Preparing Teacher Candidates to Educate and Engage With Students of Immigrant Backgrounds

• In Event: Acknowledgment and Liberation: Experiences of Transforming Education

Abstract

Using social capital and empowerment agent theories (Stanton-Salazar, 2011), I analyze twenty-three semi-structured interviews with teacher candidates to explore their sense of preparedness to educate and engage with students and families of immigrant backgrounds. I explore the ways in which teacher candidates act as empowerment agents by identifying the sources of information from which teacher candidates learned about immigration and its implications, and look further into whether this is information that was introduced and covered in their TEP or explored elsewhere. Preliminary findings indicate that teachers' sense of preparedness and acts of empowerment agents vary by their demographic characteristics, with teacher candidates of immigrant backgrounds reporting a higher sense of preparedness.

Author

• Lupita Romo-González, University of California - Santa Barbara