Fear, hesitation, and resistance: Georgia educators’ responses to divisive concepts legislation

Abstract

Currently, attacks on CRT and neoliberal legislation work to undermine public education and democracy in the United States. Divisive concepts legislation restricts what teachers say and do, acting as a counterwave to implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. In this article, a collective of educators with diverse identities working in varied contexts engage in collaborative reflection on the impact of HB 1084 (a censorship policy in Georgia), on their educational practices. We generated vignettes and coded them for the degree to which we reacted with fear, hesitation, and/or resistance. Our responses existed within this set of reactions and were influenced by our identities, constraints/affordances of our contexts, and experiences. Our vignettes expose how the legislation subjected us to a surveillance state that sometimes produced fear and hesitation, especially for those in positions related to preservice teaching. However, resistance was also present in response to the legislation in almost every vignette. Implications emerging from this study include the importance of educators engaging student voices as a form of backup and the necessity of coalition building for critical teaching. Findings suggest policies like HB 1084 undermine culturally relevant, antiracist, justice-centered teaching and are fundamentally regressive to improving the public school system.