Antiracist Teaching by Design: Toward a Racial Justice Landscape for Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Topographies of Antiracist Teacher Preparation: Insights and Interrogations Across Four Universities

Abstract

Objectives
Systematic and focused data collection has been a priority for the NIC because the member universities recognized the lack of valid and reliable instruments for examining the racial equity climate within their teacher preparation programs, the need for gathering more information about faculty and student perceptions, and the extent to which racial equity and social justice content is located across the curricula. This paper provides information about the methodologies and instruments employed by the NIC to interrogate the racial equity climates within and across their teacher preparation programs and use the data to identify program improvements.

Theoretical Framework
In recent years, the call for teacher preparation programs to assess their internal racial climates and their efforts to address racial equity in teacher preparation curricula and instruction has grown stronger (e.g., Boutte, 2017; Harper & Davis III, 2016; Chapman, 2011). The NIC has responded to these calls by employing both quantitative and qualitative techniques to gather data across the four member universities for a four-year period.

Methods and Data Sources
Surveys of all teacher preparation faculty and teacher candidates at the universities were conducted in the spring of 2020 and again in the fall/winter of 2021-2022 to learn more about the experiences of specific subpopulations and their perceptions of the racial equity climate within their teacher preparation programs. The surveys were revised before the second administration based on rigorous psychometric analyses and development of factor models. A third administration of both surveys is expected in the spring of 2023.

A separate exit survey was developed by NIC faculty and administered to program completers at the end of the spring semesters of 2020, 2021, and 2022 to gauge the extent to which they were exposed to content related to racial equity and social justice and prepared to establish racially just classrooms. After review of the findings and psychometric analyses, this survey will be revised before a spring 2023 administration.

In addition, the NIC conducted interviews and focus groups with faculty at the three original member IHEs to learn more about their experiences in teaching content/courses related to racial equity and social justice and the extent to which professional learning opportunities supported changes in their classrooms. An additional set of interviews conducted with recent teacher preparation program completers explored where and how they learned about racial equity and social justice content. A third source of qualitative information was a cross-IHE analysis of the racial equity and social justice content in courses offered by the NIC IHEs’ teacher preparation programs.

Results and Scholarly Significance
This paper will highlight the ways in which NIC IHEs drew from multiple sources of evidence to launch individual and cross-site strategies to reduce racial injustice and make their teacher preparation programs more diverse and culturally affirming for faculty and candidates of Color. It will also emphasize lessons learned from a network of IHEs that are joined by a common mission but operating across very different geographical, structural, demographic, and sociopolitical contexts.

Authors

• Bernadette Castillo, University of Houston
  Presenting Author

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

• Debbie Kinne Jackson, Cleveland State University
  Presenting Author