Constructing a Migration-centered Approach to Teacher Preparation: Revisiting Ethnographic Puzzles from Dialogues with Immigrant Youth

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: The Education of Justice-Oriented Teacher Educators

Abstract

Teacher preparation is an important but undertheorized component of equity-focused scholarship on immigrant schooling. While existing frameworks examine gaps in teacher education and practitioners’ awareness of migration-related issues (e.g. Rodriguez & McCorkle, 2020; Sattin-Bajaj et al., 2023), here we examine professional learning among teacher educators. Through a novel application of practitioner inquiry, and applying Positioning Theory to our layered vantages - as teacher educators, educational researchers, and former newcomer teachers - we construct mental models for migration-centered teacher educator praxis. Through collaborative inquiry, we revisit conversations with immigrant youth from three prior ethnographic studies. We analyze puzzling episodes from that data, surface internalized and societal discourses about migration and schooling, and consider how to rescript those discourses while working with teacher candidates.

Authors

• Brian Tauzel, Western Washington University

• Saraswati Noel, Western Washington University

• Elizabeth E. Schuster, University of Washington