The Responsibilities of White Teacher Candidates and Teacher Educators in Developing Racial Literacy

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 240-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Ewing Flynn ◽  
Lynn J. Worden ◽  
Rosalie Rolón-Dow
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
White Teacher ◽  
Racial Literacy

Structuring Disruption within University-Based Teacher Education Programs1: Possibilities and Challenges of Race-Based Caucuses

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manka Varghese ◽  
Julia R. Daniels ◽  
Caryn C. Park
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Teacher Identities ◽  
White Teacher ◽  
Race And Racialization ◽  
Emotion Labor

Background Teacher education candidates are in different places in terms of developing their identities and relationships to equity and social justice. Various approaches have been taken within university-based teacher education programs to engage with candidates, wherever they are in this development. One such approach has been engaging or drawing on teachers’ own lenses, especially through challenging and understanding their racialized selves. Purpose This conceptual article examines how race-based caucuses (RBCs) in one teacher education program attempted to shift candidates’ understandings of their racialized selves as related to their teacher identities. Context RBCs were instituted in one elementary teacher education program to help White teacher candidates and candidates of Color construct critical teacher identities. Candidates were asked to participate in caucuses according to the ways they had been racialized within schools. Facilitators who demonstrated a willingness to sit with the work of engaging race and racialization led the caucuses. Observances For the candidates of Color, the “overwhelming presence of Whiteness” in the teacher education program and in the schools required the RBCs to focus on reframing deficit narratives of teachers of Color to an asset-based view of their value and contribution to the teaching profession. The RBC provided space for White teacher candidates to explore the consequences of Whiteness for their future identities as teachers and for the kinds of communities that they could and wanted to cultivate with students. Messiness and challenges abounded in both RBCs. Discussion and Reflections Emotions—and especially emotion labor—were central to RBCs. For teacher candidates of Color, facing one's own oppression was painful but also presented opportunities for them to articulate emotions and experiences in relatively safe spaces. In a different way, the RBCs resulted in significant emotional upheaval for White teacher candidates that shifted into deeper self-reflection and sense of awareness and allyship (for some)— although in a few cases, RBCs led to even deeper resistance. Conclusions Race-based caucusing is a messy and challenging practice that can provide opportunities to reflect constructively on emotions and produce emotional upheaval for teacher candidates. Teacher educators and programs must approach RBCs with an orientation toward hyperreflexivity.

Using Critical Self-Study to Build Racial Literacy Pedagogy

2020 ◽  
pp. 276-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Ewing Flynn ◽  
Rosalie Rolón-Dow ◽  
Lynn Jensen Worden
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
White Students ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Self Study ◽  
Race And Education ◽  
Racial Literacy ◽  
The Impact

This chapter describes a critical self-study conducted by teacher educators as they taught and learned with their students about race and its impact on education. Responding to calls for more research on social justice-focused pedagogy, the chapter seeks to help teacher educators consider how to build racial literacy in their teacher candidates. Despite the enduring significance of race and the disparities that exist between the experiences of white students and those of racially minoritized students, teacher candidates are often under-prepared for understanding the impact of race and racism or for knowing how to address it in their future classrooms. The responsibility for building skills and understanding related to race and education falls squarely on the shoulders of teacher educators, and this self-study shows one model for centering that work.

Using Critical Self-Study to Build Racial Literacy Pedagogy

2021 ◽  
pp. 690-711
Author(s):  
Jill Ewing Flynn ◽  
Rosalie Rolón-Dow ◽  
Lynn Jensen Worden
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
White Students ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
Self Study ◽  
Race And Education ◽  
Racial Literacy ◽  
The Impact

This chapter describes a critical self-study conducted by teacher educators as they taught and learned with their students about race and its impact on education. Responding to calls for more research on social justice-focused pedagogy, the chapter seeks to help teacher educators consider how to build racial literacy in their teacher candidates. Despite the enduring significance of race and the disparities that exist between the experiences of white students and those of racially minoritized students, teacher candidates are often under-prepared for understanding the impact of race and racism or for knowing how to address it in their future classrooms. The responsibility for building skills and understanding related to race and education falls squarely on the shoulders of teacher educators, and this self-study shows one model for centering that work.

