Division G Vice Presidential Session: Troubling Hollow Commitments to “Diversity”: Denouncing Whiteness as a Design Feature in Teacher Education Programs

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

In this symposium, teachers, teacher educators, and policymakers come together and instead of blaming people of color for not going into teaching, unveil the ways in which teacher education dehumanizes and excludes persons and communities of color by design. Presenters specifically attend to the harm caused by programs and pedagogies firmly grounded in ideologies of White superiority, paradigms that forward deficit and inferiority approaches, and colonizing pedagogies, offering actionable design principles for the profession.

After considering how teacher education’s commitments to diversity have been problematic at best (Chris Emdin and Mariana Souto-Manning), inspired by James Baldwin’s A Talk to Teachers, New York City public school teachers explain how “going for broke” is an educational imperative if teacher educators are to interrupt Whiteness and racism in and through teacher education. Then, two teacher education collectives, the Teacher Education Exchange in the UK and the Teacher Education Collective in the US offer design principles for shifting the architecture of teacher education toward justice. Unveiling the potential of putting design principles in practice, Angelica Infante-Green (Deputy Commissioner, New York State Education Department) will explain two New York State initiatives which focus on desegregating schools and fostering culturally relevant schooling.

Join us as we trouble hollow commitments to “diversity” in teacher education and move toward the development of design principles which seek to transform the architecture of teacher education, interrupting racism and prioritizing justice!

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education

Chair

• Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University

Papers

• Troubling Hollow Commitments to "Diversity" in Teacher Education - Christopher Emdin, Teachers College, Columbia University; Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University

• A Talk From Teachers: Going for Broke as an Imperative for Teacher Educators - Billy Fong, Central Park East II; Carmen Llerena, PS 75 New York City; Karina Malik, Dos Puentes Elementary School; Jessica Martell, Central Park East II, New York City Schools

• Teacher Development 3.0: Confronting Our Capacity to Reproduce Educational and Social Injustice - Viv Ellis, King's College London

• Design Principles for Transforming Teacher Education in the United States: Toward Needed Transformations - Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University; Jamy Stillman, University of Colorado - Boulder; Lauren Anderson, Connecticut College; Dorinda Carter Andrews, Michigan State University; Ilana S. Horn, Vanderbilt University; Thomas M. Philip, University of California - Los Angeles; Manka M. Varghese, University of Washington

• Designing Desegregation in New York: Toward a Culturally Relevant System - Angelica Infante-Green, New York State Education Department

• Where Do We Go From Here? Disrupting Whiteness in Teacher Education - Christopher Emdin, Teachers College, Columbia University

Discussant

• Christopher Emdin, Teachers College, Columbia University