Whiteness as a Barrier to Becoming a Culturally Relevant Teacher: Clinical Experiences and the Role of Supervision

Abstract

Clinical experiences are crucial to the development of prospective teachers (PTs), especially the student teaching practicum. While the dynamics of schools are beginning to change in response to documented inequities for students, particularly students of color, the student teaching practicum remains largely unchanged and unchallenged with regard to addressing racism, oppression and white dominance. In this study, we explore PTs' experiences and discourse in the context of student teaching in urban schools and the corresponding supervision of student teachers. Specifically, we examine the ways in which whiteness and racism obstruct the development of culturally relevant teachers. The data illuminate key insights into the ways in which PTs maneuver to avoid critical self-interrogation in relation to racism and inequities in schools. We conclude that clinical supervision experiences are opportunities to hide behind and/or challenge whiteness, and that the role of the supervisor is critical in facilitating the exposure to, and enactment of, culturally relevant pedagogy.

Disrupting the Deficit Gaze: Equity Work with University Supervisors

“…While problematizing the stance that many candidates naturally take, Willey and Magee (2018) position the university supervisor as a guide to help make important shifts in teacher candidate thinking, since the university supervisors are often the main professionals who cross between the university and practicum settings. Gürsoy and colleagues (2016) posit that while supervisors have many roles, those include "acting as active agents in conflict resolution and problemsolving in the practicum" (p. 61).…”

“…With the framework of the mentor and supervisor in place, it is an ideal time to build habits of using a strength-based stance toward learners and their families. We want teachers' default position to see students' and families' assets (Willey & Magee, 2018;Yosso, 2005) which means that EPPs must coach candidates on how to do so. University-based educators can foster an equity-stance through coursework, but it is the clinical supervisor who has the most prescient vantage point to elevate the work.…”

Educational Supervision: Reflections on Its Past, Present, and Future

“…Examples include articles on prospective supervisors in a professional learning community focused on equity (Jacobs & Yendol-Hoppey, 2010), supervision and evaluation (Burns & Badiali, 2015;Mette et al, 2017;Mette & Riegel, 2018), the art of dialogue in supervision (Kelehear, 2010), solution focused strategies in clinical supervision (McGhee & Stark, 2018), strength-based coaching in supervision (Haberlin, 2019), and supervision of curriculum development (Gordon, 2019). Additional examples include articles on supervision and culturally relevant teaching (Willey & Magee, 2019), tasks and practices of preservice teacher supervision (Burns, Jacobs, & Yendol-Hoppey, 2016a), the pedagogical skills of supervisors (Burns & Badiali, 2016), reform in preservice teacher supervision (Burns, Jacobs, & Yandol-Hoppey, 2016b), elementary preservice teacher supervision (Jacobs, Hogarty, & Burns, 2017), and the state of the field of supervision (Glanz, 2018;Glanz & Hazi, 2019).…”

Untitled

“…colorblindness, treating supervision as apolitical) held by some supervision scholars have impeded this important work from moving forward (Mette & Schwartz-Mette, 2017). More recently, however, supervision scholars have begun to address the importance of addressing Whiteness, power, and privilege in teacher candidates (Elfreich & Willey, 2019;Lynch, 2018;Willey & Magee, 2018) as well as educational leaders (Cowart Moss, 2019;Hitzges, 2019). Perhaps of most importance, some supervision scholars have begun the important task to reenvisioning supervision that places culturally relevant practices at the center of supervision theoretical frameworks rather than considering them a secondary side-item (Arnold, 2019;Cormier, 2018;Witherspoon Arnold, 2015).…”