Chapter 4: ”Do You Feel Me?”: Affectively and Effectively Engaging Racial Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Social Studies Classrooms

This chapter discusses the key tenets of racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK; Chandler, 2015) and how teachers can affectively and effectively develop and engage RPCK in social studies classrooms. In addition to the development of content and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986), Chandler proposes that teachers must also develop a “working racial knowledge of how race operates within social science, from CRT [critical race theory] perspectives” (Chandler, 2015, p. 5). This chapter thus has three aims: (a) to situate the urgent need for RPCK within the racialized contexts of social studies curriculum, classrooms, and schools; (b) to re-imagine some of the inevitable and necessary emotions (i.e., stress, anxiety, fear, pain, etc.) that often accompany efforts to authentically engage issues of race and racism in social studies classrooms as moments of radical possibilities to expand and develop one’s RPCK (Matias, 2014; Matias, 2016; Stevenson, 2014), as well as an informed empathy for students (Ladson-Billings, 2006); and (c) to discuss the prospects of engaging RPCK in social studies classrooms as a courageous move towards radical healing (Ginwright, 2010; Ginwright, 2015). The chapter concludes with a call to social studies educators to conceptualize RPCK as framework that is less about trying to “learn it all” when it comes to race and more about a commitment to an audacious (not to be confused with fearless) approach to social studies teaching and learning about issues of race and racism.