To contribute to racial equity in educational opportunities and outcomes for students, white teacher candidates must disrupt decades of socialization in whiteness (Leonardo, 2013; Matias & Mackey, 2016; Picower, 2009) that produce their racist perceptual frameworks and practices. Although prior studies have explored the ways in which teacher educators may facilitate teacher candidates’ disruption of whiteness socialization through transformative activities (see Cochran- Smith et al., 2015 for a review), this dissertation offers a developmental model of this psychological shift that transformative activities prompt teacher candidates to undergo in preparation to enact equitable practice. Taking a developmental approach to studying how teacher candidates build their capacity to contribute to racial equity in education was advantageous in exploring the nuances in how transformative activities played a role in teacher candidates’ development and what factors explained variation in teacher candidates’ development as a result of transformative activities.
Learning about racial equity in teacher practice: Direct and indirect pathways
The organizing framework and evidence generated in this dissertation demonstrated the importance of transformative activities in prompting teacher candidates to learn about racial equity in teacher practice. All five cases demonstrated using transformative activities to learn about racial equity in teacher practice and they did so in three specific ways:
1. Re-conceptualizing their understanding of equitable practice. For example, Ellen
used the transformative activity reading Milner's (2010) book, Start Where You Are but Don’t Stay There, to understand that it is important to balance culturally sensitive practices with practices that will prepare students to meet state standards (e.g., performance on standardized tests). Similarly, questioning the extent to which books for the Let’s Read! program were developmentally appropriate for preschool students, Pattie recognized that teachers are responsible for ensuring that instructional materials appropriately meet students’ needs and support their learning. In each of these instances, teacher candidates drew a direct conclusion from the activity about what teacher practices contribute to racial equity in educational opportunities and outcomes for students.
2. Interpreting why equitable practice may or may not happen. Missing an
opportunity to practice difficult classroom situations (e.g., student yelling or walking around the room) in a lesson simulation assignment, Ash, for example, drew the conclusion that teachers may not enact equitable practices because they lacked training to prepare them for the most difficult situations. As another example, Ellen realized by observing her co-teacher that teachers may not enact equitable practices because they do not recognize how their biases are playing out in the classroom. Interpreting why
equitable practice may or may not happen as a result of transformative activities contributed to teacher candidates’ learning about racial equity in teacher practice by helping them understand how they needed to prepare themselves to enact equitable practices.
3. Motivating themselves to enact equitable practice. For example, after being
immersed in classroom race talk on numerous occasions, Ellen was more motivated to prepare herself to talk about race regardless of whether she taught in a school serving predominantly students of Color or predominantly white students. In addition, Olivia reported herself as much more motivated to enact equitable practices in the classroom following a transformative activity exposing the truth about the Thanksgiving holiday. Motivating themselves to enact equitable practice contributed to teacher candidates’ learning about racial equity in teacher practice by encouraging them to both practice enacting equitable practices in the classroom and engage in personal work (e.g., reflection) to prepare themselves to enact such practices.
Findings regarding the direct pathway to learning about racial equity in teacher practice through transformative activities advanced theory by demonstrating how transformative activities may contribute to outcomes beyond knowledge, awareness, and beliefs about the role of race in education that are most commonly studied in prior literature (for reviews of the literature, see Cochran-Smith et al., 2015; Jupp et al., 2016).
In addition to directly prompting learning about racial equity in teacher practice, transformative activities indirectly prompted such learning by challenging perceptual frameworks. For example, Olivia demonstrated how perceptual frameworks served as a catalyst for learning about racial equity in teacher practice when, as a result of learning about Geoffrey Canada’s work,
she rejected deficit perspectives and essentialist intelligence beliefs regarding students of Color then subsequently came to the conclusion that teachers must take responsibility for student learning. Furthermore, Jen learned that she would need to have high expectations for all students in her classroom after adopting a “difference isn’t a deficit” perceptual framework when learning from Lisa Delpit’s work. Identifying the challenging of perceptual frameworks rooted in whiteness as a catalyst for learning about racial equity in teacher practice offers an important contribution to theory by pinpointing a potential mediator that could be capitalized on to best facilitate teacher candidates’ learning about racial equity in teacher practice. This offers an important insight for future intervention work seeking to use transformative activities to prepare teacher candidates to implement racially equitable classroom practices.
Biographical factors: Explaining variation in developmental starting points and trajectories
Representing the ways that teacher candidates had previously been socialized, biographical factors played a critical role in the starting points and developmental trajectories of teacher candidates who participated in this dissertation. Prior research had identified biographical factors as important to teacher candidates’ development as it related to racial equity in teacher practice because whiteness is learned through interactions with family and community members (Crowley, 2019). For example, personal characteristics, such as religious, class, and ethnic affiliations (Picower, 2009) as well as prior experiences in school (Johnson, 2007), were important to how teacher candidates evaded transformative activities, reinforced their existing perceptual frameworks, and conceptualized equitable teaching practice. In addition, social factors, such as residential segregation (Buchanan, 2015; Seidl & Hancock, 2011) and experiences with
hierarchical relationships with people of Color (Picower, 2009), determined the extent to which teacher candidates were conscious of the ways race and racism operate in society.
However, in this dissertation, biographical factors (including personal characteristics and social factors) played a role in teacher candidates’ developmental starting points and trajectories. Specifically, teacher candidates used such biographical factors to:
1. Justify where they started in their thinking upon experiencing transformative activities. For example, growing up in a region that was rural and predominantly white,
Pattie was not always sure how to engage in transformative activities around race and had never had some experiences before (e.g., visiting a synagogue). Similarly, Olivia and Jen had not been aware of the truth about the Thanksgiving holiday before learning about it in a course activity. When giving their account of transformative activities, teacher candidates frequently brought up their biographical factors and used them to justify their initial perspective. This signaled teacher candidates’ awareness of the ways in which their social contexts had influenced their thinking as it related to race.
2. Challenge perceptual frameworks. Coming from a family that endorsed a
multicultural perspective on racial diversity, for example, Ellen had never been challenged to think about race in critical ways before attending the teacher education program. This aspect of her personal experience challenged her to use transformative activities to become more cognitively flexible as it related to understanding and valuing the ways in which others’ lived experiences were different from her own. Frequently bringing in biographical factors to explain how transformative activities had challenged their perceptual frameworks demonstrated the important role of biographical factors in teacher candidates’ developmental trajectories.
3. Learn about racial equity in teacher practice. For example, Jen’s identity as the
child of immigrants from the Middle East led her to recognize the arbitrariness of identities. Then, ultimately, her identity further motivated her to “fight against the unjustness racial inequality.” In addition, Ash’s prior experience unlearning racist perspectives and re-learning antiracist perspectives motivated them to understand the importance of checking the role of their biases in their teaching through field placement experiences (e.g., checking for bias in seating charts). Similar to challenging perceptual frameworks, teacher candidates’ frequent mention of biographical factors in relation to learning about racial equity in teacher practice demonstrated the importance of considering how biographical factors might play a role in teacher candidates’ developmental trajectories.
Observing the ways in which teacher candidates brought biographical factors (e.g., personal characteristics and social factors) into their accounts of transformative activities afforded a better understanding of the varied ways that biographical factors may play a role in teacher candidates’ development as it relates to racial equity in teacher practice. Furthermore, because the biographies of teacher candidates differed across cases, variability in how teacher candidates referenced their biographical factors when talking about transformative activities suggested that these factors may explain variability in teacher candidate development. However, more research is needed to test this speculation.