The Currency of Trust in Teacher Preparation for Racial Justice

• In Event: Collectively Grasping: Lessons and Limits in Pursuing a Racial Justice Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives & Research Question
The purpose of the paper is to explore the role of trust in higher education classrooms and clinical experiences through school-university partnerships within a teacher preparation program. Research questions include:

What does the cultivation, sustaining, and protection of trust look like in teacher education preparation centered on racial equity?
1. What are the challenges and necessary conditions required to build trusting relationships centered on racial equity?

Theoretical Frame
The concept of trust involves individuals or groups being open and vulnerable to others in situations involving risk and interdependence (Forsythe et al., 2011). There is a noticeable gap in studies exploring trust-building within higher education (Niedlich et al., 2021). Trust offers a frame for studying relationships within teacher preparation programs intentional about centering racial equity.
We examine the concept of trust through Putnam's (1993) lens of social capital, defined as "features of a social organization, such as networks, norms, and relationships, that facilitate action and cooperation for mutual benefit" (p. 35). Social capital theory identifies three types of trust: bonding, bridging, and linking (Iqbal et al., 2022). Bonding and bridging refer to trust within homogeneous and heterogeneous groups, respectively (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 1993), while linking trust refers to trust between individuals and institutions (Woolcock & Narayan, 2001).

Methods
Our multi-method design employs improvement science methodology (Bryk et al., 2011) using a critical race theoretical lens (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Solórzano, 1998). Through critically reflexive writing among ourselves (Irby & Drame, 2016), we explore one of Sealey-Ruiz’s (2021) six dimensions to racial literacy, extending archeology of self to an excavation of the nature of relationships across self, others, and praxis as it relates to trust.

Data Sources
Data sources include several vignettes and data from three surveys. The first survey on racial equity was administered to faculty and students. The second and third survey were exit surveys, one administered institutionally and the other by the state. The vignettes reflect critically reflexive writing among ourselves, as “a sense-making process” to ask questions “about critical incidents or events in our lives” (Irby & Drame, 2016, p. 4).

Results
Findings suggest that for students, efficacy for work in urban schools may be dependent on how well they trust the faculty has prepared them for racial justice. The survey results were overall positive in students’ agreement that their preparation exposed them to opportunities to reflect, observe, and apply racial justice content. However, there was a slight disconnect between the activities used to prepare students and how prepared students felt. In conversation with our vignettes, findings suggest closer heterogeneous trust (Putnam, 1988) between school partners and faculty may further efforts for student efficacy in racial justice.

Scholarly Significance
The study is significant in underscoring how trust within teacher preparation is both possible and fragile and in need of critical reflexivity. Our multi-method design as part of improvement science methodology responds to AERA’s call for ways to increase the situated knowledge and wisdom rooted in communities and the traditions of learning and care.

Authors

• Terri Lynn Purcell, Cleveland State University

• Markita C Warren, Cleveland State University

• Tristta M. Kuykendall, Cleveland State University

• Anne M. Galletta, Cleveland State University