Equity-Focused Coaching: Negotiating Teachers’ Interpretations of Racialized and Gendered Participation Patterns

Abstract

Equity-focused coaching—coaching that centers racism, patriarchy, and other oppressive systems—is a promising approach to supporting teachers in expanding learning opportunities for minoritized students. However, despite its known challenges, details of equity-focused coaching remain underexamined. This article presents an analysis of 27 equity-focused coaching sessions with ten secondary physics teachers, which incorporated classroom videos and EQUIP analytics. The analysis applied theoretical constructs from conversation analysis: attribution of responsibility and attribution of knowledge in interaction. Findings show that whereas coaches tended to explain inequitable patterns in terms of broader social patterns, teachers tended to base their interpretations on the perceived deficits of minoritized students. The turn-by-turn analysis illustrates fine-grained details of discursive moves coaches leveraged to successfully facilitate shifts in teachers’ interpretative orientations. These findings highlight that steering coaching conversations toward equity-focused interpretations is an essential element of equity-focused coaching, and such work comprises subtle and skillful discursive moves.