Morphology Matters, but What Do Teacher Candidates Know About It?

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin K. Washburn ◽  
Candace A. Mulcahy
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Special Education Teachers ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Reading Teachers ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Secondary Grades ◽  
Striving Readers ◽  
Complex Words

Skilled reading is a complex process in which many subskills are involved, including an awareness of the morphological structure of language. Morphological awareness is the ability to understand how words are broken into meaningful units (e.g., affixes, root words). Explicit and systematic teaching of morphological concepts are reported to help striving readers, particularly those in upper elementary, middle, and secondary grades, with reading. To teach morphological concepts and their relation to reading, teachers need to have both awareness and knowledge of morphology. In the present study, general and special education teachers’ knowledge of morphological concepts are examined. Results indicate that teachers, regardless of type of certification (general vs. special education) or grade level (elementary vs. secondary), have difficulty identifying morphemes in both simple and complex words. Suggestions for what and how teacher educators can integrate the teaching of morphological concepts into teacher preparation contexts are provided.

Critiquing Un/Critical Pedagogies to Move Toward a Pedagogy of Responsibility in Teacher Education

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 463-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina N. Berchini
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
White Teacher ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Critical Pedagogies ◽  
Systemic Examination

Transformative work with teacher candidates relies on a critique of the tenets of Critical Pedagogy and subsequent Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). I employ analyses of extant scholarship to argue that these specific domains, as popularly framed, might be responsible for uncritical examinations of the White teacher education students who devotedly enroll in our courses and trust their teachers to treat them fairly, responsibly, and with care. I then entwine relevant research on White privilege pedagogies with my own narrative to argue that taking on the problem of Whiteness in teacher education seems to have inspired an uncritical pedagogy of harmful generalizations. To conclude, I reconceptualize the application of White privilege pedagogies for more complex, systemic examination, and argue that if we are to move beyond a pedagogy of dismantling students, more work which openly and honestly grapples with paradoxes, double binds, and contexts of Whiteness is needed.

A University-Community Partnership in Teacher Education From the Perspectives of Community-Based Teacher Educators

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Guillen ◽  
Ken Zeichner
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Research University ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Pacific

This article examines the experiences of a group of nine community-based mentors of teacher candidates who partnered for several years through a local, community-based organization with the graduate elementary and secondary teacher education programs at a research university in the Pacific Northwest. Following a brief discussion of the history of partnerships between teacher education programs and local communities, we report the findings of a study of the perspectives of these community mentors on their work with teacher candidates and university teacher educators.

Confronting the Contradictions: A Case Study of Early Childhood Teacher Development in Neoliberal Times

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Early Learning ◽  
Early Childhood Teacher ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Instrumental Case Study ◽  
The Impact

As neoliberal polices that emphasize governing the modern state through market-based principles expand across the globe, they are altering the training of early childhood teacher candidates. This creates a range of challenges for those teacher educators who are critical of this reform process. This article presents an instrumental case study that examined the impact of neoliberal education reforms on the development of a sample of early education teacher candidates. Analyzing this case of teacher development offers teacher educators the opportunity to consider the practical and critical steps they might take to better prepare their candidates for these reforms. Doing so will help teacher candidates develop early learning experiences for their children that teach them to become engaged democratic citizens rather than compliant consumers within the neoliberal state.

Inspiring Teacher Candidates to Embrace Cultural Diversity

2020 ◽  
pp. 120-139
Author(s):  
Judi Simmons Estes ◽  
Judith Lynne McConnell-Farmer
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Underserved Students

One of the challenges facing teachers in the United States is providing high-quality education for all students met in the classroom, including those who too often are underserved: students of color, low-income students, English-language learners, as well as students in urban and rural settings. Teachers report feeling unprepared and lack confidence in teaching students from culturally different backgrounds from themselves. This chapter suggests that in addition to becoming certified teachers, teacher candidates need to be inspired by teacher educators who are passionate about cultural learning and willing to share their own journey. Through sharing, teacher educators can provide practices that build cultural knowledge and increase cultural experiences of teacher candidates.

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