Abstract
The work of preparing teachers and adequately supporting them in schools requires that we ensure their ability to meet the academic, socioemotional, and sociocultural needs of young people. It also requires countering the normative culture of Whiteness in teacher education and the perpetuation of its oppressive and debilitating impact on program design and implementation, pedagogy, and community interactions and partnerships. Calderon (2006) states that “the reproduction of whiteness in structures serves to oppress raced, gendered, and classed individuals and communities who deviate from the norms established by the ideology of whiteness” (p. 73). While the field of teacher education has made strides in efforts to be more social justice focused and responsive to persistent challenges facing teachers, schools, and families, there is still much work to do to eliminate the presence and use of White supremacist logics in teacher education programs, policy development and implementation, research, and practice. As scholars continue to call for decentering Whiteness in teacher education (e.g., Matias et al., 2018; Salazar, 2018; Sleeter, 2001, 2017) we urge the field to remain focused on and responsive to long-standing questions that require sustained and persistent attention: (a) Who is conducting research in teacher education? (b) With whom is the research being done? (c) How is the research being conducted in ways that amplify voices, promote equity, and prioritize justice in teaching and learning for the most vulnerable families and communities?
A focus on normalizing a more equitable and just culture in the field begins with honoring and affirming the multiple perspectives and lived experiences of students and families from marginalized communities. Our call for education researchers to center and amplify the voices and perspectives of those who are too often positioned at the margins of educational research, policy, and practice is not new. However, the continuing impacts of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism and other forms of discrimination necessitate a renewed sense of urgency and collective action. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the significant, devastating and likely long-lasting impact on communities already facing economic and health-related challenges which serve to exacerbate educational inequities. A focus on normalizing a more equitable and just culture in the field also requires inclusion of diverse methodological approaches for addressing persistent and emergent challenges in teaching and learning. We feel that it is critical not only to re-voice but also to elaborate on what we have written about in previous editorials (Carter Andrews et al., 2019; Richmond, Bartell, et al., 2020; Richmond, Cho, et al., 2020)—that it is an imperative for us as a community of educational researchers to step back and give thoughtful and critical consideration to the issues which need the most attention, as well as to the time and care we give to this work, despite the fact that both are investments often at odds with the pressures on academic scholars.
The articles that appear in this issue are diverse in their focus and the methodologies employed. We want to celebrate this diversity, as it represents the multiple lenses used in trying to understand the knotty problems facing the field of teacher education. At the same time, we want to set a challenge to the field which is just as complicated, and that is namely the lack of representation of Scholars of Color in teacher education. While representation has increased among the ranks of those pursuing graduate degrees in teacher education, as a field, we are faced with the obligation to support the development of these individuals as faculty so that their research and scholarship are informing all aspects of teacher education (e.g., policy development, teacher education research, program design, curriculum, community collaboration) through varied publication outlets. In the remainder of this editorial, we provide a brief rationale for why the who, whom, and how are still goals for teacher education, and provide some insight on how advancements can be made in these areas.
Who Is Conducting Research in Teacher Education?
Percentages of historically underrepresented groups of full-time faculty have not significantly changed over the last 20 years (Masterson, 2019). Furthermore, much of the teacher education professoriate is overwhelmingly White (Goodwin, 2004; Ladson-Billings, 2005), yet we know that increasing the number of faculty of Color in a higher education space brings varied perspectives, lived experiences, and new approaches to addressing problems of policy and practice (Turner, 2003). Sleeter (2001) posits that our focus on diversifying the teacher candidate population is not mirrored in our efforts to include more faculty of Color in teacher education. A commitment to privileging the epistemological and ontological diversity that is grounded in cultural traditions and histories of People of Color requires ensuring not only that we have a racially diverse educator workforce but that we also attend to recruitment and retention of graduate students and faculty of Color who will work in teacher education to explicitly decenter Whiteness in their research, teaching, and service/outreach with marginalized schools and communities. In an era where diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring initiatives are on the rise in higher education, colleges of education must be willing to not only diversify the racial representation of the education and research graduate student and (teacher education) faculty populations but also integrate and honor the varied pedagogical and research orientations they bring to bear in their work.
Articles in this issue not only report findings from educational researchers (e.g., Trang & Hansen, this issue) but also reflect perspectives from novice and experienced teacher educators from a variety of backgrounds (e.g., Chávez-Moreno; Colwell et al.; Kang; Wolkenhauer & Hooser, all in this issue). The authors’ varied expertise and experiences contribute to the diverse topics of focus and challenge us to notice, critique, and critically reflect on teacher preparation efforts beyond technical reproduction of existing practices. It is through these varied perspectives that we can continue to engage in dialectical and dialogical scholarly reflective actions to promote knowledge transformation in teacher education (Richmond, Cho, et al. 2020). It is essential that this transformation include Teacher Educators of Color.
With Whom Is Teacher Education Research Being Conducted?
Disrupting educational inequities and facilitating equitable educational opportunities for marginalized students, families, and communities require critical self-reflection and action as we examine who we are conducting research with, how and why we are doing so, and for what purposes. It is imperative to engage the work of teacher education with historically marginalized communities. The interactional nature of the “with” is co-created, reciprocal, egalitarian, and justice-oriented. This is in contrast to research “on” historically marginalized communities that is often imposed, disguised in a veil of altruism, and is colonizing and paternalistic. The “with” aligns with the teachings of Paulo Freire (1970) who declared that the greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed is to liberate themselves. Consequently, the role of research is to engage with those who have been historically marginalized in their efforts to liberate themselves. Thus, researchers and educators who are accomplices in this work have the responsibility to amplify the voices of those at the margins, and engage with communities to find the pathways to freedom. This entails building on the community’s funds of knowledge (González et al., 2006; Moll et al., 1992) and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005). This necessitates re-envisioning the space at the margins. hooks (1989) envisions the margins not as a site of deprivation, but the opposite—“a site of radical possibility, a space of resistance” (p. 20).
