerned with love must also be concerned with loss. Education for liberation requires the study, struggle, and praxis of grief. In the spirit of communion with the reader, we each offer story-along with our own analysis of how we understand the importance of story-as an invitation to encourage our readers to conjure their own stories and analyses of grief. Our process of writing included virtual healing sessions where we engaged in intimate inquiry to explore and share our own grief, each other's grief, our shared and distinct experiences, and how we each think about and experience grief as a liberatory teacher. These sessions were recorded, transcribed, and collectively analyzed for the emerging themes: The value and necessity of intergenerational villages of grief healing, the relations within these villages, and grief work as education for liberation.
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Equity & Excellence in Education
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Educational Foundations, 2021
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Tequio, 2020
Latinx first-generation college graduates often experience a myriad of structural, emotional, fin... more Latinx first-generation college graduates often experience a myriad of structural, emotional, financial and academic barriers while navigating higher education as undergraduate and graduate students and later, if they become faculty members. While many studies have documented these struggles within the field, the political, methodological and pedagogical praxis of testimonio has been used to reflect on and document these struggles in ways that give the authors agency in retelling and reclaiming their experiences of marginalization and resistance. In this paper, the authors build on the metaphor of a labyrinth to describe how higher education can often feel similar to a maze-like path to navigate, yet, the spiritual and reflective practice of labyrinth- walking involves three stages of soul development which can also be experienced through testimonio: releasing, receiving and returning to oneself
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Teaching Education, 2018
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Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers
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Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education
Background/Context: Although the uprisings in the summer of 2020 amplified existing abolitionist ... more Background/Context: Although the uprisings in the summer of 2020 amplified existing abolitionist organizing, including abolitionist struggles for justice within K–12 schools, it is unclear if the field of teacher education has been informed by these movements. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Given this gap, as well as the ongoing urgency to dismantle the interconnected structures of White supremacy, settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, racial capitalism, and cis-heteropatriarchy within the field of teacher education, this article calls on teacher education programs and teacher educators to grow abolition within the field. Research Design: We situate abolition broadly and demonstrate the connections between abolition and struggles for justice in K–12 education. We draw on stories and lessons from our own work as educators and organizers to situate what must be dismantled, changed, and built to grow abolition within the field of teacher education. Conclusions/Recom...
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Educational Studies, 2021
Abstract Educators of color can often (in)advertently perpetuate gendered oppression against each... more Abstract Educators of color can often (in)advertently perpetuate gendered oppression against each other to cope with racism and its associated stressors. This occurs in part due to the violence we have endured as (a) minoritized people in a society where our oppression is endemic, (b) scholars of color navigating exclusionary institutions and education spaces, and (c) educators who experience vicarious and complex trauma from pain imposed onto the young people with whom we work, seldom resulting in opportunities to address gender dynamics that uphold power imbalances among men, women, and gender-nonconforming people of color. In this conceptual paper we offer an intersectional framework of a “praxis of critical race love” to highlight cisgendered, heteropatriarchal toxic masculinity often reified in education contexts, and use narratives to demonstrate how we apply a healing-centered praxis within our service, teaching, and research to challenge such harm. Ultimately, we share tangible, community-engaged examples demonstrating how educators can co-create counterspaces that elevate women and gender-minoritized people in the firestorm of white supremacy.
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The Educational Forum, 2018
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Handbook of Critical Approaches to Politics and Policy of Education, Mar 3, 2022
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Teachers College Record, 2022
Background/Context: Although the uprisings in the summer of 2020 amplified existing abolitionist ... more Background/Context: Although the uprisings in the summer of 2020 amplified existing abolitionist organizing, including abolitionist
struggles for justice within K–12 schools, it is unclear if the field of teacher education has been informed by these movements.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Given this gap, as well as the ongoing urgency to dismantle the interconnected structures of white supremacy, settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, racial capitalism, and cis-heteropatriarchy within the field of teacher education, this paper calls on teacher education programs and teacher educators to grow abolition within the field.
Research Design: We situate abolition broadly and demonstrate the connections between abolition and struggles for justice in K–12 education. We draw on stories and lessons from our own work as educators and organizers to situate what must be dismantled, changed, and built in order to grow abolition within the field of teacher education.
