Personal and Professional Commitments: Asian American Preservice Teachers Preparing to Teach Literacy in Urban Schools

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)Imagining Literacy Practices for Preservice Teachers (Table 24)

Abstract

This study focused on the experiences of six Asian/Asian American preservice teachers as they prepared to teach literacy in culturally responsive ways in urban schools. Drawing on interviews, observations, and documents, the investigation explored the development of participants’ perspectives on literacy teaching and their literacy instructional practice and how various factors, including their racial identity, shaped their learning. Findings showed that participants’ commitments as educators – particularly around leveraging students’ native languages and utilizing culturally responsive texts – were deeply personal as well as professional. Participants drew on their own experiences to empathize with emergent bilingual students and ensure students’ cultures were represented in classroom material. Given the dearth of research on Asian/Asian American teachers, this study has important implications.

Authors

• Kathryn Struthers Ahmed, Hunter College - CUNY

• Sonia Begum, Hunter College

• Jia Yan Jiang, Hunter College – CUNY

• Oumwatie Sooklall, Hunter College - CUNY

• Jessie Song, Hunter College – CUNY

• Victoria Song, Hunter College – CUNY

• Samantha Wong, Hunter College – CUNY