My name is Amanda Kinzinger, and I am an educator and graduate student in Art Education at Arizona State University. I am a White queer, cis-presenting woman and first generation college graduate working as a public high school teacher, graduate teaching and research assistant, and mentor in Phoenix, Arizona. As a visual arts educator, I am committed to helping my students build confidence in themselves as learners and makers, encouraging student agency, autonomy, and self-efficacy. In order to do this, it is imperative to understand my own attributes as a human, educator, and researcher so that I am better able to address the complex social issues involved in teaching minority populations.

It would be remiss not to consider my current levels of privilege, regardless of where my experiences began. As a White person, this comes with an inherent level of privilege that cannot be dismissed, especially in the context of teaching minority students. In stark contrast to my formative years, I am currently upper-middle class and have the ability to pursue graduate-level studies without significant financial burden. While these are my current experiences and they enable me to make certain decisions on the use of my time and resources, the influence of my experiences in childhood inform much of how I choose to use my time and resources.

I was raised with my four siblings by a single mother in rural Missouri. We grew up in extreme poverty, oftentimes relying on charity and food banks to sustain us. I do not remember most of my childhood, but I do remember how isolating it felt to be poor, to be insecure in one’s self, and to be uncertain of what the future holds. My hometown is predominantly White (98.5%), has a population of less than nine thousand people, and has eighteen churches. Growing up as a queer atheist in a space that did not condone either heavily influenced my desire to leave when given the first opportunity.

Higher education became one of my top priorities upon my arrival in Arizona, and art education is where my feet landed. Initially an unconscious decision and now one that I actively pursue, I have chosen to focus my career in populations that mirror the socio-economic status that I grew up in and to tailor my teaching practices to target students that feel the same levels of isolation I once felt, seeking to be the mentor for them that I never had. My background and experiences have influenced every aspect of my teaching practice, from supporting marginalized students (poor, queer, self-isolating) to helping students build levels of confidence in their abilities to learn and make that empower them to take and apply these skills outside my own classroom. In my research, I plan to pursue the same objectives as I do in my teaching: student agency, autonomy, and self-efficacy.