Using Research and Improvement Science to Investigate the Racial Equity Climate in Teacher Preparation Programs

• In Event: No More "Justice Lip Service": An Improvement Science Approach to Racial Equity in Teacher Education

Abstract

Three universities participating in a network improvement community (NIC) have strived to create more racially equitable and socially just climates through structural adjustments to their teacher education programs. They have revised their missions, visions, priorities, and core principles/values. They have strengthened their teacher education programs to include and/or extend content related to racial equity and social justice beyond a limited number of required and elective courses and into discipline-specific methods courses. At each of the member institutions of higher education (IHEs), some faculty members are experimenting with new ways to center race more explicitly in course texts, assignments, assessments, and grading. However, systematic and focused data collection has been a major priority for the NIC because the member universities recognized the lack of valid and reliable instruments for examining the racial equity climate within their teacher education programs, the need for gathering more information about faculty and student perceptions, and the extent to which racial equity and social justice content is located across the curricula.

Surveys of all teacher education faculty and teacher education students at the three universities were conducted in the spring of 2020 to learn more about the experiences of specific subpopulations and their perceptions of the racial equity climate within their teacher education programs. A separate exit survey was administered to program completers to gauge the extent to which they were exposed to critical content related to racial equity and social justice and prepared to establish racially just classrooms. This paper will highlight findings from two pilot surveys designed to assess faculty and students’ exposure to racial justice work at across the three IHEs.

For example, exit survey findings indicate that large majorities of responding program completers (N=356) across all three IHEs agreed or somewhat agreed that their teacher education programs included elements related to racial equity and social justice. These elements were: discussions about critical race theory; discussions about racial literacy; discussions about racism; discussions about race; opportunities to examine your implicit biases; opportunities to reflect on your racial/ethnic identity/identities; multiple readings of scholars representing different races and ethnicities; and opportunities to apply racial equity lenses in field placements. However, the paper will highlight how faculty representatives from the NIC institutions expressed concerns that the exit survey responses exhibit over-confidence and/or socially desirable responses.

Through rigorous and systematic data collection, the NIC plans to provide the symposium attendees with new sources of evidence about the climate of teacher education programs and the work that needs to be done to foreground racial equity as the foundation of preparation for schooling at all levels. The NIC is employing a problem-solving model that uses an iterative process of problem identification, data collection and analysis, implementation of changes, evaluation of impact, modification of the original changes, and then a repetition of the evaluation process—all with the understanding that the NIC focus is on improvement and the critical examination of variability in outcomes across programs as a basis for cycles of revision.

Authors

• Robbie Burnett, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

• Beth Beschorner, Minnesota State University - Mankato