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ERIC Number: EJ1204055
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0161-4681
EISSN: EISSN-1467-9620
Toward Critically Transformative Possibilities: Considering Tensions and Undoing Inequities in the Spatialization of Teacher Education
Mariana Souto-Manning; Jessica Martell
Teachers College Record, v121 n6 2019
Background: Racism remains a deep-rooted and pervasive feature of U.S. society. Racist ideas, defined by Ibram X. Kendi as "any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way," are major topographies in the current landscape of teacher education. Focus: Rejecting the production of racial inequities as an unavoidable outcome of teacher education, in this article, a university-based teacher educator of color and an early childhood teacher/teacher educator of color unveil the complex sociospatial dialectic of teacher education across settings. Positioning mapping as a possible pathway for coauthoring a counternarrative that rejects teacher education's first spaces, characterized by the overvaluation of White ontologies, Eurocentric epistemologies, and ideologies that deem university-based knowledge superior, they identified and mapped inequities across the physical, relational, and pedagogical locations where teacher education occurs. They considered the following questions: (a) How are teacher education programs positioning intersectionally minoritized students of color, their families, and communities? (b) What are the spaces in which power has been--and continues to be--inscribed and reinforced by Whiteness as the norm in teacher education programs and practices? (c) How can teacher educators of color across teacher education settings interrupt inequities in teacher education by disrupting the location of teacher education? Research Design: Through a three-year collaborative participatory research project, the authors engaged with critical race spatial analysis to read the landscape of teacher education, naming its sociospatial injustices--writ large and as situated within their immediate contexts and lives--in addressing the first two research questions. Then, they sought to interrupt these mapped realities by re-mediating teacher education, understanding that perhaps it is the tools and artifacts, and/or the learning environments, that must be reorganized in ways to foster deep, meaningful, and transformative learning, thereby addressing the third question. Practice: Working to transform the inequitable status quo of teacher education, they worked to build a horizontal collaboration marked by intellectual interdependence and shared expertise across physical, relational, and pedagogical spaces, thereby moving to transform teacher education through the re-mediation of its traditional first space and the design of a third space. The kind of horizontal partnership they negotiated was in stark contrast to dominant and prevalent vertically organized teacher education partnerships, which position universities as having more importance, expertise, and legitimacy than schools--in disconnected ways. Conclusions: This article unveils the ways in which current models of teacher education continue to pathologize intersectionally minoritized populations and produce inequities as design features. The collaboration the authors codesigned enabled pedagogical third spaces for transformation and offers an example of what is possible in and through teacher education. In a situated way, it offers insights into how teacher educators and schoolteachers can collaboratively work toward equity and justice in and through teaching and teacher education.
Teachers College, Columbia University. P.O. Box 103, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. Tel: 212-678-3774; Fax: 212-678-6619; e-mail: tcr@tc.edu; Web site: http://www.tcrecord.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A