Conclusions/Recommendations: We call on teacher education programs and teacher educators to begin the reflexive, relational, embodied, imaginative, coalitional, urgent, and necessary work of growing abolition within the field of teacher education.
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espanolEn toda la costa nicaraguense caribena, la lengua criolla ha existido junto al ingles, el ... more espanolEn toda la costa nicaraguense caribena, la lengua criolla ha existido junto al ingles, el espanol y otras lenguas nativas en la region desde el siglo XVII. Como todas las herramientas, las lenguas son empleadas para publicos y personales propositos que son definidos por sus hablantes. Su utilidad o circulacion varian con los cambios en el interior del gobierno o la sociedad. Este articulo, basado en un estudio cualitativo de dos anos, explora las actitudes linguisticas de la comunidad a lo largo de la Costa Caribe Nicaraguense Criolla (CCNC). El estudio analiza las opiniones de los nativos criollos acerca de las lenguas en su ecologia linguistica. Mas especificamente, esta investigacion intenta comprender las creencias sobre el uso del lenguaje en una region plurilingue de America Central para determinar sus ambitos de influencia. Los entrevistados mostraron que el lenguaje criollo era mas apropiado para propositos informales y menos para mas formales y aplicaciones academica...
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This author utilizes collective testimonio (Sanchez, 2009) as a process for homemade theory makin... more This author utilizes collective testimonio (Sanchez, 2009) as a process for homemade theory making or what Anzaldua and Keating (2000) called conocimientos . This collective testimonio brings together the stories and experiences of three educators of color within a California grassroots social justice critical study group created exclusively for people of color. In a profession dominated by more than 80% White teachers (Goldring, Gray, & Bitterman, 2013), these teachers of color share stories of resiliency and the community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) they possess and have utilized to thrive within an oppressive education system. Applying Critical Race Theory’s tenet of counternarrative, their individual and collective testimonio speak back to the dominant discourses about people of color as being deficient and lacking dominant cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) and instead, highlights how internalized and institutionalized forms of racism serve as obstacles as well as motivation t...
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The Journal of Educational Foundations, 2021
“Sis, but how is your spirit, though?” This is a question we ask each other often, an inquiry tha... more “Sis, but how is your spirit, though?” This is a question we ask each other often, an inquiry that grounds us in the spiritual restoration that is necessary for our survival. We are women of color (WOC) academics trying our best to be well. As sisters first, and scholars second, our Critical Sisterhood Praxis demands that we show up on this page how we show up for each other—with unapologetic authenticity, compassionate care, and sacred intention. As we write within and beyond academia’s constraints, we reimagine what is possible for radical feminist scholarship written with our healing at the center. As we map our educational journeys of spirit murdering, we embody a collective effort of spiritual sustainability by affirming for ourselves that it is possible to be whole within and despite the academy.
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Educational Studies A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, 2021
Educators of color can often (in)advertently perpetuate gendered
oppression against each other to... more Educators of color can often (in)advertently perpetuate gendered
oppression against each other to cope with racism and its associated
stressors. This occurs in part due to the violence we have endured
as (a) minoritized people in a society where our oppression is
endemic, (b) scholars of color navigating exclusionary institutions
and education spaces, and (c) educators who experience vicarious
and complex trauma from pain imposed onto the young people
with whom we work, seldom resulting in opportunities to address
gender dynamics that uphold power imbalances among men,
women, and gender-nonconforming people of color. In this conceptual paper we offer an intersectional framework of a “praxis of critical
race love” to highlight cisgendered, heteropatriarchal toxic masculinity often reified in education contexts, and use narratives to demonstrate how we apply a healing-centered praxis within our service,
teaching, and research to challenge such harm. Ultimately, we share
tangible, community-engaged examples demonstrating how educators can co-create counterspaces that elevate women and gender-minoritized people in the firestorm of white supremacy.
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Valdez, C., Pour-Khorshid, F., & Cariaga, C. (2020, July). Crisis, Change, and Canceling the Teacher Performance Assessment, Rethinking Schools, Volume 34, No. 4., 2020
As former K–12 teachers who are now teacher educators in California, we share grave concern regar... more As former K–12 teachers who are now teacher educators in California, we share grave concern regarding the expectation for preservice teachers to complete their Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) in order to earn their preliminary teaching credential during this pandemic crisis.
