Teacher Education. A Black Student-Teacher’s Narrative About Black Identity

Abstract

Student-teachers’ Black identities have barely been documented in initial teacher education. Although some studies have focused on their cultural experiences, their identities are still unexplored to understand teacher education. This is why this study adopts a narrative perspective to address, through life story interviews, the identity formation and experience of a Black woman and student-teacher at a public university in Bogotá, Colombia. By dwelling on her experience, this study reflects upon how, although Black students deny their identities when learning a foreign language and becoming teachers, their personal and historical backgrounds work to position themselves politically and ideologically. Race and body become intersectional categories to comprehend their processes of resistance. This exploration also discusses how discursive representations have a stake in the constitution of Black identities in teacher education.