Designing Critical Inquiries: Evidence of Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Emerging Antiracist Social Studies Practices

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Toward Critical and Reflexive Elementary Social Studies Education (Table 8)

Abstract

This study examines elementary preservice teachers' (PSTs) social studies lesson plans (N = 98) as a source for understanding their emerging racial pedagogical content knowledge (RPCK). The PSTs designed K-5 inquiry lessons focused on Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or Asian American experiences during a social studies methods course in the U.S. Southeast. We used an analytic rubric to guide our analysis of the lesson plans. The findings revealed that PSTs with stronger features of critical inquiry consistently focused their inquiries on power, represented racial groups agentive in the past and present, and connected to ongoing social justice issues. We include suggestions for pedagogical tools that disrupt whiteness and move PSTs toward designing critical inquiries in social studies.

Authors

• Ryan E. Hughes, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Akira Jackson, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Rebecca Landry, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Arizona Poole, University of North Carolina - Greensboro

• Madison Singleton, University of North Carolina - Greensboro