Abstract
Throughout the country, urban teacher education programs ubiquitously employ the terms “diversity” and “social justice” on their websites. But—what do these terms mean and how do they influence (if at all) the programs represented by these terms according to the lived experiences of students of color in these programs? Through historical trauma theory, this study seeks to understand the experiences of teachers of color who graduated from urban teacher education programs that employed “diversity” and “social justice” on their websites. Through the analysis of interviews conducted with eight teachers of color, it unveils how teacher education programs dehumanize and exclude pre-service teachers of color, fostering psychological violence, promoting segregation and displacement, and cultivating economic deprivation. Findings show that the rhetorical and visual portraits of “diversity” and “social justice” on these programs’ websites are experienced by teachers of color as incongruent to their lived experiences within them. In particular, the outward facing diverse racial images do not reflect the populations these teacher education programs serve (mostly white) and the classroom and field experiences are dissonant from the commitments the programs espouse. Implications call for transforming teacher education from spaces where historical trauma is reproduced to spaces where racial healing and reconciliation can occur.
Keywords
Throughout the country, urban teacher education programs—those aiming to prepare teachers for urban education settings (Milner, 2012)—often profess the need for “diversity” and “social justice.” This is visible on many university-based teacher education program websites, which portray the faces of students of color. Urban teacher education programs’ stated visions, missions, and descriptions are peppered with the terms “diverse,” “diversity,” and “social justice.”
But—what do these terms mean and how do they influence (if at all) the programs represented by these terms? And, most importantly, what happens when students of color enter these programs? What are their lived experiences? And, what can we learn from them? In this article, we unveil the ways that portraits of “diversity” and “social justice” are mirages that mask the reality that the populations most teacher education programs serve are mostly white and their commitments to equity are often strong in language and empty in lived experience (Milner et al., 2013; Sleeter, 2017; U.S. Department of Education, 2016).
Teacher education’s moral compass and much of the “rhetoric, although having a veneer of diversity, is actually an updated version of the 1960s and 1970s cultural deficit discourse” (Ladson-Billings, 2005, p. 231). We suggest that a shift in words without a radical shift in practice or diversity pathologizes individuals and communities of color because it suggests that there are spaces that welcome diverse students despite the reality that no significant efforts have been made to move beyond words and into action towards inclusion. This, Ladson-Billings (2005) argued, is reaffirmed by the demographics of teacher educators, which is predominantly white (Milner et al., 2013). These white teachers graduate with a false perception of their commitments to diversity and social justice inherited from their teacher education programs and are then likely to frame racism as “our students’ problems” (Thompson, 2003, p. 10).
With the recognition of “the physiological and psychological impact of racism and discrimination” (American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 1), we engage with historical trauma theory. “The premise of this theory is that populations historically subjected to long-term, mass trauma—colonialism, slavery, war, genocide—exhibit a higher prevalence of disease even several generations after the original trauma occurred” (Sotero, 2006, p. 93). We understand that “all trauma experiences are technically historical in nature” (p. 95). It is from this perspective that we seek to understand the experiences of teachers of color over the course of their time in programs claiming to engage in “diversity” and “social justice.”
Literature Review
In this section, we review literature pertaining to the historical whitification of teacher education, the terms “diversity” and “social justice” in teacher education, and two key aspects of the whiteness of teacher education today—demographics and curriculum. Embracing an understanding of “whiteness as property” (Harris, 1993, p. 1709), we briefly review instances of trauma experienced by teachers who do not have whiteness to wield and shield them from trauma inducing societal mistreatment. We also explore possible triggers that may be unearthing historical trauma in teacher education programs today. In doing so, we unveil how in addition to mass trauma experienced by teachers of color, emanating from colonialism and chattel slavery in the United States, there is also long-term trauma emanating from the experiences of teachers of color in the past, which may inflict psychological harm several generations later.
Although whiteness was “initially constructed as a form of racial identity, [it] evolved into a form of property” (Harris, 1993, p. 1709). In conjunction with systems of oppression and domination, such as settler colonialism and chattel slavery, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege . . . the basis for allocating societal benefits . . . Even as legal segregation was overturned, whiteness as property continued to serve as a barrier to effective change as the system of racial classification operated to protect entrenched power. (p. 1709)
In contemporary teacher education, whiteness operates in much the same way and is at the root of historical trauma and the ways it reemerges in the contemporary.
On the Historical Whitification of Teaching and Teacher Education
Teaching and teacher education programs, curricula, and approaches have been built on the marginalization of indigenous ways of knowing, the silencing of the powerful pedagogies of Black schools, and the dismissal of the rich language practices of communities of color. Teachers of color and the ways of knowing and communicating within their families and communities have been marginalized by teacher education programs and are often silenced by teacher educators. These programs are extensions of larger white settler institutions that position themselves as the sole preparers of teachers for positions in schools. They operate in much the same way as colonial systems and are dominant in the landscape of teacher education in the United States today (Milner et al., 2013). Thus, we focus here on the role and definition of teacher competence post–Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision that led to the whitification of the teaching force (Ladson-Billings, 2004), a by-product of the ingrained racism in American society. Brown “caused the dismissal, demotion, or forced resignation of many experienced, highly credentialed black educators who staffed black-only schools” (Will, 2019, p. 3).
Examples of how racism has led to the whitification of the teaching profession are illustrated by the experiences of Darla Buchanan (a teacher in Topeka, Kansas) and of Horace Tate (Siddle Walker, 2018) as well as by the firing of 11 certified Black teachers in Missouri. In Kansas, Darla Buchanan received a letter from her superintendent, Wendell Godwin, dated March 13, 1953, which read, “the majority of people in Topeka will not want to employ Negro teachers next year for white children. It is necessary for me to notify you now that your services will not be needed for next year” (Kansas Historical Society, 2004/2017). As can be seen in this letter, the interests of white children and white families were regarded as more important than those of Black families and children. In north Georgia, Horace Tate, a principal for 14 years experienced salary losses and the eventual closure of the Black school where he had been principal, being placed in a windowless office in an attic; humiliated, he turned in his resignation. Yet, his journey clearly signals how he was pushed out of the profession (Siddle Walker, 2018). Finally, in Missouri, upon the closure of a segregated Black school, 11 certified teachers were fired; at least one of whom had a Ph. D. (Will, 2019); seven of them sued the school district (Brooks et al. v. School District of City of Moberly, Missouri, 1959). Their complaint was dismissed by Van Oosterhout, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Judge, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. As Madkins (2011) underscored in her literature review, “Black teachers were not hired in desegregated schools” (p. 417).
Post-Brown definitions of “teacher competence” and associated requirements and assessments served to eliminate more than “38,000 African American teachers” between 1954 and 1965 (Hudson & Holmes, 1994, p. 389). The decade following these job losses experienced a 66% decline in African Americans majoring in education between 1975 and 1985, a reasonable outcome of young African Americans seeing highly-qualified community and family members being fired by or demoted in schools. Then, between 1984 and 1989, “37,717 minority candidates and teachers . . . were eliminated as a result of newly installed teacher certification and teacher education program admissions requirements” (Hudson & Holmes, 1994, p. 389).