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Engaging in Testimonio as a walk through el laberinto (the labyrinth) of higher education: Releasing, receiving and returning to the field with deeper purpose, 2020
Latinx first-generation college graduates often experience a myriad of structural, emotional, fin... more Latinx first-generation college graduates often experience a myriad of structural, emotional, financial and academic barriers while navigating higher education as undergraduate and graduate students and later, if they become faculty members. While many studies have documented these struggles within the field, the political, methodological and pedagogical praxis of testimonio has been used to reflect on and document these struggles in ways that give authors agency in retelling and reclaiming experiences of marginalization and resistance. In this paper, the authors build on the metaphor of a labyrinth to describe how higher education can often feel similar to a maze-like path to navigate, yet, the spiritual and reflective practice of labyrinth-walking involves three stages of soul development which can also be experienced through testimonio: releasing, receiving and returning to oneself.
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ DISSERTATION , 2018
Despite repeated pleas for diversifying a predominantly White U.S. teacher workforce, a significa... more Despite repeated pleas for diversifying a predominantly White U.S. teacher workforce, a significant teacher diversity gap persists in almost every state of the country (Boser, 2014). Teachers of Color who enter the profession with commitments to social justice, in particular, face an array of racist structural and interpersonal challenges often leading to their burnout and in some cases push out from the field (Kohli & Pizarro, 2016). In response to neoliberal, color evasive, and apolitical approaches to teacher support, educators and organizers have reclaimed and reframed their pedagogies through critical professional development (Kohli, Picower, Martinez, & Ortiz, 2015) to center healing from the damaging impacts of oppression (Ginwright, 2015; Pour-Khorshid, 2016). This three-year ethnographic case study (Yin, 2003) of a California racial affinity group of 12 critical educators of Color (CEoC) committed to healing, empowerment, love, liberation and action (H.E.L.L.A.) offers insights about alternative approaches to teacher support rooted in critical- healing praxes (Cariaga, 2018).
Relying on ethnographic approaches such as participant observation (Wilson, 1977), semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2002), and testimonios (Pour-Khorshid, 2016) as focal methods, I utilized grounded theory (Straus & Corbin, 1998) to examine: (a) the nature of learning and interactions that unfold over time, and (b) the
v
personal and professional impact that members experienced through their participation. The findings from this research illuminate how the group explicitly centered 12 members’ experiences, needs, and collective knowledge to (a) engage in fugitive learning as an act of political and pedagogical resistance to White Supremacy; and in so doing, (b) cultivated a sacred space for soul care and collective healing. I conclude by discussing how and why critical racial affinity group spaces for CEoC offer a more holistic approach to support their personal, political, relational, and pedagogical growth and well-being.
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Journal of Teaching Education , 2018
Despite repeated pleas for diversifying the U.S. teacher force, tea- chers of color who are commi... more Despite repeated pleas for diversifying the U.S. teacher force, tea- chers of color who are committed to social justice are often unsup- ported and even pushed out via structural, interpersonal, and pedagogical obstacles within the profession. In response to neolib- eral, colorblind, and apolitical approaches to teacher development and support, educators and organizers have reclaimed and reframed their pedagogies through critical professional development and grassroots activism to center healing from the impacts of oppression in its myriad forms . The ethnographic case study in this article examines how, over the course of three years, a grassroots racial affinity group became an important space for learning and healing for its members. I explain how the group explicitly centered twelve members’ voices, needs, and collective knowledge, and in so doing: (a) collectively cultivated a critical, humanizing, and healing space for their sustainability; and (b) navigated various positions within socially toxic education institutions and organizations. I conclude by discuss- ing how and why critical racial affinity spaces for educators of color are necessary in order to support their personal, political, relational, and pedagogical growth, which has implications on their retention and leadership within the field.
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Papers by Farima Pour-Khorshid, Ph.D.
struggles for justice within K–12 schools, it is unclear if the field of teacher education has been informed by these movements.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Given this gap, as well as the ongoing urgency to dismantle the interconnected structures of white supremacy, settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, racial capitalism, and cis-heteropatriarchy within the field of teacher education, this paper calls on teacher education programs and teacher educators to grow abolition within the field.
Research Design: We situate abolition broadly and demonstrate the connections between abolition and struggles for justice in K–12 education. We draw on stories and lessons from our own work as educators and organizers to situate what must be dismantled, changed, and built in order to grow abolition within the field of teacher education.
