Advancing Racial Equity in Teacher Education: Actualizing a Justice Vision and Commitments

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

Abstract

Objectives
As a result of pervasive disparate outcomes by race in PK-12 education, scholars have long called for teacher preparation programs to prepare teacher candidates who can advance more equitable outcomes (e.g., Gay & Howard, 2000). A dean at a College of Education (COE) in the Midwest heeded these calls by facilitating a collective effort in 2016 to revise the college’s vision to explicitly name racial consciousness and then, in 2023, to revise the vision to deepen the commitment to advancing equity. This paper describes the effort to live up to the vision.

Theory
Diem, Welton, and Brooks (2022) provide a theoretical framework for understanding antiracist education activism that explains a systemic way of thinking about antiracist education. The framework includes four domains of activism: policy, community, leadership, and teaching and learning. This framework is used in this paper to understand how a teacher preparation program worked toward its vision.

Methods and Sources
This presentation draws from a larger case study of a COE at a predominantly white institution that serves approximately 15,000 students and graduates approximately 300 teacher candidates each year. Data sources include focus group interviews, surveys of faculty and staff, documents, and meeting agendas.

Findings
The following components are select examples of the components to enact a vision that centers racial equity:

Faculty Hiring
This COE made intentional efforts to hire a more racially diverse faculty who can effectively teach in racially conscious ways. To do this, position descriptions that include the vision and commitment were created. Additionally, to ensure a large pool of qualified candidates, fewer required qualifications were included. The qualifications explicitly addressed the knowledge and skill necessary to enact the vision. During the interviews of finalists, the teaching and research presentations were designed to reveal the candidates’ ability to address racial equity.

New Faculty Onboarding
After new faculty hires were made, they participated in efforts provided by both the University and COE. The University developed a New Faculty Academy to prepare new faculty to meet the demands of Equity 2030, an initiative to eliminate predictable outcomes by race. Further, untenured faculty participated in four seminars within the COE each year for their first five years. Seminars supported faculty’s ability to work toward the vision in each of the criteria for tenure and promotion.

Accountability through Tenure and Promotion
As faculty work toward tenure and promotion, they are held accountable to advance racial equity in teaching, research, professional development, student mentorship, and service. This focus is related to broader initiatives and language from the union contract that centers racial equity and antiracism. Accountability is then enacted through dean and personnel committees’ attention to racial equity in the evaluation of tenure and promotion materials.

Scholarly Significance
As teacher preparation programs revise their visions to align with racial justice, it is necessary to consider the type of activism that is necessary for them to be realized. This presentation will highlight specific actions taken to work toward a vision that advances racial equity within teacher preparation.

Authors

• Beth Beschorner, Minnesota State University - Mankato

• Timothy Berry, Minnesota State University - Mankato