We argue that teacher competence and competency testing have served as tools to center white ways of knowing in teacher education programs and to eliminate educators of color. According to Hudson and Holmes (1994), “new educational reform ideas and requirements serve only as additional obstacles to African American children, teachers, and communities” (p. 392), confirming obstacles that discouraged teachers of color’s entry “into the field” including “low scores on competency tests, their disproportionate failure to meet revised certification requirements, [and] declining teacher salaries” (p. 391).
Under the guise of competence, “The Effects of Competency Testing on the Supply of Minority Teachers” report (Smith, 1987) “documents the elimination through admission and testing of an estimated 37,717 minority candidates and teachers, including 21,515 blacks, 10,142 Hispanics, 1,626 Asians, 716 Native Americans, and 3,718 other minorities” (Smith, 1988, p. 179). The report also notes that if data were available for all test administrations in all states, the numbers eliminated would be much higher (Smith, 1987). This stands in stark contrast to the well-documented historical excellence of Black colleges and universities in teacher education (Collier, 2002; Siddle Walker, 2008), and calls into question definitions of teacher competency and assessment tools post–Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Paradoxically, from the 1970s, dominant teacher education professional organizations engaged with the rhetoric of “diversity” and “social justice.”
On Diversity and Social Justice in Teacher Education Post-Brown
The history of professed commitments to diversity and social justice in teacher education post-Brown is parallel to the establishment and development of a culture of compliance, standards, and assessments in teacher education (Cornbleth, 2014). Demands for teacher education standards and assessments led to the establishment of a culture of compliance and externally imposed surveillance enacted through standards established by well-known organizations in the field, such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC), Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), and American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) post-Brown. This is visible in reports issued since the 1980s, such as The Report of the Task Force on Teaching as a Profession (Carnegie Corporation, 1986), Tomorrow’s Teachers (Holmes Group, 1986), and What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future (National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996). This commitment has persisted.
Although we do not review the entire history of the terms, we identify key points where the terms “diversity” and “social justice” have become fixtures in teacher education over the past 45 years. In the early 1970s, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (1973) adopted a statement on multicultural education and teacher education, No One Model America. No One Model America was a tripartite document containing a “conception of multicultural education and cultural pluralism . . . components of education for cultural pluralism . . . [and the] role of educational institutions, particularly those that prepare teachers.” As such, it called for teacher education programs to consider the importance of diversity. It awarded “a crucial role” to teacher education in enacting its vision: “Cultural pluralism permeates all aspects of the program, going beyond awareness and understanding of diversity” in the pursuit of making “cultural equality real and meaningful” in the education of teachers (Cornbleth, 2014, p. 38). As Nieto (2000) explained, No One Model America “may sound hopelessly naive and incomplete . . . [but] it was the first clear indication that attention to race, difference, and social justice were finally to be taken seriously by the educational establishment” (p. 182). Even though No One Model America has been “faulted for being short on specific practices,” it established the “position for teacher education that would become the norm, at least rhetorically, decades later” (Cornbleth, 2014, p. 38), visible in teacher education programs’ use of terms such as “diversity” and “equity.”
NCATE subsequently developed standards, which were approved in 1977 (Cornbleth, 2014). Teaching standards were seen as a way to reform teacher education, as a “lever for change” (Dietz, 1998), and associated standards-based teacher evaluation systems were proposed to positively affect professional development and learning (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). Although, their implementation was not effective, a number of literature reviews reveal that most teacher education programs did not have significant ways to address issues pertaining to diversity and social justice and thereby engage the standards (Cochran-Smith et al., 2003; Grant & Agosto, 2008; Gollnick, 1995, 2008; Hollins & Torres-Guzmán, 2005; Howard & Aleman, 2008). In a way, the standards served more as a way to disseminate the terms and less of a way to enact change.
In 2000, NCATE adopted Standards 2000, which became used to accredit programs of teacher education since 2000, specify that candidates preparing to work in schools as teachers must demonstrate the “professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions” necessary to help all students learn. Standards 2000 further requires that programs seeking accreditation from NCATE develop and implement a performance-based system for assessing candidates . . . Since NCATE accredits over half of the approximately 1,300 teacher education programs nationwide, it is easy to see how dispositions have come to command considerable attention in teacher education. (Villegas, 2007, p. 373)
Regardless of changes in national accreditation bodies—for example, from NCATE to CAEP to the recent addition of Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP), such discourse of diversity and social justice remains problematic—for example, focus on “all students.” Whereas it is important for teachers to help all students learn, students of color are being and have been disproportionately disadvantaged and miseducated by U.S. schools, as evidenced by the racial disparities in disciplinary issues from preschool on (Skiba et al., 2014) and (mostly white) teachers’ beliefs about the behaviors of children and youth of color (Kunesh & Noltemeyer, 2019). To be sure, focusing on “all students” serves to decenter students of color and dilutes the very concept of social justice. As denounced by Ladson-Billings (2005, 2015, 2017), in such cases, the term “social justice” becomes detached from its intended meanings; serving as a cover-up for the pervasiveness of racist ideas (Kendi, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2005, 2017). Relatedly, the term “diversity is losing its meaning . . . [and] has been diluted in a number of ways” (Andrews, 2016). After all, when conceptualized apart from justice, diversity serves to otherize, to marginalize; and, social justice becomes a meaningless term. This is important because what teachers “learn in their teacher education programs can have an enormous impact on the[ir] attitudes and practices” (Nieto, 2000, p. 186). In the following section, we thus turn to what we know about teachers’ learning in teacher education programs.
On the Landscape of Teacher Education Programs
Although ubiquitously present in teacher education programs’ accreditation, standards, and assessment discourses, as explored in the previous section, reviews of research have revealed few substantive changes in teacher education that allow programs and faculty to fulfill the purported commitments associated with the terms “diversity” and “social justice” (Cochran-Smith et al., 2003; Gollnick, 1995; Hollins & Torres-Guzmán, 2005; Zeichner & Hoeft, 1996). We reviewed existent research and found evidence of how over the past 20 years with the keen recognition that there is unevenness in teacher education programs’ efforts to transform teacher education in ways that prioritize social justice and diversity by centering and sustaining the values, voices, commitments, and priorities of intersectionally minoritized communities, those who albeit not the numeric minority are treated as such and who are disproportionately affected by racism and entangled forms of bigotry (McCarty, 2002; Souto-Manning, 2019). We found that albeit slowly and in uneven ways (Nieto, 2000), teacher education programs have begun to incorporate multicultural material into their courses (e.g., Gorski, 2009; Hollins & Torres-Guzmán, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 1999; Milner et al., 2013). Nevertheless, such positioning has kept Eurocentric commitments at the center.
