"Does This Have Anything to Do With Systemic Racism?" Preservice Teachers' Meaning-Making Within a Field Experience

• In Event: 63.045 - Meaning-Making During Field Experiences: Unpacking Preservice Teachers' Learning of Content, Pedagogy, and Equity

Abstract

This qualitative study examines the explanatory tools and resources that a cohort of thirteen science and mathematics preservice teachers (PTs) recruited during a field experience in which they tutored students at “The Center”, a school serving a disproportionately large population of students of color and from low socioeconomic backgrounds. In particular, we examine how systemic issues of diversity, equity, and social justice manifested in PTs’ sense-making about their tutees’ experiences. Our findings highlight openings and missed opportunities that could be leveraged instructionally to foster PTs’ understandings of the sociopolitical context shaping the educational system. These understandings, we argue, support them to better situate and empathize with the lived experiences of underrepresented students and, in turn, teach in more equitable ways.

Authors

• Lama Ziad Jaber, Florida State University

• Victor Kasper, Florida State University

• Shannon Gooden Davidson, Florida State University