The Capacity for Equity and Antiracism Work Across Teacher Education

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

Abstract

Objectives
The research explores the capacity for addressing equity and antiracism work across teacher education.

Perspective(s)
After the murder of George Floyd, many universities took steps towards antiracism on their campus. Bazemore-Bertrand and Porcher (2020) note that many teacher preparation programs have added words like diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice to mission statements. While teacher educators have long been studied pertaining to how race-visible efforts are taught to preservice teachers (Hambacher & Ginn, 2021), these studies often focus on individual courses addressing topics like diversity or multiculturalism (e.g., Mazzei, 2008) or activities occurring during field work. Some research has explored equity work within individual teacher education courses like reading (Hambacher, Silva & Morelli, 2020), but few, if any, studies explore this work comprehensively across teacher education programs. Jez (2020) provides a look at teacher preparation programs that self-identify as social justice leaders providing preservice teachers with opportunities to move theory into practice with integrity, but this effort only provides an examination of what is being done well in parts of these programs. No body of science examines the capacity for equity work to be supported across all components of a teacher preparation program.

Methods / Techniques
Directors of teacher education, department chairs, and faculty were contacted across a Midwestern state, and teacher educators were also recruited on Facebook groups. Teacher educators were asked to complete a survey, which was estimated to take between 5 - 10 minutes. Part One of the survey is based on Grzanka, Frantell, and Fassinger’s (2020) White Racial Affect Scale (WRAS) and Miller’s (2017) White Racial Identity Scale. Additional items examine teacher educator efforts to grow and learn about justice and equity work. Part Two of the survey explores how or whether teacher educators have changed their professional practice. Results from Part One, the skills, knowledge, and dispositions toward justice work one possesses, will be correlated to Part Two, the steps individuals have taken professionally to enact their knowledge, skills, and dispositions. The survey is administered via Qualtrics. SPSS and MAXQDA will be used to analyze quantitative and qualitative data, respectively.

Data Sources / Evidence / Objects / Materials
Subjects are teacher educators in higher education, including faculty who teach methods courses for teachers and content courses, but also pedagogy-related coursework and fieldwork. Administrators were also included, as were K-12 teachers who serve as mentor teachers for student teachers.

Results
Data are being collected through October, 2021 with analysis and finalizing paper submission to follow.

Scholarly Significance of Work
This research goes beyond typical studies that examine, (a) Attitudes Toward Black People/Integration, (b) Modern Racism, (c) White Racial Identity, and (d) White Privilege and Antiracism (Schooley, Lee, & Spanierman, 2019). This research employs the WRAS (Grzanka, Frantell, & Fassinger, 2020), the WRIT (Miller, 2017), and other variables to determine whether certain scores, knowledge, skills, or disposition result in professional action to disrupt patterns of inequity that exists in schools.

Authors

• Sean Lancaster, Grand Valley State University

• Paula Lancaster, Central Michigan University