Welcome to this special issue of UCLA’s Center XChange, where we explore the transformative power of Critical Teacher Autoethnography. At a time when teachers face increasing pressures within a rapidly shifting educational landscape, this collection centers on the voices of teachers who are not only surviving but reflecting and critically examining their practice through the lens of personal narrative and educational theories.

Rooted in both critical pedagogy and autoethnographic method, the works featured here offer deeply personal and humanizing accounts of what it means to teach for equity and inclusion in today’s schools. Second-year students in the UCLA Teacher Education Program have written from the front lines of their first year of teaching, bringing vulnerability, insight, and bold critique into focus. Their stories moved beyond classroom anecdotes to examine the ways race, language, power, and identity shape both students and teachers in public education.

This issue is an invitation to listen closely. These teacher-researchers are challenging dominant narratives, naming tensions, and imagining hopeful possibilities. Their writing is raw, courageous, and necessary.

We are proud to share their voices with you.

GUEST EDITORS
Jaime Park and Eduardo Lopez

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE BRIEFING ROOM

This section gives a general overview of what autoethnography is and how it has been used in social sciences, particularly in the UCLA Teacher Education Program (TEP), to offer teacher candidates a meaningful and reflective method to critically examine their personal experiences within the broader context of schooling, identity, and social justice.

In Guiding Voices: Supporting First-Year Teachers in Writing Critical Autoethnography, UCLA TEP faculty members write about ways in which first-year teachers (Residents) are encouraged to connect theory with lived experience, making sense of the challenges and growth they encounter through storytelling. This form of writing supports candidates in articulating their evolving teacher identities, understanding the impact of systemic inequities, and recognizing their own positionality in the classroom.

XPRESS

This section features Critical Teacher Autoethnographies written by UCLA Teacher Education Program (TEP) graduates while in their 2nd-year of the program. These academic narratives document their first-year journeys of classroom teachers as they work to reimagine teaching and learning by centering equity and elevating student voice.

TEACHER WORKROOM

This section contains a social justice unit plan developed and implemented by UCLA TEP Residents during their first year of teaching. Informed by theory and designed in collaboration with their students, the unit reimagines teaching and learning to center equity, inclusion, and student engagement.