Dissertation Defense Announcement Ph.D. in Education Program: Anel V. Rivera Guerrero “Excavando identidad with Teachers of Multilingual Learners in Professional Development: Transformándonos de adentro pa’ fuera “

Despite the ongoing call for in-service teachers of multilingual learners to engage in the deep exploration of their identities and belief systems toward bi/multilingual speakers (Lawton et al., 2025), there is little guidance in the research literature. The Archaeology of Self provides one pathway for this work (Sealey-Ruiz, 2020). However, due to the adaptability of this introspective model, contextual framing and concrete tools to support critical dialogue and reflexivity around social narratives related to language and race are required. To address these needs, this dissertation asks: what does the process of identity exploration within professional development look like for in-service teachers of multilingual learners? Subquestions include: what do teachers encounter in the identity exploration process?, and how do teachers negotiate these encuentros?

This dissertation is written as three articles. The first article describes the planning and implementation process of a professional development series that utilized the Archeology of Self to support identity exploration for teachers of multilingual learners using autoethnographic tools (Sealey-Ruiz, 2020). To address the historicized discourses related to race and language that uniquely impact teaching and learning for bi/multilingual speakers, raciolinguistic and translanguaging perspectives framed the identity inquiry process (García, 2009; Rosa & Flores, 2017). Using autoethnographic tools, teachers uncovered the impact and their personal uptakes of the White Listening Subject and worked to disrupt oppressive beliefs and practices in classroom instruction (Flores & Rosa, 2015). The second article explores teachers and the researchers’ encuentros and negotiations with memories and experiences that impact linguistic identity and their reframings because of the professional development experience. The third article engages emotive autoethnography to contend with an emotional encuentro with past, present, and future ways of being in the research process. The research showcases a pathway toward an authenticity of self as an emerging qualitative researcher.

Together, the articles reveal the impact of autoethnographic inquiry within professional development that supports the disruption and resistance of unique racialized harms incurred by language educators in school spaces. Implications for researchers, school district leaders and professional development providers, and teachers of multilingual learners are shared.