Racial Literacy Teacher/Leader Modules: Alignment and Actualizing a Justice Imperative

• In Event: Teaching In the Wake: Racial Justice Praxis Across Teacher Education, Classrooms, and Schools

Abstract

Objectives & Research Questions
Education practitioners within the United States consistently confront the enduring legacy of systemic racism and racial inequities across P-16 institutions. A pivotal point for intervention lies at the inception of a teaching candidate's journey during the clinical placement phase of their preparation program.
Increasingly, university teacher education programs are prioritizing the preparation of candidates to effectively address racism. The clinical placement segment of teacher development, while crucial, presents its own set of challenges. Historically, in California, less than half of students enrolled in teacher education programs engage in high-quality clinical placements and observe cooperating teachers who may inadvertently perpetuate systemic issues, revealing a racial justice misalignment. Given this, the research questions were: 1) How can university-school partnerships collaboratively create clinical placements supporting the racial literacy of mentor and student teachers? and 2) What elements should be incorporated into the design of racial equity development tools?

Theoretical Framework
Twine (2004) developed the concept of racial literacy that emphasizes the critical importance of racial socialization and anti-racist training. Sealey-Ruiz (2011) builds on this through her Racial Literacy Development Model. Such an approach is important given the ways racial literacy “calls for self-reflection and moral, political, and cultural decisions…by learning about systems of injustice” (p. 118). This framing guides teacher candidates participating in clinical placement to discuss and interrupt situations upheld by racial inequity.

Methods/Sources
Through a networked improvement community (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, 2011), one university teacher education program engaged in a process of creating a comprehensive set of racial equity modules to be implemented in their university-school partnership setting. Data included: participant reflections videos, feedback surveys, and cross-site dialogue circles (de los Ríos and Souto-Manning, 2017; Fullan, 2017). Modules included key concepts and frameworks for racial literacy development. The modules aimed to equip educators with skills to align their conversational practices, policy interpretations, and curriculum choices with principles of racial justice.

Findings
Module creation was characterized by numerous iterations of conceptual refinement and content development. This process included a trial run involving educational leaders, and teachers from three distinct geographic regions, providing valuable feedback. Insights gleaned from the initial piloting and preliminary results suggest their efficacy. Findings demonstrate two key outcomes: 1) Racial literacy development can occur for mentor and student teachers during clinical placements, and 2) Educators can be prepared through a well-defined and structured approach to learning self-examination, discuss race constructively, and critically analyze pedagogy, policies, and curriculum through a racial justice lens.

Significance
This paper contributes to the existing body of literature concerning clinical placements in teacher education generally, and racial literacy development specifically. Given the historical shortcomings of clinical placements in producing candidates to be prepared to confront systemic inequities in schools, the development and initial implementation of these modules are of paramount importance. They represent a promising avenue for better preparing pre-service teachers to comprehend and address racial justice in educational contexts. Taken together, this research highlights collaborative efforts toward actualizing justice from teacher credentialing into and through clinical practice.

Authors

• Laurie D. Inman, California State University - Dominguez Hills

• Edward R. Curammeng, California State University - Dominguez Hills