Table Of ContentReconceptualizing
Social Justice in
Teacher Education
Moving to Anti-racist
Pedagogy
Edited by
Susan Browne
Gaëtane Jean-Marie
Reconceptualizing Social Justice in
Teacher Education
Susan Browne • Gaëtane Jean-Marie
Editors
Reconceptualizing
Social Justice in
Teacher Education
Moving to Anti-racist Pedagogy
Editors
Susan Browne Gaëtane Jean-Marie
College of Education College of Education
Rowan University Rowan University
Glassboro, NJ, USA Glassboro, NJ, USA
ISBN 978-3-031-16643-3 ISBN 978-3-031-16644-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16644-0
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P
rologue
Social justice education has implications for what we teach (curriculum)
and how we teach (pedagogy). Despite an increasing number of educators
integrating critical analysis of racial justice/injustice into their curricula,
many struggle to teach about social justice or anti-racism. Racial discrimi-
nation is common in all corners of society, and today’s globalization has
accelerated cultural integration, but things are not as benign as they seem.
There is still less tolerance and acceptance of minoritized groups in the
private and public sectors of society. In the United States, systemic and
structural racism are highly complex and continue to perpetuate who gets
access to resources and opportunities. As such, to eradicate structural
inequality one by one, “racial diversity and equality” is a necessary agenda
in P-20 educational systems to strive for continuously (Hoffman &
Mitchell, 2016).
The collection of chapters in this edited volume addresses myriad issues
that seek to deconstruct structural inequalities rooted in policies, pro-
cesses, and pedagogical practices in P-20 contexts (Andrews et al., 2017).
The range of authors offers perspectives that interrogate the evolution of
multiculturalism to social justice to antiracism, and its impact on teacher
preparation programs, teaching and learning, enhancing in-service and
pre-service teachers’ knowledge, skills, and disposition, and confronting
disparities that linger.
In Part I of the book titled, Laying the Foundation and Shifting Frames
in Teacher
Education, the three chapters provide foundational knowledge and
new directions in teacher education to dive deeper into anti-racism. In
v
vi PROLOGUE
Chap 1, A Deep Dive: Reconceptualizing Social Justice in Teacher Education,
Browne, Jean-Marie, Onofre, and Dai examine the evolution of social jus-
tice in teacher education that spans from multicultural education, critical
pedagogy, and culturally relevant pedagogy to antiracist pedagogy to
address social inequities in P-12 schools. The chapter traces the historical
roots of integrating social justice in teacher education to current efforts in
order to develop and nurture anti-racist teachers.
In Chap. 2, Envisioning Spaces of Anti-racist Pedagogy in Teacher
Education Programs, King explores some of the hesitancies and barriers to
enacting a more structured pedagogy of anti-racism in teacher education
programs at the faculty level. Further, she probes the use of strategic
empathy (Zembylas, 2012) as a tool to encourage the self-reflection and
paradigm shifting necessary to engage pre-service teachers in examining
the societal and policy structures that impede the success of CLD students
coupled with balancing pre-service teachers’ identities and beliefs with tar-
geted goals of anti-racist pedagogy. In this section, in Chap. 3, Becoming
a Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Educator (CRSE): White Pre-Service
Teachers, Reflexivity, and the Development of Self, Cole-Malott and Samuels
explore what happens when three White pre-service teachers enact cultur-
ally relevant and sustaining education approaches in a Professional
Development School (PDS) and how these outcomes shape their own
identities and self-development as educators. Specifically, they examine
their intentions and the subsequent outcomes of their goals and unpack
the challenges, setbacks, and the responsibility of what it means to do this
work even when the rewards do not align with the efforts.
