Ethnic Studies as a Way of Life: The Counterstories of Four Teacher Candidates

• In Event: 15.023 - But Before You Teach, Unlearn: Deconstructing Preservice Teacher Beliefs

Abstract

This paper presents the narratives of four teacher candidates, all first-generation college students of color, sharing their personal identities, as well as their hopes, struggles, and strategies for engaging in the work of Ethnic Studies teaching. Ethnic Studies is a movement for curricular and pedagogical projects that reclaim marginalized voices and histories, create spaces of healing, critique structures of racism, and challenge the oppressive conditions that impact us personally and socially. The stories of the students presented in this paper provide us insight into who they are, how they come to be, what they believe, how they think, and the dilemmas and challenges they face.

Author

• Ruchi Agarwal-Rangnath, University of San Francisco