Addressing racial inequalities within schools: Exploring the potential of teacher education

Abstract

A substantial body of literature demonstrates how within‐school patterns serve to maintain and perpetuate racial inequality in education. This occurs as well‐meaning teachers and administrators tend to hold lower academic expectations for students of color; engage in racially biased discipline patterns; employ alienating curricula; and fail to address racial issues in meaningful ways when they surface in classrooms. In this paper, I review literature on these and other inequitable patterns and subsequently summarize research exploring how these issues are confronted teacher training programs. While some pedagogical models show promise, many studies suggest that multicultural education and programs for pre‐service teachers fall short in promoting perspectives and practices to address inequity in schools. I apply tenets of critical race theory to scrutinize oppression within schools and the shortcomings of initiatives claimed to redress them, and moreover, to suggest how teacher education can be improved to encourage pedagogy for social justice ends.

Schools as racialized organizations in policy and practice

“…Rather, Escayg (2020) and others call for a resource-based frame that highlights the important contributions that marginalized groups offer within the classroom (Cooper, 2009;Flores, 2017;Lipman, 2003;Ochoa, 2013). To ensure that stepping away from deficit-based learning does not lead to the tokenization of students from marginalized communities, Alvaré (2018) encourages teacher education programs to not only break away from racialized discipline, microaggressions, and tracking, but to also facilitate the awareness of systemic power inequities. These actions are crucial for challenging entrenched racism in the organization of schools.…”

“…Interactions between students, teachers, parents, and administrators, along with teacher training, reinforce these patterns of racial segregation. This happens through pervasive stereotyping by school administrators in which Black and Latinx students are assumed to be "trouble makers, " while white and Asian students are assumed to be academically driven (Alvaré, 2018;Calarco, 2018;Collins, 2009;Downey & Pribesh, 2004;Egalite et al, 2015;Escayg, 2020;Ferguson, 2000;Flores, 2017;Hagerman, 2018;Lareau, 2011;Ochoa, 2013;Ramey, 2015;Skiba et al, 2002). Although Asian students often attend well-resourced schools, scholars find that teachers and administrators construct Asian students as perpetual foreigners and ethnically homogenous within these spaces (Kao & Thompson, 2003;Nozaki, 2000;Ochoa, 2013).…”

Toward a Healthy Racial Climate: Systemically Centering the Well-being of Teacher Candidates of Color

“…Whereas critical scholars theorize racism in teacher education as pervasive, systemic discrimination that is reproduced through institutionalized laws, policies, and practices (Solórzano, 1998), the bulk of empirical research is focused on interpersonal harm enacted by white faculty and white peers. Many studies have explored white teacher educators' evasion of race talk (Alvaré, 2018;Boutte, 2012;Galman et al, 2010) and others have examined the overt resistance of white preservice teachers to engage in issues of race or racism (Evans-Winters & Twyman Hoff, 2011;Matias, 2013;Shim, 2018;Staples, 2010;Wilson & Kumar, 2017). Amos (2010) revealed that teacher candidates of Color are ignored and silenced by their white peers in class, and Matias (2013) explores their enactment of white fragility when confronted with their embodiment of whiteness.…”

“…Once teacher candidates of Color are admitted to a teacher education program, research indicates that do not find their experiences reflected in their coursework (Gist, 2017). By contrast, teacher education programs with a healthy racial climate should (a) feature culturally sustaining curriculum and pedagogies that are responsive to the experiences, epistemologies, and priorities of racially diverse communities; (b) promote racial literacy; and (c) support all teacher candidates in strengthening their understanding of the assets of communities of Color (Yosso, 2005), power, and systemic oppression (Alvaré, 2018). They should expect all program faculty to have the curricular and pedagogical expertise necessary to foster teacher candidates' racial literacy, providing faculty opportunities to grow and track their growth regarding these capacities.…”

Creativity as catalyst for effective education: an interpretive phenomenological analysis exploring K-12 teachers' experience with theatrical training prior to their teaching assignment

“…With classrooms becoming more diverse, with achievement gaps widening (Carver-Thomas & Darling Hammond, 2017), with teachers leaving the profession at alarming rates Glazer, 2018), it is time to look at how to best prepare teachers not only to teach, but to stay engaged for a career of teaching. A current trend in teaching that addresses the achievement gap, culturally relevant teaching (CRT), may also be a potential solution for addressing the teacher shortage (Alvare, 2018).…”