The Racial Melancholia of Un-grieved Endings

A Felt Understanding of Teachers of Color Who Leave the Classroom

Authors

  • Stephanie Cariaga California State University, Dominguez Hills

Keywords:

grief, racial melacholia, teacher attrition, trauma, education, ethnography

Abstract

Educational researchers are quick to intellectualize solutions to teacher attrition without feeling what is in front of us and within us: overwhelming, unmetabolized grief. Blending online ethnography with somatic and critical understandings of grief and trauma, this study seeks to understand teacher attrition as a felt sense of loss. Focusing on the stories of four teachers of color, I use the concept of racial melancholia to describe a liminal stage of grief and a distinct form of racialized trauma, as participants wrestle with their internal landscapes, administrative responses to their departure, and decisions to bid farewell, or not, to their students. I conclude with ways for educators, researchers, and leaders to affirm the grief of teachers of color and speculate how doing so can disrupt teacher attrition and compounded racialized grief in schools.

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Published

10/31/2023

How to Cite

Cariaga, S. (2023). The Racial Melancholia of Un-grieved Endings: A Felt Understanding of Teachers of Color Who Leave the Classroom. Journal of Trauma Studies in Education, 2(3), 118–135. Retrieved from https://journals.library.appstate.edu/index.php/JTSE/article/view/293