Without fully or carefully considering the history briefly explored in this article, whereby teachers of color were pushed out of the profession over the course of decades, many experiencing dire financial difficulties and burdens, there have been a number of efforts to recruit more teachers of color into the profession (e.g., Darling-Hammond & Berry, 2006; Gordon, 1994; Irizarry, 2007). Although often very well-publicized, such efforts have not been accompanied by commitments to transform teacher education programs in ways that center the development of teachers of color (e.g., Achinstein et al., 2010; Haddix, 2016; Villegas & Davis, 2007). The ways that these efforts have been undertaken has served to further pathologize individuals and communities of color by ahistorically forwarding a narrative that conveys teachers’ of color lack of desire to go into teaching.
In the following subsections, we explain how such approaches to diversity and social justice counter purported commitments to diversity and social justice, serving to keep racist ideas centered in teacher education programs. Thus, we review literature pertaining to two facets of teacher education programs—namely, (a) curriculum and course syllabi and (b) demographics—both of which prioritize Eurocentrism.
Curricula and course syllabi
Teacher education programs have been “satisfied with adding ‘multicultural content’ rather than changing . . . [their] philosophy and structure” (Ladson-Billings, 1999, p. 221). Researchers (Gorski, 2009; Milner et al., 2013; Sleeter, 2017) have found that the curricula and course syllabi of teacher education programs remain pervasively aligned with white interests, by centering whiteness, focusing on cultural sensitivity and promoting tolerance, attending to white sensibilities, and stopping short of transforming themselves in ways that center the values, voices, experiences, and needs of intersectionally minoritized communities.
In her study, Sleeter (2017) employs a critical race theoretical framework, pinpointing that a gap persists between what teacher education programs purport doing and the continued production of mainly White teachers who by and large are not well equipped to offer racially/ethnically diverse students (now the majority) a strong and culturally responsive education. (p. 163)
She explains that there are pervasive claims of neutrality, colorblindness, and meritocracy in teacher education. “Curricular content of teacher education programs tends to reflect white sensibilities” (Sleeter, 2017, p. 158). That is, she offers “evidence that teacher educators tend to focus on the emotional needs of White students rather than those of students of color” (p. 159). She “identified various structures and processes that perpetuate Whiteness but are so normalized that they are usually taken for granted” (p. 163). She documented, for example, how in most states, “certification policies specify what teachers should know in disciplinary content areas, often reinforcing Eurocentric knowledge” and further justifying its centering in teacher education programs (p. 160).
Milner and colleagues’ (2013) review of research underscored that “the curriculum of teacher education mirrors, in many ways, the P-12 curriculum in that it is Eurocentric and white dominated, to the exclusion or marginalization of people of color” (p. 346). They caution that such a “reality can alienate teachers of color, because they may feel that their worldview is marginalized, not central to what matters” (p. 346) in teacher education. And, although “it is not enough to have one standalone course on race, urban education, or equity in a teacher education program” (Milner et al., 2013, p. 346), such courses typically forward hollow commitments to social justice and diversity. For example, Gorski (2009), who analyzed the syllabi of 45 multicultural teacher education (MTE) courses in the United States, found that “what passes for MTE in most cases is not multicultural at all” (p. 309); “71% of the syllabi describe ‘multicultural education’ courses that appear inconsistent with basic theoretical principles of multicultural education” (p. 312). Thus, research suggests that despite calls for diversity and social justice, whiteness is an ingrained and pervasive aspect of teacher education in the United States (Gorski, 2009; Milner et al., 2013; Sleeter, 2017).
Demographics
The demographic landscape of teacher education is characterized by the pervasiveness of whiteness (Sleeter, 2001, 2017). Today, more than three-fourths of students in teacher education programs are white (Ladson-Billings, 2017; U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Furthermore, by hiring a mostly white teacher education workforce (Milner et al., 2013), teacher education continues to reproduce racial inequities under the guise of whiteness as normal, and to position the ways and systems of knowing of communities of color as “other.” This is particularly problematic given the demographic disproportionality in U.S. public schools, which are populated by a growing majority of students of color (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017) because research shows that students of color greatly benefit from having teachers of color—socially, emotionally, and academically (Villegas & Irvine, 2010). “Such benefits are evident in test scores, high school completion rates, college matriculation rates, school attendance, and enrollment in academically rigorous classes” (Villegas & Irvine, 2010, p. 185). These benefits persist. Recently, a long-term study of more than 100,000 Black students found that having one Black teacher in elementary school reduces low-income Black boys’ chances of dropping out of high school by 39% and leads to stronger expectations of going to college for high school–aged Black students across gender identifications (Gershenson et al., 2017).
The racial makeup of teacher education is similar to the racial makeup of teaching. As Milner et al. (2013) documented, teacher educators are almost 80% white.
This fact has huge ramifications for what happens in teacher education programs, including how curriculum is designed and what is taught; how students are recruited and selected; how new faculty members—and who those new faculty members are—are recruited, hired, and supported. (Sleeter, 2017, p. 158)
It is well known that “the more diverse the full-time faculty, the more likely the coursework “will address issues of racial justice” (Sleeter, 2017, p. 158). As Sleeter underscored, because teacher education programs are “defined by White interests . . . any proposed change must align with White interests to gain support” (p. 158).
Thus, despite the professed commitment since the 1970s (Nieto, 2000), teacher education programs today look less racially diverse than they did pre-Brown, when Black teacher education programs were ubiquitous. And, although NCATE mandated diversity as a focus for accreditation almost five decades ago, little has been done to transform teacher education’s demographics, programs, and content (Ladson-Billings, 2017); whiteness often remains a normalized and unquestioned feature of teacher education programs. Despite mounting research evidence on the benefits of teachers of color, which include them “holding high expectations, using culturally relevant teaching, developing caring and trusting relationships, confronting issues of racism in teaching, and serving as advocates and cultural brokers for students” of color (Villegas & Irvine, 2010, p. 185), in her review of research, Montecinos (2004) found a problematic, albeit pervasive, positioning of “students of color . . . as objects while [being] ignored as subjects” in teacher education (p. 167), denouncing how teacher education programs “make teachers of color invisible” (p. 167). In her analysis, she notes the gap between what goes on in teacher education and their purported diversity efforts.
In this section, we reviewed the literature on the ways in which teacher education has historically inflicted trauma onto communities of color. Furthermore, we considered possible trauma experienced as people of color undergo teacher preparation and are subjected to program, courses, and teaching practices that privilege whiteness. In the following section, we turn to our conceptual framework, historical trauma.
Historical Trauma as Theoretical Framework
Historical trauma theory helps us understand how teachers of color are still affected by the injustices endured by previous generations. It allows us to understand “mass trauma” (Sotero, 2006, p. 98) and interrupt “the personal pain, suffering and trauma that occur as a result of racial prejudice, discrimination, and injustice” (Horsford, 2011, p. 102). It allows us to acknowledge how minoritized communities of color have experienced “subjugation . . . by a dominant group in four ways: (1) overwhelming physical and psychological violence, (2) segregation and/or displacement, (3) economic deprivation, and (4) cultural dispossession” (Horsford, 2011, p. 103).
