Teacher Educators as Disruptors of Coded Racist Stances

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Complicating Ideas of Inclusivity and Equity for Teacher Educators (Table 22)

Abstract

This study presents a corpus of coded racist stances embodied rhetorically in white teacher candidates’ (TCs) writing in an anti-racist teacher education course. Using critical discourse analysis (Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000), three teacher educators (TEs) of Color identified lexical and syntactical instances where TCs used color-evasive language (Bonilla-Silva, 2010; Chang-Bacon, 2021) and the myth of reverse racism (Bax, 2018) to explicate their thoughts and experiences regarding race and racism. This study reveals the nuanced, illusory, and gas-lighting rhetoric around race and racism promulgated socially and internalized by the TCs (Staples-Dixon, in press). Implications for how TEs could act as disruptors of coded racist stances in the age of misinformation and disinformation and in a time of social injustice are discussed.

Authors

• Azaria I. Cunningham, Boston University

• Jennifer Jackson, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education

• Di Liang, Pennsylvania State University

• Jeanine M. Staples-Dixon, Pennsylvania State University