Open AccessEngaging Preservice Teachers in Critical Dialogues on Race
Author(s) -
Joanna E. Durham-Barnes
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
sage open
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.357
H-Index - 32
ISSN - 2158-2440
DOI - 10.1177/2158244015572505
Subject(s) - facilitator , race (biology) , diversity (politics) , racism , population , psychology , social psychology , white (mutation) , politeness , pedagogy , gender studies , sociology , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , demography , philosophy , anthropology , gene
Rarely do White, middle-class Americans, the population from whichmost teachers are drawn, have the opportunity to consider themselves as racializedbeings. Although personal experience is usually the best teacher, our increasinglyhomogeneous teaching population oftentimes lacks experience with diversity, and schoolsof education often struggle to find appropriate and meaningful diverse field experiencesfor their teacher candidates. This study uses a documentary in an attempt to provokethoughtful conversations about race and racism in the United States among the mostlyWhite teacher candidates. The study identifies racial themes that emerge from theconversations, explores the ways the groups’ racial diversity alters conversations onrace, and explores how the race of the group’s facilitator may affect the conversations.The study suggested that racially diverse groups are more likely to explore greaternumbers of racial themes and engage each other more deeply through polite disagreement.Although racial diversity of any kind seemed to promote deeper conversations,participants reported greater satisfaction from the conversations when the studentsthemselves were racially diverse rather than with the facilitator alone