Race, Talk, and Teacher Education

• In Event: 63.044 - Levers to Prepare Teacher Candidates for Communities of Color: Dismantling Deficit Thinking and Racism

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
The ways teachers talk about their beliefs and feelings regarding race and racial violence against Black bodies are important indicators of the kinds of knowledge and understanding they possess and the practices they (will) enact with students. In this paper, we introduce the Teachers Race Talk Survey (TRTS) and present exploratory results from nearly 400 teachers who reported their (1) beliefs about the importance of discussing race in the classroom with their students; (2) feelings of preparedness to have race conversations in the classroom with their students; and (3) beliefs about discussing police violence against Black people with their students.

Perspectives or theoretical frameworks
We use Bonilla-Silva’s Color-Blind Racism (2014) framework to analyze teachers’ reports of their beliefs and feelings about discussing issues of race in the classroom, particularly discussing police violence against Black bodies, and the extent to which they feel prepared to do so. The Color-Blind Racism framework begins with three assumptions. First, race is a social construct. Second, racial structures are various systems, such as education and criminal justice systems, which can create barriers for people of color while maintaining privilege for dominant racial group members. Finally, racial ideology is a way of understanding the world, essentially constructing “common sense” meta-narratives to explain racial matters (Bonilla-Silva, p. 8-9). Four tenets shape the Color-Blind Racism framework: (1) abstract Liberalism, (2) naturalization, (3) cultural racism, and (4) minimization of racism.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
Data in this study emerge from the Teachers’ Race Talk Survey (TRTS), a 33-item exploratory survey completed by in-service and pre-service teachers across the United States. The TRTS captures respondents’ beliefs (Creswell, 2013) using nine demographic items, 12 closed-ended items with response options of “yes,” “no,” or “not sure,” and 12 open-ended items intended to explain close-ended responses.

Results or conclusions
Almost 90% of teachers reported that they believed race was important to discuss with students in the classroom. However, over two-thirds of these teachers (68%) reported that they felt underprepared to have race conversations in the classroom with their students. Moreover, only about one-third (32%) of respondents believed that racial violence in the form of police killings of Black people should be discussed in the classroom. We found that teachers’ responses—regardless of their self-reported feelings of preparedness or beliefs about discussing racial violence—often reflected a racist ideology, from Bonilla-Silva’s perspective. In particular, preliminary findings point to teachers’ naturalization and minimization of racism.

Scientific or scholarly significance
Our findings suggest notable progress in teacher education around teachers’ beliefs about the importance of race discussions in the classroom. However, the high percentage of teachers who either felt unprepared or engaged color-blind discourses indicates a need for teacher education programs to provide teachers with tools to engage race in actual practice. Teachers need tools to build classroom environments and instructional practices that produce effective learning opportunities for students, and racial discourse is one area where these tools require further understanding and development in both research and practice.

Authors

• Rich Milner, Vanderbilt University

• Adam Alvarez, Rowan University

• Lori Ann Delale-O'Connor, University of Pittsburgh

• Ira Murray, United Way of the Capital Area

• Derric Ivan Heck, University of Pittsburgh

• Jawanza Kalonji Rand, University of Pittsburgh