Book Groups in the Social Justice Unionism Movement An Analysis of Teachers' Reasons for Participation

The past decade has seen a rise in social justice teacher unionism, with an emergence of caucuses that push for bottom-up, race conscious union reform in which members bargain for the common good. While a burgeoning body of scholarship has focused on understanding the goals and organizing strategies of these caucuses, there are few up-close accounts of their political education efforts. This study focuses on a summer reading series in which teachers joined a series of interconnected book groups, aiming to understand teachers' reasons for joining the groups and the role the groups play in the organization's larger goals. Findings indicate that participants saw building the base, developing skills, deepening analyses, and planning action as four core functions of the groups, and that tensions arose when locating book groups within a political organization. After analyzing subcategories within each finding, this article discusses implications for teachers, organizers, teacher educators, and researchers.