Racial Literacy 2.0: Pre-service teachers and their (missed) understandings about race

• In Event: Disrupting the Default: Preservice Teachers and the Making of Critical Educators

Abstract

This mixed-methods study examines emergent themes from pre-service teachers (n=660) over four years (2020-2024) from a predominantly white regional institution in the Central Appalachian Highlands as they explore the principal questions they have about race. The analysis of their responses and the frequency of questions these pre-service teachers have about race contend against whitewashed knowledge and post-racial ideologies expressed in many national and state legislations in recent years. With increasingly diverse student populations,- epistemological positioning that promotes a colorblind instead of a critically aware positionality shortchanges future teachers and the students who will occupy their classroom, resulting in manufactured ignorance that benefits very few to the determinate of all.

Authors

• Jean Swindle, East Tennessee State University

• Marsha Simon, Valdosta State University