Understanding Teacher Candidates’ Possible Selves Through Their Transactions With a Graphic Novel Memoir

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Diverse Qualitative Approaches to Readers' and Teachers'/Candidates' Text Engagement (Table 2)

Abstract

Many teacher preparation programs include courses that discuss equity, diversity, and inclusion and social justice frameworks. In these courses, teacher educators often share children’s literature to shape and/or challenge teacher candidates’ understandings about sociocultural issues. This study focused on how teacher candidates’ transactions with the diverse graphic novel When Stars Are Scattered reflected their possible selves and their engagement with the sociocultural issues depicted in the book. The teacher candidates’ responses ranged across four levels of engagement (Tovey, 2022); however, in the first two levels the teacher candidates’ responses were more self-centered and they did not engage critically with sociocultural issues. It was only in the upper levels that teacher candidates experienced critical encounters that shifted their understandings.

Author

• Sarah D Reid, Illinois State University