Negotiating Preservice Teacher Positionalities Through Collaborative Dialogue and Book Clubs

• In Event: Reading Positionality, Writing Practice: Literacy in Preservice Teacher Education

Abstract

The research presented here is from a case study exploring the use of collaborative book clubs and word sorts to influence teacher positionality in an undergraduate social studies methods course for pre-service teachers. The study utilized books surrounding socio-political themes and educational inequalities to prompt conversation among participants. Results of the study suggest that the dialogic and collaborative activities provided productive opportunities for pre-service teachers to (re)negotiate their positionalities and grapple with their existing assumptions as they co-constructed meaning from and with one another. Concurrently, the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of privilege and identity seem to remain somewhat unexamined and the teachers remain hesitant about the practical reality of working to dismantle inequalities in their own classrooms.

Authors

• Casey Holmes, North Carolina State University

• Nina Radakovic Schoonover, North Carolina State University

• Ashley Ann Atkinson, North Carolina State University