Excavation, Emotionality, and Evasion: Examining Racial Literacy Development in Elementary Teacher Education

• In Event: Elementary Pre-Service Teacher Education: Feedback, Futures, Technology, and Equity

Abstract

In this critical qualitative study, I examine the experiences of three teacher candidates navigating their racial literacy development in an elementary methods course. As a critical study of whiteness, I consider the ways through which whiteness works to maintain its supremacy through the responses and reflections of these teacher candidates as they engage in learning experiences designed to support their racial literacy development. Findings point to the affective and race-evasive responses that emerged as they began to to develop these literacies. To re-center this critical study of whiteness on the impact of these findings on people of Color, I conclude by discussing implications for this critical pedagogical work for teacher educators.

Author

• Michael Young, Illinois State University