When "Nice" Isn't: Confronting Niceness to Center Equity in Literacy Teacher Education

• In Event: Foregrounding the Relational in Teacher Education Practice

Abstract

Our ongoing self-study community of practice (SSCoP), a group of eight white, female literacy teacher educators, collaborated to better center equity in our literacy methods courses and work with colleagues. To do so, we applied “niceness”, a shared socio-emotional disposition that serves to uphold the status quo, as our analytic frame. Data from this eight-month period include transcripts from monthly meetings and 60 monthly interactive, reflective journals. Results indicated that our collaboration helped us navigate difficult conversations, rethink our roles as teacher educators, and reimagine literacy curricula. Even so, our niceness remained a barrier for enacting change for educational justice, demonstrating the imperative of continuing our collective work in confronting these forces in deliberate and even deeper ways.

Authors

• Wendy L. Gardiner, Pacific Lutheran University

• Tierney B Hinman, Auburn University

• Sophie Degener, National Louis University

• Nance S. Wilson, SUNY Cortland

• Amy Leigh Tondreau, University of Maryland - Baltimore County

• Tess Dussling, St. John's University

• Elizabeth Stevens, Roberts Wesleyan College

• Kristen White, Northern Michigan University