Moving beyond risk factors and rejecting trauma as a problem of individuals, historical trauma theory considers past and present injustices and associated traumas that have happened physically, psychologically, economically, and culturally. It considers “causal influences on health to social pathways, social transitions and their institutional contexts” (Sotero, 2006, p. 93) and accounts for the ways that these factors all coalesce to inflict harms and cause trauma. “Historical trauma theory is the embodiment of this sentiment. The premise is that populations historically subjected to long-term, mass trauma exhibit a higher prevalence of disease even several generations after the original trauma occurred” (Sotero, 2006, p. 94).
Historical trauma theory amalgamates “and builds upon three theoretical frameworks in social epidemiology” (Sotero, 2006, p. 94). It combines “psychosocial theory, which links disease to both physical and psychological stress”; “political/economic theory, which addresses the political, economic and structural determinants of health and disease such as unjust power relations and class inequality”; and “social/ecological systems theory, which recognizes the multilevel dynamics and interdependencies of present/past, proximate/distal, and life course factors in disease causation” (Sotero, 2006, p. 94).
We engaged historical trauma theory to understand how and why teachers of color have a higher psychological (and likely physical) burden than white teachers. As Sotero (2006) explained, “historical trauma theory provides a macro-level, temporal framework for examining how the ‘life course’ of a population exposed to trauma at a particular point in time compares with that of unexposed populations” (p. 94). This theory is predicated on four assumptions: (1) mass trauma is deliberately and systematically inflicted upon a target population by a subjugating, dominant population; (2) trauma is not limited to a single catastrophic event, but continues over an extended period of time; (3) traumatic events reverberate throughout the population, creating a universal experience of trauma; and (4) the magnitude of the trauma experience derails the population from its natural, projected historical course resulting in a legacy of physical, psychological, social and economic disparities that persists across generations. (pp. 94–95)
In addition, “historical trauma often threatens . . . the intrinsic invulnerability and worthiness of the individual” (Sotero, 2006, p. 95).
Over the past two decades, researchers (e.g., Walters & Simoni, 2002; Williams et al., 2003) have begun to identify historical trauma as a trigger to racial and ethnic health disparities, examining evidence of the link between racial bias and health (Williams et al., 2003). Williams et al. (2003) found that racial/ethnic “discrimination is associated with multiple indicators of poorer physical and, especially, mental health status” incurring historical trauma (p. 200). As Sotero (2006) underscored in her review of literature on historical trauma, “African Americans have sustained traumatic psychological and emotional injury as a direct result of slavery, perpetuated by social/institutional inequality, racism and oppression” (p. 97). Such trauma led to the development of health conditions associated with diagnostics such as “post traumatic slave syndrome” (Leary, 2005) or “post traumatic slavery disorder” (Reid et al., 2005).
Furthermore, as explained by Pihama et al. (2014), “as a result of genocidal and ethnocidal acts perpetuated against Native peoples they experience intergenerational transfer of trauma” (p. 249). Employing historical trauma theory, Ferreira (2004) “unveils the intrinsic links between diabetes and oppression, pointing directly to the perverse ways in which colonialism and genocide have placed Indigenous peoples at heightened risk for the disorder” (p. 357). Walters and Simoni (2002) described the impact of historical trauma on Native women’s health (e.g., leading to medical conditions such as high blood pressure). They explained how discrimination affects Native women’s psychological, emotional, and physical health. The subordination of indigenous populations and the cumulative effects of injustice and discrimination on Native people and people of color are characterized as “the ‘soul wound’ of historic and contemporary discrimination” that affects “Native women’s health within the larger context of their status as a colonized people” (p. 520).
Notably introducing the concept of “soul wound,” Duran (1990) called for the transformation, the healing of soul wounds via American Indian psychology. Duran et al. (1998) explain that the term is synonymous with historical trauma while acknowledging that “[k]nowledge of the soul wound has been present in Indian country for many generations” (p. 341). Duran and colleagues explain how “ongoing colonial paradigms . . . exacerbate the soul wound” (p. 350). In this article, we take up the concept of “soul wound” in our analysis of interview data with teachers of color to consider the trauma and harm—physical, psychological, emotional—educators of color have endured over time and seek ways to heal the soul wounds inflicted onto teachers of color.
In light of the invisibilization, marginalization, oppression, and trauma withstood by teachers of color cross-generationally, historical trauma theory (Sotero, 2006) is an apt framework to help us understand the experiences of teachers of color in U.S. urban teacher education programs which tout commitments to diversity and social justice in light of the demographic decline of teachers of color and teacher educators of color post-Brown—thereby considering the complexity of trauma cross-generationally. Historical trauma theory can help us understand “how the current educational status of these same populations can inform the ways in which we eliminate educational disparity by working to heal the soul wounds and damage caused by racism” (Horsford, 2011, p. 103). It is specifically with this intent—although understanding that urban teacher education can only create the conditions for historical trauma to be addressed, for healing, and cannot demand racial reconciliation—that we seek to engage in healing the historical trauma inflicted onto too many generations of people of color in and through teacher education.
Research Design
To understand the current context of teacher education and the rhetoric associated with its aims across white settler institutions of higher education, we started by documenting purported commitments of urban teacher education programs. To do so, we analyzed the text of websites of 20 urban teacher education programs throughout the United States. We subsequently identified four focal states based on two criteria—higher percentage of people of color and higher overall population: California, Texas, Florida, and New York. These states represented more than one-third of the total U.S. population (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2016). In each of these states, proportional to their population, we identified seven programs in California, five in Texas, four in Florida, and four in New York.
Using an internet search engine, we employed the terms “teacher education,” “program,” and “university.” We then engaged Milner’s (2012) evolving typology of urban education to identify twice as many programs for each state as we needed. We ensured that all selected programs were located in urban-intensive—large metropolitan areas—and urban emergent settings—large cities whose educational systems “have the same characteristics and sometimes challenges” as urban-intensive settings (Milner, 2012, p. 560). We did so instead of employing “urban education” as a search term to ensure that we could gauge whether or not the program was, in fact, an urban teacher education program, with the recognition that many use the term “urban” as a proxy for “diversity.” We then reviewed the websites of 20 urban teacher education programs, excluding programs that were fully online and those that graduated small cohorts of teachers (graduating less than 15 teachers per year). Using these criteria, we identified our possible pool of focal university-based urban teacher education programs in each state, ensuring the inclusion of public and private programs, and whenever we had more programs than needed, we randomly selected the needed number of programs using Excel.
Our textual analysis sought to identify the occurrence (or absence) of the terms “diversity” and “social justice” on websites pertaining to program mission, description, and coursework. We did not review faculty profiles. Our analysis showed that the terms “diversity” and/or “social justice” were prominent throughout the 20 programs’ websites. After engaging in the textual analysis of programs’ websites and verifying the presence of the terms “diversity” and “social justice,” we delved deeper, seeking to learn from the lived experiences of teachers of color who had graduated from the urban teacher education programs whose websites we analyzed. Given our location, we interviewed eight teachers of color, all of them coming from institutions whose websites had been included in our initial analysis in the state of New York (where we are both located).