Conclusions/Recommendations: We call on teacher education programs and teacher educators to begin the reflexive, relational, embodied, imaginative, coalitional, urgent, and necessary work of growing abolition within the field of teacher education.
oppression against each other to cope with racism and its associated
stressors. This occurs in part due to the violence we have endured
as (a) minoritized people in a society where our oppression is
endemic, (b) scholars of color navigating exclusionary institutions
and education spaces, and (c) educators who experience vicarious
and complex trauma from pain imposed onto the young people
with whom we work, seldom resulting in opportunities to address
gender dynamics that uphold power imbalances among men,
women, and gender-nonconforming people of color. In this conceptual paper we offer an intersectional framework of a “praxis of critical
race love” to highlight cisgendered, heteropatriarchal toxic masculinity often reified in education contexts, and use narratives to demonstrate how we apply a healing-centered praxis within our service,
teaching, and research to challenge such harm. Ultimately, we share
tangible, community-engaged examples demonstrating how educators can co-create counterspaces that elevate women and gender-minoritized people in the firestorm of white supremacy.
Relying on ethnographic approaches such as participant observation (Wilson, 1977), semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2002), and testimonios (Pour-Khorshid, 2016) as focal methods, I utilized grounded theory (Straus & Corbin, 1998) to examine: (a) the nature of learning and interactions that unfold over time, and (b) the
v
personal and professional impact that members experienced through their participation. The findings from this research illuminate how the group explicitly centered 12 members’ experiences, needs, and collective knowledge to (a) engage in fugitive learning as an act of political and pedagogical resistance to White Supremacy; and in so doing, (b) cultivated a sacred space for soul care and collective healing. I conclude by discussing how and why critical racial affinity group spaces for CEoC offer a more holistic approach to support their personal, political, relational, and pedagogical growth and well-being.
struggles for justice within K–12 schools, it is unclear if the field of teacher education has been informed by these movements.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Given this gap, as well as the ongoing urgency to dismantle the interconnected structures of white supremacy, settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, racial capitalism, and cis-heteropatriarchy within the field of teacher education, this paper calls on teacher education programs and teacher educators to grow abolition within the field.
Research Design: We situate abolition broadly and demonstrate the connections between abolition and struggles for justice in K–12 education. We draw on stories and lessons from our own work as educators and organizers to situate what must be dismantled, changed, and built in order to grow abolition within the field of teacher education.
Conclusions/Recommendations: We call on teacher education programs and teacher educators to begin the reflexive, relational, embodied, imaginative, coalitional, urgent, and necessary work of growing abolition within the field of teacher education.
oppression against each other to cope with racism and its associated
stressors. This occurs in part due to the violence we have endured
as (a) minoritized people in a society where our oppression is
endemic, (b) scholars of color navigating exclusionary institutions
and education spaces, and (c) educators who experience vicarious
and complex trauma from pain imposed onto the young people
with whom we work, seldom resulting in opportunities to address
gender dynamics that uphold power imbalances among men,
women, and gender-nonconforming people of color. In this conceptual paper we offer an intersectional framework of a “praxis of critical
race love” to highlight cisgendered, heteropatriarchal toxic masculinity often reified in education contexts, and use narratives to demonstrate how we apply a healing-centered praxis within our service,
teaching, and research to challenge such harm. Ultimately, we share
tangible, community-engaged examples demonstrating how educators can co-create counterspaces that elevate women and gender-minoritized people in the firestorm of white supremacy.
Relying on ethnographic approaches such as participant observation (Wilson, 1977), semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2002), and testimonios (Pour-Khorshid, 2016) as focal methods, I utilized grounded theory (Straus & Corbin, 1998) to examine: (a) the nature of learning and interactions that unfold over time, and (b) the
v
personal and professional impact that members experienced through their participation. The findings from this research illuminate how the group explicitly centered 12 members’ experiences, needs, and collective knowledge to (a) engage in fugitive learning as an act of political and pedagogical resistance to White Supremacy; and in so doing, (b) cultivated a sacred space for soul care and collective healing. I conclude by discussing how and why critical racial affinity group spaces for CEoC offer a more holistic approach to support their personal, political, relational, and pedagogical growth and well-being.