Pushback, performance, praxis: A critical race discourse analysis of preservice teachers’ reflections on race & power

• In Event: Racial Identity & Teacher Education: Critical Conversations about Privilege and Power

Abstract

In this paper, we explore preservice teachers’ racial justice commitments through their written discourses in an autobiographical reflection of their racialized and socialized educational experiences. Using critical race theory and critical race discourse analysis, we study students’ discursive moves as they grapple with their privilege and how they connect theory and praxis in their emergent teaching philosophies. We argue that students’ papers show how preservice teachers discursively (circum)navigate racial justice commitments in their papers and how those discursive moves reveal permission structures within teacher education programs (TEPs) that abstract racial justice for preservice teachers. Our study’s implications suggest ways to restructure TEPs to prepare, sustain and deepen students’ reflexive commitments to racial justice and virtue-signalling without policing students’ “purity” of criticality.

Authors

• Kyle L. Chong, Michigan State University

• Travon Jefferson, Michigan State University

• Candace L. Moore, Michigan State University

• Taneya Chavis, Michigan State University

• Terrance Burgess, Michigan State University

• Terry K. Flennaugh, Michigan State University

• Maliyah H Drain, Michigan State University

• Savannah Smith, John Jay College of Criminal Justice