Teacher Subjectivity/Identity in Practice-Based Teacher Education for Culturally and Linguistically Minoritized Youth

• In Event: The Possibilities of Public Education: Critical Perspectives on Practice-Based Teacher Education for Language-Minoritized Youth

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this presentation is to use a course focused on teaching culturally and linguistically minoritized students that centers teacher subjectivity to show how subjectivity/identity has been “invisiblized” (Lipsitz, 1998) in and through contemporary practice-based teacher education, especially within multicultural education, culturally and linguistically responsive, and/or culturally relevant teacher education which draw focus away from the role of teacher subjectivity in creating safe, powerful, and inspiring classrooms.
Perspective
The theoretical framework we draw on is based on work on teacher subjectivity. The significance of teacher subjectivity as a concept came as a result of understanding teaching as not simply a set of behaviors with specific and predictable outcomes associated with such behaviors, but as a complex, social and embodied process involving the relational core created by teacher and student(s) (Alsup, 2006; Britzman; 2003; Edwards & Blake, 2007; Evans, 2002).
Methods
In this presentation, we do not offer an example of a formula or prescription for how “to do” teacher education that centers subjectivity; such an offering would contradict the very values and ways of approaching education we espouse. Rather, we offer our own experiences teaching a multicultural teacher education class as an example of one way of centering subjectivity– and engaging with practices for teaching language minoritized youth through the lens of power and subjectivity – in teacher education. Our experiences are specific to our particular contexts and the subjectivities and patterns of power at play in our teacher education classroom.
Data Sources
We co-taught a 10-week “Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching” course as part of an elementary teacher education masters and credentialing program at a large research institution in the Pacific Northwest. Because so many students entered our class with the expectation that they would learn sets of best practices, we designed assignments that were meant to help students engage with the complexity of enacting practices and to push them to consider the consequences of their own subjectivities.
Results
In addition to the assignments, we also explicitly modeled for the future teachers in our classroom our reflections on the consequences of our subjectivities – and in particular, our racialized subjectivities – for the practices we took up in our teacher education classroom. Examples of these assignments and class conversations will be shared.
Significance
We argue that a practice-based teacher education curriculum does not sufficiently engage with the fundamental importance and complexity of teacher subjectivity. There is a deep political current – a current we interrogate – at work beneath the popularity and appeal of practice-based teacher education. We believe that prioritizing practice at the cost of ignoring the centrality of subjectivity in determining what works – how and for whom – in classrooms protects particular subjectivities and organizations of power. This is especially harmful to culturally and linguistically minoritized youth.

Authors

• Manka M. Varghese, University of Washington

• Julia Daniels, University of Washington - Seattle