Jacksonville Public Library

African American teachers look back, interpreting participation in the 1968 Florida school walkout, a dissertation presented to the graduated school of the University of Florida in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, by Erika K. Gubrium

eng

ABSTRACT: This dissertation draws upon archival resources and the experiences and recollections of seven African American teachers who taught in public schools in Alachua County, Florida. The work gives primacy to the situated experiences of individual actors, and investigates the everyday meaning of work action participation in Florida's statewide teacher walkouts in 1968. This research is informed by social constructionism, which maintains that reality is something that is produced and communicated through social interaction. The archival analysis suggests that walkout participation was contextually determined by state and national politics, and by the recent merger of all-Black and all-White teachers' associations, and by the threat of organizational raid. The teachers' statewide professional organization, the Florida Education Association (FEA), employed both professional and militant rhetoric in its campaign. The tensions between these two discourses prevented the organization from developing a campaign with clear objectives. Ultimately, the Association failed to provide teachers with a meaningful goal that was tightly linked with the need for collective action. The archival analysis suggests that participation in the 1968 action was shaped by political and organizational circumstance, however, my interview participants also actively gave meaning to the particular contexts of their life experiences and histories as they spoke of their participation in the work action. They refused to label themselves activists or non-activists, instead placing themselves within a broad continuum of activism. Interview participants framed their participation in the 1968 action as it fit within a broader narrative trajectory of activism and social responsibility

Includes bibliographical references

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

no index present

non fiction

African American teachers look back

bibliographytheses

976433460

by Erika K. Gubrium

interpreting participation in the 1968 Florida school walkout, a dissertation presented to the graduated school of the University of Florida in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy