“I Don’t Want to Get in Trouble”: Preservice Teachers’ Sensemaking of Undocumented Status Under Policy Constraint

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 3:45 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Education at the Crossroads: Critical Praxis, Policy, and Possibility

Abstract

This paper explores how preservice teachers in Florida make sense of undocumented status and their responsibilities to undocumented students in a politically hostile climate. Drawing on sensemaking theory and interviews with three preservice teachers who present “telling cases,” the study identifies participants’ sensemaking of undocumented status through emotional reasoning, policy confusion, and borrowed frameworks from other identity categories (e.g., ESOL, LGBTQ, ESE). Curricular silences and the broader political context, particularly state-level restrictions on race and LGBTQ, shape what feels sayable or supportable. While some participants respond with caution and strategic silence, others engage in ethically driven inquiry. Findings highlight the urgent need for teacher education programs to address undocumented status directly, both pedagogically and ethically, in transformative-oriented teacher education

Author

• Jennifer M. Bondy, Arizona State University