It’s Just Natural? Whiteness and Teacher Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 3:35 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: And the Work Remains: Addressing Persistent Challenges to Social Justice in Teacher Education (Table 12)

Abstract

This paper presents findings from research into secondary education preservice teachers’ talk about newly introduced equity principles implemented across their teacher education programs (TEP) in English, math, science, and social studies education. Our analysis of whiteness follows the lead of scholars of color who call for white people to grapple with whiteness (Bonilla-Silva, 2015; Morrison, 1998; Thandeka, 1999). Our initial findings, in line with previous studies of whiteness and teacher education (Hawkman, 2020; Picowar, 2021), reveal strong, pervasive, yet uneven compulsions of whiteness embedded throughout their descriptions of learning to teach. These compulsions within the people and systems/culture of the TEP sustain emotional and practical connections to whiteness and undermine efforts to implement equity-focused revisions to our TEP.

Authors

• Maia G. Sheppard, University of Iowa

• Samuel Jaye Tanner, University of Iowa

• Jamie L. Tanas, University of Iowa

• Holly C. Matteson, University of Iowa

• Kelsey Chingren-Lockhart, University of Iowa