Decentering Whiteness to Promote Equity in Teacher Education

• In Event: Decentering Whiteness and Monolingual/Monoglossic Ideologies, Practices, and Identities in an Elementary Teacher Education Program

Abstract

Objectives
“Decentering Whiteness” reflects an active, ongoing process of unlearning and relearning our academic socialization. It is the rejection of white perspectives as neutral and normative, which perpetuates the “othering” of voices of color (Picower, 2009).

Our research investigates two essential questions: (1) how do we restructure our teacher preparation program to affirm the racial and linguistic identities of the students in our university classrooms, in particular, our multilingual candidates and candidates of color ? and, (2) to what extent do our pre-service teacher candidates adopt similar pedagogies that incorporate their students’ cultural and linguistic strengths as fundamental to their own teaching practice?

Theoretical Framework
McLaren (1997) argues that decentering Whiteness is essential in teacher education. Whiteness masquerades as norm in teacher education. It is a “taken‐for‐granted routine privileging of white interests that goes unremarked” (Gillborn, 2005). We use the tenets of critical race theory (Bell, 2000; Delgado, 2012; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller & Thomas, 2005) as a framework to examine how we are decentering Whiteness in all aspects of the TEP program. Some of these tenets include: intersectionality, addressing interest convergence, centering the voices of students of color, intercentricity of race/racism, and language.


Methods
We employ Critical Race Pedagogy throughout our program. We privilege voices of color in the counter-narratives our candidates read and write. Candidates participate in year-long racial identity caucusing. Multilingual pedagogies and the recognition of translanguaging as legitimate academic writing (Catalano & Hamann, 2016; Flores, 2014; García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017) begin with the pre-orientation name narrative assignment, and are reinforced in each class through readings and coursework. We maintain a focus on community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) that begins with community visits in the first quarter, continues with an ethnographic study of community assets when candidates are placed for the academic year in partner schools, and culminates in student action research capstone projects at the end of the program.

Data Sources
Our qualitative data include:
longitudinal sampling of candidates’ work in university classes
candidates’ reflections on their identities as pre-service teachers
action research projects
interview and survey data from mentor teachers and school administrators
artifacts from candidates’ student teaching placements.

Results
Findings indicate an uptake of multilingual pedagogies in candidates’ practicum classrooms, focused attention to practicum students’ linguistic and cultural capital, and decreased deficit perspectives of minoritized students and families. Pre-service teachers commit to engaging these pedagogies and practices in their own classrooms.

Scholarly Significance
Much of the literature on cultural and linguistic responsiveness in teacher education has focused on recruitment of diverse teacher candidates (e.g. Philip, 2014; Villegas, Strom, & Lucas, 2012) or on training white teachers for diverse classrooms (e.g., Dixson & Fasching-Varner, 2009; Milner, 2010; Villegas & Lucas, 2007). Little attention has been paid to redesigning teacher preparation programs to be more responsive to candidates from multiple racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. Decentering Whiteness focuses instead on the lived experiences of these teacher candidates and school communities (Milner & Howard, 2013), naming what routinely goes ‘unnamed’ in the preparation of teachers for elementary classrooms (Paris, 2016).

Authors

• Teddi Michele Beam-Conroy, University of Washington - Seattle

• Cristina M. Betancourt, University of Washington

• Patricia M Ferreyra, University of Washington - Seattle