"I Grew Up Protective of My Community": A Preservice Teacher's Urban Narrative

• In Event: 61.047 - Language Ideologies and Positioning: Countering Deficit Discourses Surrounding Immigrant and Emergent Bilingual Learners

Abstract

This ethnographic qualitative case study examines how one preservice teacher, coming from the diverse, working class neighborhood in which she engaged in field-based courses, used language and contextual cues to position herself and others and to talk about the community and the people who live there. Social contexts affect personhood, how we view ourself and others. I argue that place is important in teacher education programs and when preservice teachers are embedded into the environment in which they teach, with an instructor that disrupts deficit ideologies, teacher candidate’s attitudes change. Findings suggest there are moments when this preservice teacher is protective and associates with her home community and is agentive in positioning herself differently from those in her cohort.

Author

• Debbie Morbitt, The Ohio State University - Columbus