Preservice Teachers’ Response to Anti-DEI Agenda: Implications for Teacher Education Practice

• In Event: I-Presentation Gallery

Abstract

Increasingly, states have introduced, proposed, and passed restrictive legislative bills that prohibit teaching for diversity/social justice or so-called “divisive concepts.” Book banning of diversity/social justice content has not been more volatile. Recent survey reports that teachers are resigning and exiting the classrooms due to the unrelenting anti-DEI agendas reality. How do preservice teachers, enrolled in a methods course, respond to current anti-DEI/anti-social justice reality as they learn to teach? In this study, I examine, analyze, and reflect on preservice teachers’ response, thinking, and course of action amid the reality of anti-DEI agenda and policies. The study reveals preservice teachers’ emotions of fear, stress, ambivalence, and varied levels of inclination toward teaching safely, critically, responsibly, responsibly and conscientiously. Implications are discussed.

Author

• Omiunota N. Ukpokodu, University of Missouri - Kansas City