Beyond the Demographic Divide: Shifting Ideological Stances of White Preservice Teachers

• In Event: 68.022 - Cultivating Critical Educators: Ideological Shifts and Programmatic Supports of Equitable Practice Along the Teacher Continuum

Abstract

Session Objectives:
Much has been written about the sizable demographic divide between the U.S. teacher workforce and the K-12 population (Boser, 2014; Cochran-Smith, M. et al., 2015). However, fewer studies have examined the instructional practices and curriculum teacher educators use to best support the ideological shifts necessary for predominately white, monolingual, middle class preservice teachers when working with Latino/a, Black, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, Asian and Polynesian students who contend with institutional oppressions in their lives. This study examines the nature of ideological shifts made by preservice teachers toward urban schools, teaching, students and their communities.

Theoretical Framework
This study draws on the work of Philip’s (2011) “ideology in pieces” approach which seeks to “analyze and interpret the ideological sensemaking and transformation of a teacher… that includes their cognitive, social, and structural dimensions” (p. 297). This approach allows for a more comprehensive theory for teacher preparation. By combining a sociological approach that prioritizes a macro sociopolitical analyses of race, racism, and schooling (Milner, 2006; Picower, 2009) with a teacher-as-learner framework (Lowenstein, 2009) that emphasizes the competency of the learner with schema to build from, ideology in pieces allows for “an analysis of individual teacher’ learning and transformation while situating such sensemaking in practices and discourses that stabilize or challenge structures of power in society” (Philip, 2011, p. 298). Combining the ideology in pieces approach with the humanizing pedagogy traditions (Bartolome, 1994; Camangian, 2013) and an explicit use of politically relevant teaching (Beauboeuf-LaFontant, 1999) allows preservice teachers to examine, process, and challenge their own ideologies and “commonsense” notions.

Methods
This participant, ethnographic research focuses on preservice teachers enrolled in their first course within their teacher education program. The majority of the participants are self-identified European-American, monolingual students coming from materially privileged backgrounds. This introductory course met for four hours every day over two weeks. The research focused on in-class and out-of-class activities that sought to build community and ideological self-examinations as a means to better equip preservice teachers with the understandings to work in urban communities and schools. The main research question underlying this study is: How do our classroom instructional practices and curriculum contribute to students’ ideological shifts towards urban schools, teaching, students, and communities? Data includes field notes, analytic memos, curriculum plans, and artifacts such as reflective writing assignments. Data analysis used a grounded theory approach utilizing codes developed through themes generated from analytic memos recorded throughout the course.

Findings
Results from this study showed preservice teachers engaged in individual and group self-examinations of ideological beliefs regarding racism, classism, and sexism as it relates to urban schools, teaching, students and their communities. They connected, challenged, and questioned their own beliefs and the roots of the sociohistorical and sociopolitical ideologies that created them. Participants described specific pedagogical structures and activities during class that supported their growth.

Implications
The significance of this research is in its potential to further understand the psychological, experiential, knowledge-building, and self-reflective processes that white, middle class, preservice teachers engage in as they develop their critical consciousness around education.

Author

• Clifford H. Lee, Saint Mary's College of California