In terms of recruitment, after identifying teachers we knew who had graduated from the four universities whose website descriptions we had analyzed, two private and two public, we used snowball sampling to recruit teachers of color in New York City schools for our interview. We interviewed two teachers who had graduated from each institution. We focused on teachers of color because we recognized that “the need to reposition students of color in the space of normativity in our teacher education programs is . . . critical” (Ladson-Billings, 2017, p. 155). We also wanted to understand whether, and in what ways, teachers of color had experienced the commitments to diversity and social justice professed in their teacher education programs’ websites.
The interviewed public school teachers taught in three New York City boroughs, namely, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens; they had all been teaching between 2 and 7 years at the time they were interviewed. Our positionality as former public school teachers of color and as teacher educators of color allowed us to engage with what Crenshaw (1991) calls “intersectional sensibility” (p. 1475), analytically thinking about racial identity and entangled forms of bigotry as they relate to power and privilege in urban teacher education programs. Although we offered to interview participants at a location of their choice, all eight interviews took place at the institution of higher education where we work. They lasted 40 to 90 min. Table 1 captures basic participant demographic information.
Demographic Information.
In individual interviews, which were subsequently transcribed, we asked them: “Tell me about your teacher preparation at [name of their institution of higher education]” and then followed up with, “What were some of the most memorable moments?” Although we had planned to follow up with the question “What were some of the most traumatic moments?” we did not get to ask this question, as trauma had been extensively communicated as teachers recounted prior experiences in their teacher education programs. With these prompts, we sought to understand urban teacher education programs and the lived experiences of teachers of color in teacher education programs deductively, paying careful attention to the experiences that signaled the four tenets that comprise historical trauma theory: physical and psychological violence, segregation and displacement, economic deprivation, and cultural dispossession.
Our coding of interview data showed that the key tenets of historical trauma theory were concepts present in each of the interviewee’s responses to our interview questions. Each interview unearthed at least two examples of experiences portraying each tenet. To ensure the trustworthiness of our findings, we engaged in member checks after the interview. Verifying that each participant had experienced physical and/or psychological violence, segregation and/or displacement, economic deprivation, and cultural dispossession in their teacher education programs, we followed up by asking what examples offered in their interview illustrated such experiences. These initial analyses done by the participants guided our subsequent analysis.
In the following section, we present our study’s findings, which unveil how the teachers interviewed, in spite of having completed urban education teacher preparation programs that professed to espouse “social justice” and “diversity,” experienced racial trauma during their teacher preparation. Their experiences reaffirm how people of color are overtly and covertly excluded, silenced, and start questioning their own competence and ability in urban teacher education programs, undergoing trauma and developing soul wounds.
Findings
In this section, we synthesize our findings according to the four components of racial trauma, centering the words and perspectives of eight New York City teachers of color. Although there are examples of specific experiences fitting under each of the tenets of historical trauma theory, we selected two examples per category to ensure the representation of voices. Yet, in our analysis, as we read and reread the data, identifying additional instances of the four components of racial trauma identified by Sotero (2006), it became clear how prevalent racial trauma is, being a pervasive feature of these teachers’ experiences.
According to Sotero (2006), historical trauma originates with the subjugation of a population by a dominant group. Successful subjugation requires . . . overwhelming physical and psychological violence . . . segregation and/or displacement . . . economic deprivation, and . . . cultural dispossession. (p. 99)
Thus, it is important to note that although the categories are analytically helpful, they often intersect and layer upon each other—just as multiple forms of inequality do. The teachers’ experiences of each of the tenets of historical trauma are interrelated and tend to overlap, as can be seen below. Together, they portray the soul wounds these teachers of color developed, deep and entrenched wounds, which elicited anger and disappointment expressed during our interviews and member checks, even years after these experiences occurred. Our findings indicate that soul wounds were prominent in the experiences of each and every one of these New York City teachers of color, almost as if they were part of the requirements for becoming teachers.
Ongoing Psychological Violence With Physical Consequences
The teachers we interviewed experienced psychological trauma during their teacher education programs, being treated as invisible, framed as incapable, and presumed incompetent. This psychological trauma was rooted in and perpetuated historically-sedimented myths regarding communities of color. All the teachers interviewed recalled experiences of psychological harm without hesitation. Although, as explained earlier, we had planned to ask a third question that addressed issues of trauma, we did not get to ask it as the teachers initially recalled their experiences in ways that oozed trauma. Some of the psychologically harmful experiences they recounted were associated with physical consequences.
La’Tasha, a Black teacher, voiced, It was like I wasn’t there. I got in, but [in my teacher education classes] people walked by me like I was invisible or something. Unless I could benefit them. Unless they were learning about people like me. That was like in one class each semester, right? That’s when you learn about Black kids. Then, they all wanned me to talk about Black kids. Half the time, them teachers couldn’t even bother to say my name right, when they remembered my name at all. One even asked me why Black people make up their kids’ names, like she was trynna school me on how Black people harm their kids by naming them Black names? C’mon! Gimme a break! But these things, even the small ones, you know, caused me so much anxiety that I started getting sick, like physically sick.
La’Tasha portrayed a mass trauma experience transmitted psychosocially and reified by social norms in place in her teacher education classes. Regardless of being there, she had been treated as if she were not present unless it was time to talk about, to explore “the Other” in the teacher education course, “in one class each semester.” La’Tasha recounted acute and chronic psychological violence enacted by being ignored and invisiblized, which made her “physically sick.” That is, the psychological violence she experienced in her teacher education classes may have led to a physical response, compromising her immune system. Her psychological response was “so much anxiety.” In addition, as has been documented in prior research (e.g., Montecinos, 2004), she had been positioned as an object of her white peers’ learning. She endured ridicule about her name and naming conventions of African American families and communities.
In addition, in our coding, we identified many instances of teachers of color recounting how they had been psychologically harmed by the materials in their teacher education courses as well as by the low expectations professors/instructors had for them. There was a lack of success in their belief and capacity. This was illustrated by Nelly, a Latinx teacher, who recounted, Because the lady who taught the [teacher education] course was as white as she could be. She always looked at me like “pobrecita” (air quotes). I never did excellent work in her course. Not according to her. I busted my butt, but it didn’t matter how hard I would try, she’d find something to take points off. Deep inside I know that she didn’t believe in me. And I never saw myself in any of the books or articles, unless it was about risks. It was a double whammy—the professors and the materials. It’s a surprise that I made it out and became a teacher. Really. Now I can see that, but back then I questioned if I was on the right path, if I was good enough to be a teacher, you know? Can you believe it?
