Enabling Transgressions: A Content Analysis of Racial Literacy Development Through Pre-Service Teachers’ Reflective Journals

• In Event: (Re)membering Race, Unmasking Power: Socialization and the Futures of Teacher Education Research

Abstract

This study explores pre-service teachers’ racial literacy development within a critical multicultural education course. Grounded in Gay & Kirkland’s (2003) call for teachers to develop critical consciousness and Sealy-Ruiz’s (2021) racial literacy framework, this study analyzes reflective journal entries to examine how future educators grapple with their positionality, histories of racial oppression, and how whiteness manifests in schools. Using content analysis, researchers investigated how self-reflective journaling fosters critical consciousness and informs shifts in beliefs, attitudes, and dispositions toward racial literacy. Findings indicate growth in pre-service teachers’ understanding of their roles in acknowledging and disrupting racial inequities in schools, offering implications for the continuous pursuit of embedding racial literacy into educator preparation programs.

Authors

• Salandra Grice-Johnson, Sam Houston State University

• Alexes M. Terry, American University