Confronting racial inequities in education: exploring the objectives and impacts of teacher training
Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Research findings regarding how patterns within schools contribute to racial achievement gaps point to the need for teacher preparation that encourages educators to adopt equitable pedagogical practices. Although many teacher education programs address material related to cultural diversity, research indicates that they are often insubstantial, tending to fall short in preparing teachers to understand racial inequality and promote equity in their schools. This ethnographic case study focuses on a program I call CRUTE, which goes far beyond what most teacher education programs do through a semester-long program that involves community engagement and programming intended to encourage pre-service teachers to become culturally responsive educators. Through participant observation, interviews, and content analysis, I explore the structure of CRUTE and its impacts on participants. Specifically, I scrutinize the racialized ideological and emotional barriers (e.g. color-blind racism and white fragility) and issues at the program level that preclude CRUTE from having the desired impacts on pre-service teachers. ☐ Learning about the realities of racism seems to have done little to disrupt deficit-based understandings of many participants, and instead, caused them to dig their heels in to refute facts about contemporary racism in schools and the broader society. The present research demonstrates how insidious and entrenched racialized logics are, clarifying that the endeavor to disrupt hegemonic narratives about race and inequality in education—though undoubtedly an important project—is a challenging ideological and emotional endeavor that is shaped by the racialized politics of the contemporary moment. Attending to programmatic issues, politicized racial resentment, and the color-blind racial frames espoused by most participants illuminates important dynamics with implications for improving social justice focused teacher education programs and those with similar goals.