Documenting Professional Development of Hispana Preservice Teachers

• In Event: 46.041 - Preservice and Professional Teachers Working Across Difference: New Documentarian Research on Cultural Competence In-Action

Abstract

This presentation documents work on the professional development of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) preservice teachers’ identities in the Midwestern United States. This documentarian research is situated within a growing body of research in teacher education that focuses on pedagogical approaches in the professional development of CLD pre-service teachers (e.g., Anthrop-Gonzalez & De Jesus, 2006; Haag, 2002). Using life and professional story and methodologies and associated analyses of narrative patterns (Goodson & Sikes, 2001/2010), this research informs and attempts to create conditions for the daunting task of advancing a diverse teaching force. The findings from this study are enumerated below:

1.CLD teachers identify with complex realities of their prospective students.
2.CLD pre-service teachers’ life histories and cultural ways serve as valuable assets.
3.CLD pre-service teachers shared both the regalos (gifts or benefits) and the cargas (burdens or struggles) presented by their culture in a safe environment.
4.Once CLD pre-service teachers develop a more nuanced perspective of their cultural and familial heritage, and the intersectionalities that exist in their life histories, they are able to construct more clearly their personal and professional identities as impactful CLD professionals.

Taken together, these findings document a critical yet often overlooked process in CLD teachers’ professional support and development that argue that CLD professionals are not “ready-made” because of their backgrounds but instead require differently focused pedagogical interactions and conscientization.

References

Anthrop-González, R. & De Jesús, A. (2006). Toward a theory of critical care in urban small school reform: examining structures and pedagogies of caring in two Latino community-based schools. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(4), p. 409-433.

Goodson, I. & Sikes, P. (2010). Life history research in educational settings. Berkshire: Open University Press.

Haag, P. (2002). Voices of a generation. Washington, DC: AAUW Educational Foundation.

Author

• Amanda Morales, Kansas State University