Affirmation and Tension in Social Justice Teacher Education: Course Experiences of Preservice Teachers of Color

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Emancipatory Pedagogies: Engaging Justice, Power, and Teacher Identity

Abstract

Teacher education courses can be challenging spaces for preservice teachers of color, especially when issues of race and power are open topics for discussion. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and humanizing pedagogy, we investigate the course experiences of preservice teachers of color in a teacher education program with an explicit social justice mission. Through interview testimonios, our participants revealed feeling welcomed and affirmed in their social justice commitment in some courses while facing deficit-based or racist comments about communities of color from peers and professors in others. Our findings raise critical questions to the field about how we understand social justice in teacher education and how we support the preservice teachers of color that such programs aim to recruit.

Authors

• Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica, Santa Clara University

• Katherine C. Rodela, Washington State University