In Part II of the book, Disrupting Teaching and Learning for
Emancipatory Practices, three chapters examine nuances of what it means
to disrupt discursive practices that lead to meaningful teaching and learn-
ing inside and outside the classroom space. In Chap. 4, Diversity-in-
Action: From Data to Doing, Kedley examines social justice and change as
experienced by the faculty diversity committee in the College of Education
at Rowan University over a five-year period. The chapter serves as a testi-
mony of some of the Diversity-in-Action’s (DIA) processes, including the
opportunities and challenges faced, and how it moved forward, and where
it hopes to go. In Chap. 5, On ‘ceding space’: Pushing Back on Idealized
Whiteness to Foster Freedom for Students of Color, Jones, Markoff, and
Carter Andrews describe the ways that many White teachers’ ontologies
and performative emotions (Matias & Zembylas, 2014) undermine efforts
at antiracist and emancipatory teaching and learning and perpetuate
PROLOGUE vii
education violence against Students of Color. Drawing on the work of
Shange (2019), they begin by describing emancipatory and antiracist ped-
agogy and what it means to enact such pedagogies to counter systemic
racism in K-12 schools and examine how ontological proximity to white-
ness, white fear, white wokeness, and commitments to white perfection-
ism operate as forms of violence against Students of Color, and we offer
pedagogies and practices that counter this as a way to foster learning envi-
ronments that are freeing and dismantle systemic racism. In Chap. 6,
Beyond Teaching Racial Content: Antiracist Pedagogy as Implementing
Antiracist Practices, Kishimoto situates the importance of doing antiracist
pedagogy in the context of broader social and political forces. With its
focus on both individual and systemic changes and awareness of both stu-
dents’ and educators’ social positionality, he argues that antiracist peda-
gogy goes beyond teaching racial content and examines how to implement
antiracist practices and build community.
In Part III of the book, Curricula Revitalization for Preparing Today’s
Pre-Service Teachers, the authors discuss the implications of curricula
modifications and amplification to better prepare future educators. In
Chap. 7, The Stories We Teach By: The Use of Storytelling to Support Anti-
Racist Pedagogy, Morettini, Abraham, and Wilson-Hill nuance the dimen-
sions of storytelling for use in the classroom to illustrate ways other
educators might take up anti-racist practices that humanize what it means
to be an educator in these trying times. They argue that a pedagogy
grounded in story modeled vulnerability, attended to students’ wellness,
and opened up conversations around difficult topics such as racial inequi-
ties. This has deepened their commitment to the use of storytelling as a
powerful pedagogical practice that models leaning into courageous con-
versations and delves into the urgent issues facing educators and students;
that is, how we engage our students in humanizing and meaningful con-
versations around race-related topics. In Chap. 8, Outcasting Teacher
Education: Abolishing Caste-maintaining Practices in Teacher Education
Programs, Allen-Handy implements a critical race theory analysis of cur-
rent teacher education models and examines how they may promote and
solidify caste in urban teacher education and contours an anti-racist frame-
work with implications for teacher education programs. In Chap. 9, A
New Paradigm for Preparing Teachers of Black Males, Lyons and Howard
disrupt the oversight of Black males in teacher education literature. They
do so by calling for challenging teacher educators to radically rethink
teacher education when it comes to meeting the needs of Black males and
viii PROLOGUE
discussing the influence of effective mentorship and illustrating potential
ways to foster sustained classroom engagement.
In the final section, Part IV, Anchoring Field Experience/Clinical
Practice: Leveraging School-Family-Community Connections, the authors
ground their analyses on what is occurring through field and clinical expe-
rience and professional development which draw upon community
resources and co-creating curricula with stakeholders to enhance pre-
service teachers’ preparation and in-service teachers’ development that
empower them to use their voices to dismantle inequalities and barriers
that persist. The collection of chapters centers on addressing diversity and
equity through culturally relevant or sustaining pedagogies that are
embedded in field-based and clinical experiences for pre-service teachers
and professional development for in-service teachers. As one group of
authors noted, “Teacher preparation and clinical experiences need re-
imagining to empower TCs to enact anti-racist pedagogies and envision
their roles as agents of change in classrooms.”
