How Latino Preservice Teachers Conceptualize the Costs and Barriers of a Teaching Career

• In Event: Race-Reimaging Motivation in Education Research: Investigating Motivation Through Racialized and Cultural Perspectives

Abstract

Purpose
The under-representation of Latino male teachers constitutes a lost opportunity to have the talents, life experiences, and cultural knowledge support the education of an increasingly diverse student population (Casey et al., 2015), yet recruiting and retaining Latino teachers remains a challenge (US Department of Education). The purpose of our paper is to investigate the meaning of salient barriers and costs among Latino preservice teachers, and how these relate to race-ethnic and gender identities.
Theoretical framework 

We adopted a race-reimaged and race-focused approach (DeCuir-Gunby & Schutz, 2014) to investigate the under-theorized construct of cost in teacher career motivation literature and potential relations with racial and gender identities. We further frame our investigation of the meanings of costs and barriers with expectancy-value theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) and the Factors Influencing Teacher Career Choice model (FIT Choice; Watt & Richardon, 2007). We “re-image” costs and barriers of a teaching career by examining the culture-based meaning of these constructs among Latino students in teacher training programs in light of their particular social-cultural context and racial identities.
Methods and Data Sources
We use a sequential, equal priority, mixed-method design (Creswell & Clark, 2018) across two samples using survey data and interviews. Participants were Latino male preservice teachers in a large US urban university (Sample 1: N = 53; Sample 2: N = 7). With Sample 1, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of an open-ended written prompt about drawbacks/barriers of becoming a teacher. Concurrently, we used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to investigate the phenomenological meaning system underlying responses to items from scales: task demands, task returns, and planned persistence (Watt & Richardson, 2007); perceived costs (Flake et al., 2015); and race-ethnic and gender identity centrality (Wilson & Leaper, 2016). In a second phase (Sample 2), we conducted a qualitative content analysis of in-depth (1-2 hour) interviews that investigated perceptions of race/gender identity and relations to perceived costs and barriers of becoming a teacher.
Results
In brief, results suggested a wide range of salient costs and barriers (Table 1). MDS analysis indicated meanings of race and gender identities overlapped and were most closely associated with aspects of professional identities, such as salary and status (Figure 1). Interviews revealed several racialized costs (e.g., assessing whether one “passes” as white; heightened vulnerability to sexual accusations; anticipated conflicts with students holding anti-immigrant beliefs) as well as assets (e.g., using cultural connections to reach students of color).

Significance

Our findings identify the nature and range of costs and barriers that are salient to Latino male preservice teachers, and point to types of costs and barriers that are not currently captured within the FIT Choice model. Some of these costs were related to race and gender identities, and revealed the racialized meanings that costs and barriers can take for Latino men. While group-level interpretations provide insight on shared meanings, the study also highlights substantial heterogeneity of how the salience and racialized nature of costs manifest for particular Latino men.

Authors

• Bradley W. Bergey, Queens College, CUNY

• John Ranellucci, University of Ottawa

• Avi Kaplan, Temple University