Tales of Existing and Resisting as Female Teacher Educators in Neoliberal Times

• In Event: 61.069 - MTCC Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 61.069-3 - No Longer Silenced: Voices of Early Career Teacher Educators

Abstract

We share findings from a collective, arts-based self-study (involving body mapping, journey mapping, and collaging) of four FECTERs’ (female early-career teacher-educator researchers) experiences. This study allows us to make sense of our individual and intersectional experiences as teacher educators (three identifying as White and one identifying as Latina), particularly in the context of neoliberalism. Acknowledging that, while women inhabit the numeric majority in U.S. PK-12 teacher education, we see ourselves as positioned according to the patriarchal norms of our field. Using a poststructural and intersectional feminist lens, we explore our experiences and responsibilities as FECTERs; we substantiate arguments for how experiences and responsibilities such as ours have largely been ignored in research on the development of teacher educators.

Authors

• Gail Buffalo, City College of New York

• Melissa Mitchem, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Aura Yarenis Perez, California State University - Channel Islands

• Elizabeth Rollins, Teachers College, Columbia University