The Development of Culturally Responsive Mentoring Relationships in Student Teaching Placements

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 4:20 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Beyond Our Four Walls: Toward Culturally Responsive, Critical, and Community-Embedded Work With Teacher Candidates (Table 35)

Abstract

This paper explores the undertheorized notion of implementing a model of culturally responsive teacher education in the U.S. context. Drawing on results of a yearlong action research project within an urban teacher residency, the researchers offer a preliminary theory of the characteristics of culturally responsive mentoring relationships between student teachers and Cooperating Teachers (CTs). Grounded in qualitative data documenting experiences of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) student teachers, we propose a strengths-based model asserting that culturally responsive CTs: (a) honor their mentees’ funds of knowledge, (b) support their mentees to experience success, and (c) disrupt traditional mentor-mentee status differentials embodied in classroom spaces. This model underscores the need to reimagine the theory and practice undergirding educator preparation programs.

Authors

• Sarah M. Fine, University of California - San Diego

• Kirstin J. Northenscold, High Tech High Graduate School of Education