Holding Space: An Examination of Critical Stances to Support Preservice Teachers in Centering Youth Epistemologies

• In Event: 81.020 - Centering Youth Knowledge in Teacher Education: Youth Participatory Action Research's Promise and Complexity for New Teacher Development

Abstract

Purpose
This study was situated within a college setting, where a cohort of pre-service teachers, community teaching artists, and teacher educators supported a group of high school students in their design and implementation of semester-long critical social research projects focused on educational issues. This paper examines stances that supported preservice teachers as they developed new understandings of centering youth critical epistemologies through their participation in a unique YPAR context, one that engaged young people in a college setting while enlisting a diverse group of adult allies as facilitators and mentors.

Theoretical Framework
This study is informed by critical sociocultural theories that highlight the ways in which youth construct identities and literacies as researchers in YPAR contexts (Morrell, 2004; Mirra et al., 2016). Sociocritical theories of learning (Gutierrez, 2008) remind us that both youth and adults learn most powerfully when they are able to participate meaningfully in communities of practice, and when they are able to wrestle with real problems that have meaning to them. Thus, our paper discusses how supporting an anti-colonial stance that centers the intersubjective identities of students and teachers in YPAR contexts can contribute to the critical reframing of youth voices within teacher education (Lyiscott, Caraballo & Morrell, 2018).

Methods and Data Sources
Data were collected from a three-year critical ethnographic study that looked at teacher identities invoked in the activity of the YPAR college bridge course, and the pedagogical stances that supported pre-service teachers as they co-constructed opportunities for collaborative engagements with civic projects. Data included field notes, photographs of group experiences, interviews, transcribed audio recordings, and artifacts including digital stories, journal entries, and bars written for hip hop cyphers. For analysis, we adopted an iterative approach that combined both deductive and inductive methods (Maxwell, 2013). Deductive codes were drawn from literature including sociocritical theories of learning, anti-colonial epistemologies, and youth civic engagement. Inductive codes were extracted from data analysis. For this, we used Luttrell’s (2000) three-step analytical process.

Findings
Drawing upon a long-term study that examines students’ and preservice teachers’ experience, the data suggest that engaging with students in a YPAR context can challenge preservice teachers’ existing perceptions about literacies, education, and social action. In its disruption to traditional adult-centric hierarchies and epistemologies, YPAR made visible those opportunities for literacy and learning that youth found most compelling and affirming. Moreover, data revealed that the intentional cultivation of practices such as vulnerable witnessing, inquiry, and critical partnering helped strengthen pre-service teachers’ stances- or beliefs about literacy and civic learning, that centered youth voice.

Significance
In this complex sociopolitical context, more dynamic approaches to teaching and learning that reflect the literacies and cultures of racially and linguistically diverse classrooms are urgently needed to prepare students for success in 21st century work, civic and social contexts. This study promotes a critical broadening of preservice teachers’ conceptions of youth, literacies, and social action and extends the current scope of research and scholarship in teacher preparation by rethinking curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher education as collaborative and democratic endeavors among youth, preservice teachers, and clinical faculty.

Authors

• Danielle Filipiak, Teachers College

• Limarys Caraballo, Queens College - CUNY