One Step Forward, One Step Back: Progress Toward an Antiracist System of Practice-Based Teacher Education

• In Event: Tensions and Opportunities in Integrating Practice-Based Teacher Education and Socially Just Teacher Education

Abstract

Objective
Our objective is to present the story of a group of teacher educators from a range of teacher preparation institutions in one state. This group collaborated first in an externally funded network led by representatives from one university. When funding for that network ended, a smaller group continued meeting and engaging in the work with the goal of working as a collective movement to change the system of teacher preparation in the state through a focus on anti-racist practice-based teacher education.

Perspectives
In recent years, several studies and publications have highlighted the tensions between practice-based teacher education and socially just or anti-racist teacher education (e.g., Philipp et al., 2018; Calabrese Barton et al., 2020. While the tensions continue, efforts at implementing the integration of practice-based and anti-racist teacher education in particular courses and programs (e.g., Kavanagh & Danielson, 2019) has begun to emerge. In this presentation, we build on this prior work by examining the tensions and possibilities in implementing this integration at the system level, where the teacher education system includes individual teacher preparation programs, K12 partners, and state policymakers.

Methods
In this paper we employ a narrative auto-ethnographic approach to describing the work of the group and some of the successes and challenges faced by the group. We draw on artifacts of the work over time, including meeting agendas and videos.

Results
Both the larger network and the smaller network that followed accomplished some important change in the state, including policy changes that mandated the incorporation of core practices and practice-based teacher education into teacher preparation programs across the state. In some places, we also observed and documented changes that moved beyond individual course changes to program-wide changes, as well as closer connections between higher education institutions and their K12 partners and closer collaborations across traditionally isolated institutions of higher education.

At the same time, these successes introduced new challenges. In particular, as the network pushed to prioritize the integration of anti-racism with practice-based teacher education, the group encountered greater resistance and declining participation. The development of systems and structures for supporting the implementation of policy changes stalled, partly due to the Covid context and partly due to lack of capacity across the system for advancing this next level of change. Finally, the network had only one person of color on the leadership team and in most network meetings, leading to significant burden and harm on that person.

Scholarly Significance
As noted by Dr. Shaun Harper during the 2021 AERA Presidential Address, educators and education researchers need to take responsibility for the outcomes of our work. In teacher education, this means accepting responsibility for the lack of change in the system toward more socially just and anit-racist education. This means committing to understanding how change happens in the system and the tensions and opportunities it presents.

Authors

• Corey Drake, The Math Learning Center

• Jungsoo Ahn, University of Michigan