Aspiring Teachers and Urban Education Programs
- PDF / 707,691 Bytes
- 24 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 62 Downloads / 213 Views
Aspiring Teachers and Urban Education Programs Adam Alvarez1 · Abiola Farinde‑Wu2 · Lori Delale‑O’Connor3 · Ira E. Murray4
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Research stresses a need for more contextually nuanced urban teacher preparation programs that explore racially oppressive structures in society. This article presents a case study of five aspiring teachers who participated as mentors in a 2-year program for ninth grade students at Riverview Academy, an urban school. This study uses the opportunity gap explanatory framework to analyze if and how, through this program’s preparation protocol, these five aspiring teachers learned to build on rich community based knowledge, while problematizing the various social, political, and economic conditions that contribute to racial inequity. Participants’ individual shifts varied, but, the group came to collectively “see” and name three consistent issues. Unfortunately, they were unable to formulate broader critiques of the “unseen” racialized macro-systems underpinning the micro-issues they saw. This study raises important questions and implications that speak to the ways in which racist macrostructures shape and are shaped by micro-level behaviors, beliefs, perceptions and outcomes, particularly in the context of preparing future teachers for work in urban settings. Keywords Urban education · Race · Teacher education · Mentoring programs
* Adam Alvarez [email protected] Abiola Farinde‑Wu [email protected] Lori Delale‑O’Connor lori.delale‑[email protected] Ira E. Murray [email protected] 1
Rowan University, James Hall 2nd Floor, 201 Mullica Hill Rd., Glassboro, NJ 08012, USA
2
University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, USA
3
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
4
United Way, Mississippi, USA
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
The Urban Review
Introduction Research continues to highlight the significance of preparing future teachers to better serve students from diverse racial/ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds, as well as students who live and attend schools in urban environments (Anderson and Stillman 2010; Ladson-Billings 1999; Milner 2013; Rodriguez 2013; Sleeter 2001). Because many aspiring teachers, mostly White, enter preparation programs with race-neutral views or deficit-oriented attitudes toward urban schools and communities (Hughes 2005; Ladson-Billings 1999; Matias 2016; Milner 2010), scholars argue for supporting teacher development through a more contextually nuanced approach that centers on understanding the socio-political and historical influences of a racialized social system (Aleman et al. 2017; Haberman 2000; Howard 2015; Stachowski and Mahan 1998; Zeichner 2010). A problem, however, is that even race- and equity-focused shifts in teacher preparation programs perpetuate Whiteness in myriad ways (Lam 2015; Matias et al. 2016; Sleeter 2017). That is, numerous pedagogical moments have illustrated structural and individual forms of White-resistance in teacher education, such as minimizing or prohibiting con
Data Loading...
