Exploring How Teacher Candidates Become Teachers Without Becoming Culturally Responsive

• In Event: Culturally Responsive Teaching Across Contexts and Tools

Abstract

Employing a situated learning perspective (Lave & Wenger, 1991), this study explores how teacher candidates (TCs) in a pre-service elementary education program became teachers without embracing culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) (Villegas & Lucas, 2002). Experiencing inequitable practices in their school sites helped TCs recognize that they needed to learn more, but these experiences neither enhanced the value they placed on their diversity coursework nor led them to enact CRP in these situations. The perceived unhelpfulness of coursework points to teacher educators’ missed opportunities to respond to TCs’ practicum experiences and help them consider CRP. Attending to TCs’ thinking (Levin, Hammer, & Coffey, 2009) can complement emerging emphases on high-leverage practices to avoid the dehumanization of teacher education (Bartolomé, 1994).

Author

• Shannon Mary Daniel, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College