When Identity Work and Commitment Is Not Enough: Discipline-Based Antiracist Strategies in English Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Critical and Social Justice Inquiry Through Curriculum Practices in the English Language Arts Classroom

Abstract

As teacher educators who work in relatively rural and predominantly white regions of the United States, we see a need to prepare our English teacher candidates to do antiracist work in predominantly white contexts. As such, this qualitative study focuses on the problem of preparing white English teacher candidates, many of whom have not been taught about racism in more than superficial ways, to plan for racial literacy instruction through literary study with their own future students. Findings indicate that teacher candidates’ own racial literacy and identity work is necessary, but not sufficient. Teacher candidates need instruction in discipline-specific methods for teaching racial literacy if we are to expect them to consider engaging in antiracist work in English classrooms.

Authors

• Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides, Westfield State University

• Carlin Borsheim-Black, Central Michigan University