Distracting, Erasing, and Othering: A Critical Analysis of the Teachers Pay Teachers' Teach for Justice Collection

In this arti cle authors Katy Swalwell, Noreen Naseem Rodriguez, Amy Updegraff, and Leslie Ann Winters share findings from their critical content anal ysis of the free preK-5 resources for antira cis t, social justice teaching in the Teachers Pay Teach- ers' Teach for Justice collec tion. Using Picower's (2012) six elements of social justice cur riculum design, as well as guide lines and sug ges tions offered to content cr ea tors in this online cur ric u lum mar ket place, the authors found that the mate ri als in the sample lacked accu racy, avoided clarity, and promoted thin con cep tions of social jus- tice and anti racism. They claim that, in gen eral, the col lection sub verts traditions of social jus tice and anti rac ist edu ca tion by eras ing power dynam ics, distracting stu- dents' attention away from oppres sion, and othering BIPOC stu dents. They con clude with a call for educators to avoid the col lec tion and to instead invest in high -quality vetted resources as well as pro fessional devel op ment that helps them sharpen their crit- ical capacities around curricular resources.