These low expectations enacted by “the lady who taught the course” who “was as white as she could be” led to Nelly’s psychological response, which included feelings of anger and loss of self-worth; Nelly felt at once frustrated and inadequate. They led Nelly to doubt whether she was “good enough to be a teacher,” which portrayed feelings of teacher competence that harmed teachers of color historically and continue to do so contemporarily.
Other teachers we interviewed also conveyed experiences of loss of self-worth and experienced grief and numbness. Their psychological and emotional responses stemmed from a variety of experiences with harm (caused by being ignored, silenced, dismissed, or ridiculed), stress and hardship (working extra hard), and grief (for the loss of their community’s values, knowledges, and languaging practices). Palpably, the psychological harm withstood by these teachers had led them to question whether they should become teachers before ever entering the profession. Their experiences made visible how whiteness was centered in their teacher education programs and had fostered psychological and entangled forms of physical harm. Such whiteness had worked to exclude individuals of color from becoming teachers.
Collectively, the interviews we conducted clearly conveyed that these eight teachers of color did not see themselves reflected in urban teacher education programs’ faculty, content, or experiences. This was conveyed by Nelly, when she recounted, “I never saw myself in any of the books or articles, unless it was about risks.” This had led to a number of psychological responses symptomatic of psychological violence, including anxiety, anger, social isolation, shame, grief, numbness, and, unfalteringly, loss of self-worth.
Segregation and Displacement as Norms
The teachers we interviewed conveyed that they had experienced segregation and displacement in their teacher education programs. All teachers we interviewed communicated how being persons of color had positioned them at the margins of their urban teacher education programs, illustrating such claims with their lived experiences (e.g., La’Tasha’s interview excerpt above referred to her object positioning). This overwhelming reality comprised a building block of the intergenerational transmission of mass trauma in the lives of teachers of color.
Historical trauma theory helped us understand how segregation and displacement were part of a long history of communities of color (who were lawfully segregated in schools and society) and teachers of color (who were displaced by white families who did not want them teaching white children) being subjugated by the dominant group in U.S. society. Specifically, historical trauma theory helped us understand how the feelings of social isolation conveyed by the teachers we interviewed were not individual psychological issues that needed to be resolved at the individual level, but a characteristic of mass trauma experience enacted by dominant groups (and members of dominant groups) to subjugate a population.
The teachers we interviewed recounted experiencing segregation and displacement in their teacher education programs. Although they reacted in different ways (e.g., depression, anger, withdrawal), they had all experienced the transmission of mass trauma psychosocially. Albeit these experiences may not be limited to urban teacher education programs, they are nevertheless present in them as conveyed by the teachers we interviewed. As such, they need to be addressed if harm is to be suspended. Although La’Tasha and Nelly both conveyed feelings of isolation (e.g., “it’s like there were cliques and I was not part of them” and “I ended up sitting by myself”), we focus on DeShaun and Jada here, as a way of including the experiences of all participants.
DeShaun, a Black teacher, explained, Even though we were in the same room, we were segregated in the physical space of the [teacher education] classroom. I even asked these white girls once: Oh, you knew each other before? And they said no. I guess they just knew they belonged together (laughter). I remember one time I arrived early and sat where they did, just to see what happen. When they entered the room, they looked at me, then looked at each other and went and sat somewhere else . . . And every time I said aks instead of ask, they were so bothered. I started doing it on purpose, just to see their reaction.
Using the term segregated, DeShaun made visible how there were social segregationist features in the way that his teacher education classes worked. Because U.S. society had experienced racial isolation and segregation in the process of mass trauma resulting from the subjugation of those who do not possess the property of whiteness, these dynamics were reproduced within the context of his teacher education classroom. When he actively tried to disrupt the intergenerational isolation and segregation of communities and individuals of color, his peers “went and sat somewhere else.” As Harris (1993) reminds us, “the right to exclude . . . [is] the central principle . . . of whiteness” (p. 1736). Historically, “[t]he possessors of whiteness were granted the legal right to exclude others from the privileges inhering in whiteness; whiteness became an exclusive club whose membership was closely and grudgingly guarded” (p. 1736). In doing so, they upheld behaviors coherent with long-established norms that continue to defend the interests of whiteness—“determining who was or was not white enough to enjoy the privileges accompanying whiteness” (p. 1736)—while continuing to enforce subjugation deeply rooted in racism and discrimination.
Although DeShaun’s teacher education program purported commitments to social justice, as did all focal programs, there was no effort to name and interrupt the segregation he had experienced in class—he voiced: “I actually don’t think she [the teacher educator] even noticed, you know? Crazy how someone can be so out of touch and be preparing teachers.” His experience served as a counternarrative, as a counterexample to urban teacher education’s professed commitment to social justice—whether through official or unofficial structures—and as a warning to the harm inflicted by a mostly white profession: teacher education. Thus, segregation continued to affect the experiences of teachers of color, being symptomatic of the historical trauma withstood by all the teachers we interviewed.
Jada, a Black teacher, recalled how she endured trauma, displacement, and segregation during her teacher education program so that she could protect her family, their belief that their work and history had resulted in a more hopeful future for her. She explained, My momma was so happy that I had gotten into [this particular teacher education program]. I had to keep going for her. Because she always told me how so many generations had withstood enslavement and so much oppression so that I could be free. What she didn’t know is that being here was nothing like being free. This is not what a student [of this teacher education program] looks like. It was clear to me. I did not fit in. I had no friends. I was afraid to tell them [my family]. To shatter their dreams. I think the strength to endure came from not wanting to tell them, we not free. Not yet . . . I was always afraid she’d find out, so I never associated with anyone there [in her teacher education program]. I was never invited to go out or to join study breaks. I had no friends. I self-segregated myself, you could say. Or maybe I was excluded by other students in the program. It was like prison. Like I was paying a sentence.
Making direct references to chattel slavery, Jada denounced the historical trauma she had experienced in her urban teacher education program. Her psychological response to her displacement was social isolation (“I had no friends”) and self-segregation. Her displacement also led to fear; she was afraid that her parents would find out that the structures of subjugation persisted intergenerationally. It did not matter that she had gotten in; she clearly conveyed her feeling that she did not fit in (“It was like prison. Like I was paying a sentence”). She conveyed how the colocation of racialized bodies did not undo the structures of whiteness as property or ameliorate historical trauma.
Economic Deprivation
In addition to withstanding physical and psychological trauma, rooted in historical systems of oppression and experiencing segregation and displacement, the teachers we interviewed also referred to economic deprivation, which mounted across generations. This played out in terms of the intergenerational loss of resources and of legal rights, and led to feelings of guilt, shame, and anxiety. Although not all teachers communicated financial hardships, they were keenly aware of how their families had been deprived of wealth and troubled myths that upheld whiteness as property, such as meritocracy. Because we shared excerpts of our interviews with La’Tasha, Nelly, DeShaun, and Jada in prior sections, in this section, we draw on our interviews with Kimmy and Camila.