In a variety of ways, some of the empirical articles in this issue highlight community funds of knowledge and spaces of resistance as critical to decentering Whiteness and prioritizing justice in teacher education. The articles in this issue highlight teacher–child relationship (Trang & Hansen, this issue), teaching interactions (Wiens et al., this issue), preservice teachers’ experiences in teacher education coursework and field experiences (Cowell et al., this issue; Kang, this issue), inservice teacher learning outcomes (Copur-Gencturk & Thacker, 2021), and the experiences of teacher educators (Chávez-Moreno, this issue; Wolkenhauer & Hooser, this issue). The authors consider the interconnectedness of teachers’ experiences as situated in various educational spaces and acknowledge the complex and evolving nature of teacher development. The literature reviews in this issue (Estellés & Fischman, this issue; Pugach et al., this issue) remind us voices and perspectives need to be further integrated as we continue to engage with various stakeholders to promote social justice in teacher education. Collectively, the articles in this issue challenge the field to continue efforts at decentering Whiteness across various dimensions of teacher education.
How Are We Conducting Teacher Education Research?
An enduring challenge in teacher education is learning how to engage educational research with and not on communities that are often situated at the margins in education research and teacher education. In advocating for researchers to examine the experiences and perspectives of marginalized teachers, students, and families, we further call for a reconsideration of how such work is taken up. Our efforts require decentering Whiteness while building upon the existing body of educational research that takes up strengths-based approaches to teaching and learning in humanizing ways that reflect the needs of those disproportionately affected by inequities. We understand as necessary the inclusion of humanizing approaches to education research (Paris & Winn, 2014; Salazar, 2013) that build with the desires of research participants and take action toward a more just future (Tuck, 2009). Such work requires methodologies that position researchers as working with community members rather than on community members. For example, community-based research (Baldridge et al., 2017) and participatory action research with youth (Caraballo et al., 2017; Warren & Marciano, 2018) provide opportunities for education researchers to utilize methodologies that privilege partnering with members of marginalized communities and building with their assets as strengths in attempts to disrupt educational inequities.
The need to rapidly shift educational practices challenges educators and teacher educators to recognize the magnified disparities, attend to the augmented complexities, and engage in scholarly endeavors that contest practices that perpetuate inequity in educational spaces (Carter Andrews et al., 2017; Richmond, Cho, et al., 2020). Articles included in this issue illustrate the potential of using a variety of research methodologies to engage in scholarly inquiries given the states of complexity. In addition to quantitative studies based on surveys, outcome measures, and longitudinal databases (e.g., Copur-Gencturk & Thacker, 2021; Trang & Hansen, this issue), researchers employ qualitative approaches to examine preservice teachers’ perceptions regarding culturally relevant disciplinary literacy (Colwell et al., this issue), preservice teachers’ mentor-teacher-mediated experiences (Kang, this issue), and novice teacher educators’ experiences in a professional development school setting (Wolkenhauer & Hooser, this issue). Wiens et al. (2021) combine quantified coding of a video-based assessment and other quantitative data to examine preservice teachers’ skills to identify effective teaching interactions. Through a critical review of literature, Estellés and Fischman (this issue) urge scholars to consider a more socially just global citizenship education model. Pugach, Gomez-Najarro, and Matewos’s (2019) review of 25 years of research reveals limited presence of studies focusing on disability in social justice teacher education. Chávez-Moreno (this issue) presents her own immigrant counternarrative to situate her personal journey in the sociopolitical-historical context of teacher education to expose masternarratives that operate against immigrants. Combined, these authors offer valuable insights to promote the scholarly inquiries beyond isolated spaces in teacher education (Beck, 2020).
How Do We Achieve Goals Related to Who, With Whom, and How?
To achieve the goals we identified at the onset of this editorial, several organizational and cultural imperatives must be addressed by institutions or organizations. In addition, these institutions must be held accountable in a continuing way for strategies as well as outcomes. The first of these imperatives is recruiting and retaining faculty and graduate students of Color who become teacher educators and education researchers; and, the second of these is the inclusion and preparation of teachers of Color in/for the field. While these involve somewhat different strategies, they are also related, as we know from research that the presence of instructors and mentors with whom a student relates with respect to such characteristics as race, gender, and life histories, has a positive impact on engagement, achievement, and retention (Achinstein & Ogawa, 2011; Egalite et al., 2015).
Similarly, agencies which have the responsibility for making policy decisions and/or managing federal funding dollars must also enhance their diversity and inclusion efforts so that program officers, advisory board members, and grant reviewers represent a wide array of cultural identities and perspectives. This diversity in representation must be with respect not only to social identity (e.g., race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality) but also be reflected in areas of expertise with regard to research foci and methodologies, commitment to praxis, and issues faced by communities that traditionally have been rendered voiceless. The alternative to taking on a broadened view of legitimate and fundable research is a reproduction of the inequities in research and in scholarly participation which continue to persist.
Finally, editors of scholarly journals (and the professional organizations with which many such journals are associated) have an imperative to construct leadership teams (senior and associate editors, editorial and review boards) which are culturally diverse. Related to this is the urgency in encouraging high-quality work which addresses the knotty problems facing groups and communities which have been and continue to be underserved in so many ways. Only by committing to move ahead with both initiatives will the types of research that we noted earlier be accessible to the educational research community and generate the kind of visible scholarly conversation (both written and oral) which allows us to benefit from such exchanges and moves our work and our collective understanding forward.