I Reject the Premise of Your Survey: Teacher Candidates’ Perceptions of Racial Equity Program Content

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 5:25 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Tensions in Social Justice-Oriented Teacher Preparation: Multilingual Pedagogies, Critical Frameworks, and Antiracist Practices (Table 6)

Abstract

Teacher preparation programs have purposefully pursued social justice education resulting in revised missions, courses, and curriculum. This paper addresses teacher candidates’ experiences in a teacher preparation program with such goals. The study draws upon four years of exit survey data from a broader case study of a College of Education at PWI in the Midwest. Goodwin’s (2010) five knowledge domains for teaching (personal, contextual, pedagogical, sociological, and social) serve as an analytical lens to understand candidates’ responses to open-ended questions. The results indicate tensions such as a threshold for racial content and hierarchical views of content and pedagogy. Findings indicate practical implications for the field of teacher education but also the complexities present when actively pursuing justice-oriented preparation.

Authors

• Bernadette Castillo, University of Houston

• David Kimori, Minnesota State University - Mankato

• Beth Beschorner, Minnesota State University - Mankato