Kimmy explained that she got a scholarship and that the scholarship amounted to more than her mother had ever made in a year, unveiling the economic deprivation that inflicts trauma onto communities of color. She said, My mom had never made per year what I would have been expected to pay. Totally nuts! And I had a scholarship, that’s the only way I could afford to attend [this teacher education program]. But nobody told me that there was so much more expected of me. No one in my family had gone to college before. We didn’t know. But there was materials, the food, the transportation. So much. I know that scholarships, especially for girls like me, Asian but not your prototypical Asian, are seen as a sort of reparation. But there was a clear economic differential. And it wasn’t because she didn’t work hard. She did.
Kimmy, an Asian American teacher whose mother worked in a hotel, cleaning rooms, was keenly aware of how social, economic, and political systems had subjugated Asian Americans like her mother. She responded to the historical trauma she had experienced by separating from loved ones, such as her mother. Psychologically, she experienced anxiety, as she feared not being able to afford “materials, the food, the transportation.”
Intergenerational racist structures upheld a legacy of entangled discrimination, social, and economic disadvantages. Kimmy knew that “in student teaching . . . I was expected to speak a certain way, to look a certain way. Dress professionally, they said. What they didn’t consider is that not all of us have the money to dress professionally.” As Kimmy, many persons of color had historically struggled to “pass professionally,” a struggle that denied them entry in certain professions, including “regular teachers, social workers, or the like” (Myrdal, 1944, p. 685). Economic disparities, she could see, persisted across generations and were deeply entangled with whiteness. Whites, even when receiving “a low wage . . . were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage,” which included “public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white” (Du Bois, 1935/1962, p. 700) since the Black Reconstruction. This public deference and associated courtesies were yet another way of being excluded experienced by Kimmy. She knew that “white subjects accrue advantages by the virtue of being constructed as whites” (Leonardo, 2009, p. 75).
Differently from Kimmy, Camila explained how economic deprivation limited her very possibilities for pursuing teacher education. She explained how economics were linked to race and economic deprivation to systems of inequity: I went to [the teacher education program I did] because it’s where I could afford to go. I didn’t even think of or apply to TC [Teachers College]. Because I knew it wasn’t for me. But I noticed every day I rode the 1 train that at 116th the white people vacated the train, and as I continued on to my college, there were only Black and Brown people like me on the train. It was segregation and economic injustice all rolled into one, you know. Right there. So visible. Before my eyes. If I ever had any illusion of “if you work hard enough . . .” it was gone every day as I saw white people go to Ivy League and people of color go to [my teacher education program]. I guess some people would say it wasn’t race. That it was money, you know. But it was race. It showed how people of color had been robbed.
Camila articulated the transmission of trauma via intergenerational wealth accumulation, which characterizes whiteness as property (Harris, 1993). She experienced a social and economic system that discriminated against her and Black and Brown people like her. Camila communicated her feeling of exclusion from teacher education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “The right to exclude was the central principle . . . of whiteness as identity, for mainly whiteness has been characterized, not by an inherent unifying characteristic, but by the exclusion of others deemed to be ‘not white’” (p. 1736).
In her interview, Camila communicated how mass trauma was a layered approach, which resulted in a variety of trauma responses, transmitted psychosocially, systemically, and discriminatorily. As Leonardo (2009) explained: “Segregated education for students of color creates substandard schools, lack of resources, and inferior education” (p. 85). That is, Camila unveiled the intersectional nature of school segregation, resulting in the demographics of teacher education. She responded to such trauma by not even trying to apply to Teachers College (TC; where the interview was taking place). Furthermore, she articulated the economic destruction (the loss of resources and of rights) inherent to historical trauma—“people of color had been harmed.”
Although this may be simply understood as a larger issue pertaining to the costs of higher education, it is important to note that in many nations (e.g., Finland, Norway, Singapore), teachers are not expected to pay for their schooling as education is regarded to be a public good which benefits society. Such nations, interestingly, are deemed to be superior to the United States in terms of education. Although each of the eight teachers had experienced economic deprivation differently, they all incurred historical trauma associated with the lack of generational wealth, a result of settler colonialism and enslavement, which “robbed” (to use Camila’s word) and sought to continue to subjugate people of color, continuing the long legacy of historical trauma experienced by intersectionally minoritized individuals and communities, past and present. It had also limited their choice(s) of teacher education programs and of being “professional.”
Cultural Appropriation and Dispossession
Throughout their interviews, the teachers from whom we learned talked about the pervasiveness of cultural appropriations in their initial urban teacher education programs, sharing stories marked by essentialized and stereotypical portrayals of their own cultures. Cultural dispossession historically enacted trauma by subjugating intersectionally minoritized individuals and communities in ways that led to the loss of cultural roles and language, for example. Experiencing the transmission of trauma pertaining to cultural appropriation and dispossession, the six self-identified bilingual teachers of color we interviewed explained how their language practices were often seen as not as developed as they should be, whereas their English-dominant peers were lauded for their efforts to utter words in Mandarin or in Spanish within the context of their teacher education programs. This was experienced by Ana, who spoke Dominican Spanish, and not “Spanish from Spain.” She recounted, I . . . pretended not to belong to the community I came from [in my teacher education program]. As a Latina who did not have an accent [in English], I had that privilege. I had straight hair . . . I laughed at the racist jokes my friends told, even when they were not funny. But that time was so painful. I was forced to give up the beautiful practices of my family. I also think that I was very judgmental of them during my undergraduate years. You could say “que he escupido en el plato donde comí.”
1
To be a good teacher, I had to act white and my family didn’t act white.
Ana explained how, in her attempts to mask her Dominican Spanish, she had developed a disregard for her family as a social response leading to the temporary fracture of family ties by being “very judgmental of them.” She explained how she tried to fit in, to assimilate, as she sought to engage in what was seen as the development of a “good teacher.” Ana had experienced (at least temporarily) identity dispossession similar to the one described by Pihama and colleagues (2014). Her identity as a white-passing Latina with straight hair who spoke English with as much ease as she spoke Spanish initially positioned her as being constructed as white . . . through the valuation of skin color, although this is not the only criterion for racial distinction. Hair texture, nose shapes, culture, and language also multiply the privileges of whites or those who approximate them. (Leonardo, 2009, p. 75)
Although initially making her life easier, this racial approximation to whiteness ultimately proved harmful for Ana. As she engaged in processes of cultural dispossession, she developed a soul wound (“it was so painful”).
In addition, Ana described her process of erasure, being forced to “give up” the ways of being, communicating, and knowing of her family, to separate from the values and practices of her loved ones to become “a good teacher.” The centrality of whiteness as property in being “a good teacher” demanded that Ana reject “the beautiful practices” of her family to assimilate into the role of “a good teacher.” That is, Ana made visible the expectations that to be a good teacher, she had to act white, thus embracing the racialized nature of what counts as quality and competence in teacher education. This racialized and racist definition of quality and competence led to the mass firing of Black teachers post-Brown, as we briefly revealed in our review of literature, and serves as a veil to cloak the interests of whiteness. It continues to be transmitted intergenerationally, affecting teachers of color today. Ana’s psychological response to the historical trauma she experienced resulted in shame and pain; she endured processes of erasure. This historical trauma was transmitted to Ana psychosocially, via social systems, and through social discrimination.
