‘It’s something I believe in, but it’s not something I understand’: white teacher educators working towards antiracist pedagogy

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.

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Opening the “Can of Worms”: Preparing Teachers to Address Issues Relating to “Race”

Frontiers in Education ◽

10.3389/feduc.2020.489407 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

Author(s):

Jane Davies

Keyword(s):

Teacher Education ◽

Critical Race Theory ◽

Student Satisfaction ◽

Student Teachers ◽

Teacher Educators ◽

Teacher Educator ◽

Initial Teacher Education ◽

Critical Examination ◽

Critical Whiteness Studies ◽

White Teacher

This paper reports the findings of a study which involved a critical examination of “race”-related provision on initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in England. It draws upon data collected as part of a national survey of ITE provision which included interviews with providers and students, and case studies of ITE providing institutions. The study utilized aspects of Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies as a theoretical framework with which to analyse the data. The paper explores the nature of provision relating to “race,” suggesting that teacher educators and student teachers are often ill-equipped to address the complexities relating to this area and, as a result, they can fail to recognize the importance and potential impact of their professional practice, and their pedagogical decisions. It suggests that ITE practices are often underpinned by dysconscious racisms and manifestations of Whiteness, leading to a marginalization of “race” input, with opportunities for deeper interrogation missed, or actively avoided. The paper explores some of the constraints impacting on ITE namely a lack of time; a lack of confidence on the part of a predominantly White teacher educator workforce; a lack of recognition of the importance and significance of “race” on the part of White student teachers, and an emphasis of superficial measures of student satisfaction at the expense of deeper interrogation and deconstruction of hegemonic norms. It makes recommendations relating to how practice can be improved within the current challenging global contexts in relation to “race” equality. It calls for teacher education to aspire to produce novice teachers willing and prepared to embrace “race”-related challenges in their teaching careers, and to contribute to curricula which acknowledge and address inequality.

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Fleshing out enactments of Whiteness in antiracist pedagogy: snapshot of a White teacher educator’s practice

Pedagogy Culture and Society ◽

10.1080/14681366.2019.1585934 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 17-36

Author(s):

Esther O. Ohito

Keyword(s):

White Teacher ◽

Antiracist Pedagogy

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A WHITE PALETTE GATHERING

Art/Research International A Transdisciplinary Journal ◽

10.18432/ari29555 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 103-131

Author(s):

Karen McGarry

Keyword(s):

Critical Race Theory ◽

Teacher Educators ◽

Teacher Educator ◽

Research Approach ◽

Critical Race ◽

Race Theory ◽

Critical Whiteness Studies ◽

White Teacher ◽

Critical Whiteness ◽

Blank Slate

Storytelling, a tenet of Critical Race Theory, offers a distinct approach for researchers engaging in narrative inquiry. This article models a fiction as research approach for creating a literature synthesis as a pedagogical strategy for teacher educators and pre-service teachers. The white palette refers to a painting palette, a blank slate or canvas, often considered neutral ground. Whiteness, however, is not neutral and this one-act conversation centers on examining whiteness as it impacts my role as a white teacher educator. The production, players, and script developed out of salient literature inclusive of Critical Race Theory, Art Education, and Critical Whiteness Studies. I am both author and a participant in this story. In this capacity, I disclose the impacts of the literature on my white teacher educator identity and reveal how I created arts-based data artifacts to evidence the overall story.

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On the Mis-Education of Teachers of Color: A Letter to Teacher Educators

Journal of Teacher Education ◽

10.1177/00224871211057487 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 73 (1) ◽

pp. 66-80

Author(s):

The Teacher of Color Collective ◽

Mariana Souto-Manning

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Teacher Education ◽

Students Of Color ◽

Teacher Educators ◽

Teacher Educator ◽

Teachers Of Color ◽

Racial Identification ◽

Call To Action ◽

White Teacher ◽

Epistemic Violence

Although teacher education researchers have long claimed their commitment to successfully preparing teachers to educate students of Color—a growing majority in U.S. schools—notably absent from their attempts are the voices of teachers of Color. This silence often results in pathological portrayals, positioning teachers of Color as the problem while obscuring the pervasive, problematic, and harmful Whiteness of teaching and teacher education. In this context, inspired by James Baldwin’s letter-essays and centering truthtelling as theoretical framework, eight tenured New York City public school teachers of Color and a teacher educator of Color engaged in collective analysis of a truthtelling exercise focused on what practitioners and institutions of teacher education can and should learn from teachers of Color to develop an antidote to the overwhelming Whiteness of teaching and teacher education, which has been shown to disproportionately disadvantage students of Color. Herein, we offer a composite counter-story—a letter to White teacher educators and, in fact, teacher educators of any racial identification who are in any way aligned with protecting and upholding Whiteness—revisiting our own nuanced memories of becoming and being teachers, unveiling teacher education’s epistemic violence, and issuing a call to action.

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