Paper Summary
Share...

Direct link:

"A Lot of Critical Race Wonderings": Practicing Racial Literacy in Mentoring Preservice Teachers

Sat, April 14, 8:15 to 9:45am, New York Hilton Midtown, Floor: Concourse Level, Concourse D Room

Abstract

This study considers the role of cooperating teachers (CTs) in supporting preservice teachers’ (PTs’) racial literacy development. We draw on previous explorations of how PTs practice racial literacy through their encounters across experiences (Author, 2010; 2008; Skerrett, 2011). We consider this development as identity work that occurs in interaction with others (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). The context is a one-year exploration of coaching within a reflective model for coaching, and we ask, how did a CT support a PT’s racial literacy development within a coaching context? We draw on narrative and critical discourse analysis (Author, 2014; Rogers, 2011) to report how Heather (PT) and Francine (CT) interrogate how race and racism relate to their instructional choices in relation to a small group of students of color in a mostly white, fifth-grade math/science/integrated literacy classroom.

Across six cycles of video-recorded coaching conferences, Francine and Heather mostly avoid directly addressing race in relation to classroom interaction and participation drawing on what might be described as “white talk” (e.g., Authors, 2006; McIntyre, 1997), reminding us that race is an invisible presence in classroom interactions and that invisibility is maintained through such white talk. During one conference in which reflection is discursively less co-constructed than other conferences, Heather uses several strategies to maintain this invisible presence. Heather proposes, “…there is a lot of talk between them, and it's not always like discussion that focused on what we're doing in class;” also using terms like “distracted” to refer to students of color. Heather uses phrases such as “I don’t know,” to end turns in which she is reconstructing and interrogating her instructional choices; she focuses on struggles sharing space when co-teaching (e.g., “I think it was kind of hard for me to engage, because you were so engaged with them”); and asks how those students came to sit at one table. Drawing on a racial literacy theoretical framework, Francine repeatedly guides Heather to reflect—why the students may have chosen to sit together, why she as a teacher might struggle communicating with this group about her expectations, and how the teaching event relates to other past events. Ultimately, Francine abandons her reflective coaching and models what a racial literacy lens sounds like:

It feels like a critical kind of moment to me, […] Renee being the only African-American girl in our class and power dynamics between her and us, and empowered teachers, and I think this dynamic at this table, there is a lot of critical race wonderings, because it is also, we don't have many students of color in our class, and three of them are all at the table.

Across coaching moments, Francine uses reflective questioning, models how to engage with critical race moments, and connects racial literacy with racial identity work. The case study suggests the CT’s significant role in preparing PTs to use a racial literacy framework to reflect on practice, but also suggests that our current coaching model lacks attention to the importance of side-by-side, collaborative identity work.

Authors