Passing as White: Race, Shame, and Success in Teacher Licensure Testing Events for Black Preservice Teachers

• In Event: Grown Folks’ Talk: Black Men and Women on Education, Incarceration, and Testing

Abstract

Objectives and Perspectives

Standardized, high-stakes licensure examinations in the United States are critical junctures at which teacher candidates either become or do not become licensed teachers. In 41 states, students must pass a “basic skills” exam before they are admitted into a teacher licensure program. Empirical research has illustrated that licensure exams (e.g., Praxis) do not function uniformly across racial groups (Goldhaber & Hansen 2010) and that approximately half of all Black test takers fail basic skills licensure exams on their first attempt (Nettles et al., 2011). Gitomer, Brown, and Bonett (2011) locate the reason primarily in preparation and skills of the test taker. Other researchers locate the problem in the testing instrument, concluding that the instruments are culturally-biased and oppressive obstacles to increasing the numbers of teachers of color (Bennett, McWhorter, & Kuykendall, 2006; Memory, Coleman, & Watkins 2003; Mikitovics & Crehan 2002; Selwyn 2007).

Looking beyond these two lines of reasoning, this study/paper begins with a reframing of licensure exams as a “testing event” that includes a nexus of cognitive and affective processes beyond the specific skill a test is designed to measure. These processes include identity contingencies and threats (Steele, 2010), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), attributional processes (Weiner, 1986), and more. This framework of the testing event shifts the analytical lens to the subjective experiences of Black preservice test takers.

Methods and Data Sources

This paper reports findings from a 2-year qualitative study that explored how Black tests takers experienced the teacher licensure testing event and how it can become a radicalized experience. Specifically, this paper presents an ethnographic portrait of “Ashley,” a Black test taker who—in an anxious moment of pressure and contemplation—registered that she was white on the demographic survey preceding her test because of the racialized nature of the event. Informed by tenets of culturally sensitive research (Tillman, 2002), data collection took place through phenomenological interview (Seidman, 1998) and over 100 hours of conversational interviews (Patton, 2001).

Results and Significance

Findings illustrate implications of this experience that affect the direct testing event, such as a loss of short-term member. Results also suggest that there are effects that extend well beyond the testing event. Specifically, Ashley’s portrait illustrates that despite the fact that she passed the test, shame and conciliatory hard work were two effects of this experience. She felt a deep sense of shame for “checking the White box” and was also subject to social ridicule from some Black friends when she shared this information. This sense of shame also produced a desire to work “extra hard” on subsequent licensure exams. Based upon these findings, the paper discuss the efforts that test designers and administrator as well as faculty members can take to decrease the racialized aspect of teacher licensure testing events and promote success. Given the centrality and gate-keeping nature of teacher licensure exams, coupled with the current passage rate for Black test takers, specific strategies to deracialize the testing event have the capacity to make a significant change on passage rates.

Author

• Emery Marc Petchauer, Oakland University