She's White but Not Really White: The Utility of Audio Journals in Preservice Teacher Education

• In Event: Critical Readings of Whiteness, Race, Space, and Identities

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to highlight audio journals as a reflective practice within social justice teacher education as a way for candidates to question their assumptions around oppressive structures within and outside of schools. In examining how one candidate spoke about her experiences in her practicum site over a one-year period, we analyzed how ideas around race, ethnicity, gender, and ability were negotiated and explored. We argue that in order to move candidates from passive observers to critical agents who dissect how power indexes and is indexed through learning, it is important for candidates to have a flexible and individualized way to reflect on who they are as social justice teachers and who they want to become.

Authors

• Mary Rose Kelly, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Melia E Repko-Erwin, University of Colorado - Boulder