Can I Get a Witness? Antiracist Pedagogy and Young Adult Literature in Teacher Education Programs

• In Event: Emancipatory Practices in Antiracist Classrooms

Abstract

This paper describes our move away from traditional academic literature to engage in young adult literature with the goal of helping mostly white, middle-class, pre-service teacher bear witness to the historical oppression of Blacks as a means of developing a social justice orientation toward teaching. Findings from this qualitative study suggest that knowledge disruptions and humanizing disruptions—experiences of dissonance between pre-service teachers’ prior historical knowledge and life experiences and the content of the novel—were essential to promoting pre-service teachers’ desire to want to learn more about racial injustice and to engage in teaching strategies that promote social justice. We argue that effective anti-racist pedagogy in teacher education programs is essential to creating more equitable public schools.

Authors

• Chonika Coleman King, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville

• Susan L. Groenke, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville

• Jessica Stone, Western Washington University