“If I can help somebody”: The civic-oriented thought and practices of Black male teacher-coaches

ABSTRACT Fostering a sense of civic engagement is considered an essential purpose of social studies education. However, given the ways in which formal civic curricula and standards decenter the impact of racial membership on civic status, Black teachers are turning to alternative, out-of-school sites to enact critical approaches to teaching civics. Interscholastic athletics serves as one locale for such revisionist practices. This multiple case study troubles the centrality of Whiteness and deficit notions within the teacher-coach discourse by explicating the civic practices of five Black male teacher-coaches who served in schools that were not predominantly Black. Drawing on a conceptual framework rooted in Black critical theories, their civic mindedness of coaching ideologies and civic-oriented activities fostered a sense of liberatory fantasy while immersed within an anti-Black milieu.