Another one of the teachers we interviewed, Benji, an Asian American teacher, shared his experience of trauma through essentialized portrayals of Asians via peer microaggressions—“brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color” (Sue et al., 2007, p. 271) in his teacher education classes. He recounted, They regarded all Asians the same—Japanese, Chinese, Korean—as if there were no differences in our upbringings. There were microaggressions every day. Mostly by other pre-service teachers . . . but when instructors saw them, they did nothing to stop it. I think truthfully one of the most traumatic moments happened when the instructor decided to read about Chinese New Year, a children’s book, and then there was small group discussion. These white women started talking down about Chinatown, where I grew up, and I was right there. All while sharing some take out dumplings. I said “excuse me,” and one of them said “yes?” without really understanding what my “excuse me” was about . . . And can you believe it that they were making fun of Chinese people because they choose to isolate themselves by living in Chinatown? Choosing. Whatever, I guess that just shows their ignorance.
In this interview excerpt, Benji conveyed his experience with historical trauma, the “white women,” the de facto dominant group in teaching and in teacher education, were subjugating Asians while appropriating Chinese food (dumplings). Although Benji attributed most of the microaggressions he experienced to “other pre-service teachers,” he also explained that “when instructors saw them, they did nothing to stop it.” Furthermore, he explained the harm of trying to address issues of diversity in teacher education via a conservative approach, reading a book to celebrate a holiday from what Gorski (2009) labeled a “teaching the ‘other’” approach, forwarding assimilationism. Such an approach fostered historical trauma as whole subjugated groups are essentialized and their worth is based on their contributions to whiteness in teaching and teacher education. Furthermore, the approach taken by Benji’s teacher education instructors did not disrupt a long history of discrimination, which continued to affect Asian Americans like Benji, deeply entangled with economic destruction (loss of resources and legal rights), segregation, psychological violence, and cultural dispossession, marked by the loss of legal rights, as illustrated by the Chinese Exclusion Act. Issues of power and subjugation, central to learning about intersectionally minoritized populations were not adequately addressed in his teacher education program according to Benji.
In the interviews we conducted, appropriations were rampant. For example, DeShaun explained how it was okay for the white girls in his teacher education class to engage with double negatives and to use “ain’t;” they were from “the South.” Yet, it was not okay for him to pronounce ask as aks. DeShaun’s talk was seen as wrong by his peers and instructor, regardless of a history of hundreds of years, which legitimizes such a pronunciation (Schultz, 2014); the girls’ reported use of “ain’t” and double negatives, both African American language features, were legitimized by the instructor. These and other examples show how the bodies, values, experiences, and livelihoods of these teachers of color were objectified, positioned as objects to the benefit of white teacher education students in their pre-service programs, which curated/sponsored a problematic museum walk of sorts.
The Historical Trauma Experienced by Teachers of Color
Through the experiences and voices of eight teachers of color, we have identified a number of ways in which urban teacher education programs in white settler institutions of higher education dehumanized and excluded persons and communities of color, causing psychological violence, fostering segregation and displacement, cultivating economic deprivation, and sponsoring a process of cultural dispossession, all in the name of “social justice” and “diversity,” which in such contexts have become empty buzzwords and index hollow commitments. The teachers we interviewed made visible how historical trauma is not an exception.
Again and again, historical trauma was present in these teachers’ lived experiences as conveyed in their interviews. Trauma was ingrained in their experiences in urban teacher education programs in predominantly white institutions of higher education, which publicly and openly purported to engage in “social justice” and “diversity.” Their interviews unveiled how teacher education programs (over)privilege whiteness in their courses, interactions, demographics of faculty, and more. As we read and reread their interview transcripts against our textual analysis, it was clear that teacher education programs continued to selectively support the development of students based on the historical accumulation of privileges.
As unveiled by the eight teachers of color we interviewed, the terms “diversity” and “social justice” served to cloak the interests of whiteness from a conservative approach (Gorski, 2009), producing injustice and serving to safeguard the interests of whiteness via the “unfettered right to exclude” (Harris, 1993, p. 1715). In the lived experiences of these eight teachers, these terms were weapons deployed by those defending teacher education’s focus and commitments, as strategic maneuvering for avoiding much-needed, transformative work in the pursuit of justice.
Implications
Whereas the terms diversity and social justice continue to figure pervasively in urban teacher education program’s websites in historically white institutions of higher education and there are robust calls for more teachers of color to enter the teaching profession, our findings offer important implications for teacher education programs if they are indeed committed to the concepts encased by these terms. That is, our research troubles teacher education’s use of “diversity” and “social justice” as cover-ups for the propagation and continuation of a long history of Eurocentrism and racist ideas. We explained how these words actually prevented teacher education programs from interrupting injustice and fostering justice when programs engaged in hollow commitments and conservative approaches to diversity, which in effect caused injustice and inflicted historical trauma intergenerationally.
If we—teacher educators—are serious about diversifying the teaching force and addressing the racial disproportionality, which currently characterizes the field of teacher education, we must interrupt the ways teacher education currently operates as a matter of justice. To do so, we must engage with a long history of excellence in teaching and teacher education in communities of color. As urged by Siddle Walker (2020), we must learn from the history of Black teacher educators, and regard these as a conceptual map for the education of teachers of color. With such a conceptual map as a guide, we must conduct careful reviews of the syllabi, course content, interactional norms, values, and aims sponsored by teacher education programs, taking into consideration the historical and contemporary role of whiteness as property, which exclude the voices, values, practices, and histories of communities of color past and present.
The experiences of the teachers we interviewed offer insights into the historical trauma withstood by persons of color in teacher education programs located in historically white institutions of higher education, dominated by whiteness, inflicting psychological and entangled physiological harm. Their interviews raise the question as to how, in light of the historical harm withstood, teacher educators should actually be surprised that there are teachers of color at all in today’s classrooms. Thus, instead of taking an ahistorical approach and blaming individuals and communities of color for the small number of individuals of color going into teacher education programs and the dismal number of teachers of color entering U.S. classrooms, teacher educators must engage in transforming programmatic aims, goals, demographics, and content to align with the interests, center the voices, and privilege the values of intersectionally minoritized communities of color, learning from and honoring the history of Black segregated schools and of the preparation of teachers of color pre-Brown, for example.
Building on the insights into the lived experiences of teachers of color in teacher education programs, which unveiled sustained, acute, and chronic historical trauma, we conclude with an urgent call for transforming urban teacher education from spaces where historical trauma is reproduced to spaces where racial healing and reconciliation can occur. After all, the reproduction of historical trauma may, in fact, be a pervasive and ingrained feature of urban teacher education programs in historically white institutions of higher education in the United States experienced by individuals and communities of color.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
