Cultivating Critical Race Classrooms: Lessons From the Experiential Knowledges of Teacher Educators of Color

• In Event: Teaching in a "Revolutionary Situation": The Role of Racial Justice in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives & Research Questions
Critical race scholar Derrick Bell (2003) describes how “diversity” efforts animate pursuits of racial justice. He warns, “these are difficult times for those working for racial equity” (p. 1622). Bell's characterization is applicable to the current moment given discourse around race and racism in schools. University teacher education programs must dislodge narrow views of diversity to contend with how racism, anti-blackness, white supremacy, and interlocking forms of oppression are fundamentally tied to the project of schooling. This paper advances a critical analysis at the intersection of critical race studies and teacher education. Research questions included: 1) How do teacher educators of Color navigate and resist racism while teaching from a critical race lens? and 2) How do teacher candidates apply critical race studies in the field?

Theory
This paper uses Solorzano's (2019) conceptualization of critical race theory in teacher education (CRTTE) to guide study design and analyses. CRTTE invites “teacher educators and their students to continually ask “whose stories are privileged in educational contexts and whose stories are distorted and silenced?” (p. 111). We extend this to theorize from and with teacher educators of Color on how they too, navigate tenuous conversations around race and racism. This framing encourages thinking across disciplines, informing how we might better recognize the potential for critical race studies in teacher education.

Methods/Sources
Through a case study of a teacher education program shifting curricula to center racial justice, this paper draws on three years of data from three focus groups and interviews that engaged 30 students and 22 teachers. Analyses of course syllabi were also used. The study’s site is unique, consisting of majority teacher of Color candidates and majority faculty of Color. Aligned with the critical race tradition of storytelling, the authors incorporate autoethnography (Chang, 2016) to honor the experiential knowledges of teacher educators of Color. Together, we offer a counterstory reflective of the potential for a teacher preparation program committed to intersectionality and rooted in critical race studies.

Findings
This study documents how one university teacher education program shifted its knowledge base to center racial justice. It examines how teacher educators of Color navigate and contend with moving from a longstanding focus on multicultural education to an explicitly anti-racist curriculum. Findings contribute to the field of teacher education toward: 1) Identifying patterns of resistance and collective ways to address harm steeped in racism and white supremacy and 2) Approaches for shifting from narrow conceptions of diversity toward embedding critical race studies in teacher education.

Significance
This paper contributes to a body of literature on critical race studies and education generally and CRT in teacher education specifically. Given the incommensurability of color-evasive and race-neutral schooling, we take seriously the importance of a collective approach to preparing candidates to understand the significance of racial justice in education. In so doing, this paper reveals how teacher educators must prepare candidates to cultivate critical race classrooms centering the lived experiences of all students, especially students of Color.

Authors

• Edward R. Curammeng, California State University - Dominguez Hills
  Presenting Author

• Laurie D. Inman, California State University - Dominguez Hills
  Presenting Author