Words that Wiggle to Wound: Critical race discourse analysis and preservice teachers’ cultural autobiographies

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 1:45 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Analytical Approaches, Tools, and Creations for Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

In this methodological paper, we extend critical race discourse analysis to understand preservice teachers’ written discourses about their lived experiences and how they inform their future teaching commitments. We study a subset of a national dataset of preservice teacher reflections from one predominantly white midwestern teacher education program to outline a methodology for studying student work in a “multiply performative” setting of a final paper assignment that centers students’ ideologies. In this paper, we argue for the utility of using critical race discourse analysis to discern the contours of performative or abstracted discourse and virtue signaling with implications for teacher education programs towards a goal of sustaining critical (self) discourses that shape their pedagogical choices and accountability to community.

Authors

• Kyle L. Chong, Michigan State University

• Taneya Chavis, Michigan State University

• Travon Jefferson, Michigan State University

• Terry K. Flennaugh, Michigan State University

• Terrance Burgess, Michigan State University

• Maliyah H Drain, Michigan State University

• Savannah Smith, John Jay College of Criminal Justice