In Chap. 10, Growing in Understanding of Ourselves and Each Other:
Preparing Teachers for Antiracist Classrooms through Connections to the
Field, Waddell, Poos, and Caruthers detail how one urban-serving teacher
education program utilized field experiences and the community as the
basis for preparing anti-racist educators. They also examine field-based
and/or field-connected program components through the themes of two
qualitative studies in which program graduates relate their teacher prepa-
ration experience to their current work as anti-racist educators in urban
schools. They assert that the information and data reported in this chapter
can be of use in teacher preparation programs and coursework that are
integrally connected to the field. The program components can also
inform practices of pre-service programs and teacher professional develop-
ment. In Chap. 11, Developing Culturally Responsive Antiracist Activism,
McIntosh and Nenonene argue that developing specialized programs to
respond to the needs of today’s increasingly diverse student population
and chronicle how their Urban Teacher Academy (UTA) in partnership
with local urban school districts, is reimagined centering activist pedagogi-
cal practices and clinical experiences that strengthen and empower teacher
candidates. They contend that Education Preparation Programs (EPP)
have a responsibility to produce graduates who have a knowledge base and
skill set that will enable them to create inclusive and supportive spaces for
all learners in K-16 education.
PROLOGUE ix
In Chap. 12, The Role of Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Practices for
Clinical Interns in Professional Development Schools, Brant, Fall, Tulino,
Leftwich, Elder, and Woodfield examine through their university’s
Professional Development Schools (PDS) Network embedded profes-
sional development, coursework, and field experiences in PDSs that enact
culturally relevant, culturally sustaining, and equity-based pedagogies to
help teachers breach the disconnect between the theory and praxis, under-
stand their own biases, disrupt deficit ways of thinking, and design learn-
ing experiences to meet the needs of P-12 learners. In Chap. 13, Working
Toward Anti-Racist Teacher Preparation: Clinical Experiences in Urban
Schools, Rao and Olson, drawing on a study, focus on aspects of clinical
experiences that contributed to development of teacher candidates’ con-
tent knowledge and pedagogical skills, specifically focusing on develop-
ment of culturally responsive pedagogy. They make salient the importance
of intentional field placements, readings, and assignments focused on
teaching about systems of oppression and interrupting inequities embed-
ded within education systems.
In considering the contributions of this edited book through the col-
lections of chapters, it is difficult to imagine classrooms since the death of
George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmed Arbery, and others that evoked
national and international chants of “Black Lives Matter”, “No Justice,
No Peace”, and “I Can’t Breathe” from protestors representing diverse
ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds being disaffected by the global
response to act. The call to action is also for teacher preparation programs.
It is a call to consider how the work devoted to social justice is more
explicit and intentional about its commitment to a racially just society.
What does it mean for teacher education to seize this moment to confront
racism and inequities that continue to perpetuate in society and school?
Indeed, this edited book explores and extends themes in contemporary
educational research on teacher preparation in terms of the continuum of
social justice to antiracist pedagogy to better serve the needs of all learners
in P-12 education. The book highlights efforts that are being augmented
to prepare teacher candidates and future faculty to address systemic racism
in their teaching practices.
Glassboro, NJ Gaëtane Jean-Marie
Glassboro, NJ Yu-Jung Dai
x PROLOGUE
references
Andrews, D. J. C., Richmond, G., & Stroupe, D. (2017). Teacher education and
teaching in the present political landscape: Promoting educational equity
through critical inquiry and research. Journal of Teacher
Education, 68(2), 121–124.
Hoffman, G. D. & Mitchell, T. D. 2016. Making diversity “everyone’s business”:
A discourse analysis of institutional responses to student activism for equity and
inclusion. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3): 277–289. https://
doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000037.
Matias, C. E., & Zembylas, M. (2014). ‘When saying you care is not really caring’:
Emotions of disgust, whiteness ideology, and teacher education. Critical
Studies in Education, 55(3), 319–337.
Shange, S. (2019). Progressive dystopia: Abolition, antiblackness, and schooling in
San Francisco. Duke University Press.
Zembylas, M. (2012). Pedagogies of strategic empathy: Navigating through the
emotional complexities of anti-racism in higher education. Teaching in Higher
Education, 17(2), 113–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/1356251
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