Racially Just by Design: Pitfalls and Possibilities for Teacher Preparation Programs

• In Event: Racial Realism Revelations: A Loving Critique of Racial Justice Teacher Education

Abstract

Purpose
University-based teacher preparation programs (TPPs) have struggled to respond to increasing calls for racial equity in the wake of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the broader movement for racial justice. In fact, scholars argue that these institutions continue perpetuating racial harm (Kohli & Pizarro, 2022). Nationally, TPPs remain overwhelmingly white, female, suburban, and monolingual (Souto-Manning & Emdin, 2020) even though most students attending public schools in the U.S. are from communities of Color (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). While some TPPs have sought to expand recruitment and community partnership initiatives that aim to diversify the pool of potential teacher candidates, some TPPs have also elected to redesign their program to align completion requirements with principles of racial justice. This paper highlights the lessons learned by one TPP located at a large Midwest research institution as it redesigned its program over several years to better address calls for increased attention to racial equity and social justice in education.

Theory
Throughout this multi-year program redesign, tenets of critical race theory (CRT) and critical race praxis guided course design and instructor preparation. The goal of the program is for teacher candidates to arrive at a critical race consciousness (Carter, 2008), where they acknowledge and grapple with the interconnected nature of race, oppression, power, and schooling in America.

Methods/Sources
This design-based study (Sandoval & Bell, 2004) incorporated qualitative methods for data collection and analysis. Sources included course assignment descriptions, student evaluations and program surveys. The TPP was revised to meet the new state licensing requirements while also centering racial justice throughout. Two courses featured in this paper are introductory foundation courses for first-year education majors. These courses engage students in a one-year in-depth study of the broader sociocultural foundations of education and its political implications. Taken together, these courses equip preservice teachers with critical frameworks of education (e.g., critical race theory, cycles of socialization, implicit and explicit biases, and the racialization of standardized tests). The question guiding this study was: How does centering racial justice throughout a teacher education program’s design impact teacher candidates’ critical race consciousness?

Findings and Significance
Through content analysis of the data, findings indicate that students echo current right wing political rhetoric, using phrases such as “indoctrination” “brainwashing” to describe their experiences in the courses. Examples include: “The TPP is a festering pot of closed-minded professors that have one goal which is to indoctrinate teaching candidates into their own personal ideologies” and “The University is addicted to race and division. I would not recommend anyone attending this institution.” While these responses reflect the urgent need to recruit and retain more teachers of Color, the course design has also revealed the dispositions of students whose beliefs are antithetical to the goals of the TPP, thus discouraging them from a career in education. Additionally, findings articulate the need for TPPs to consider P-12 partnerships in program design such that there is an explicit focus on the racial and political dimensions of the partnership (Vakil et al., 2016).

Authors

• Terrance Burgess, Michigan State University

• Terry K. Flennaugh, Michigan State University