Abstract
Teacher education programs are charged with preparing teacher candidates to successfully educate student populations that are more racially and culturally diverse than ever. However, a look at graduation rates among teacher education programs proves that the majority still produce, on average, a teaching force that is 80% White, although White students make up less than 49% the total Kindergarten-12th grade public school population (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Absent from the dialogue on diversity in teacher education is a discussion on how race and racism are institutionalized and maintained within such programs (Sleeter, 2016). In this article, the use of Critical Race Theory (CRT) offers tools to examine the role of race and racism in teacher education. I further consider the role CRT can play in the disruption of postsecondary rhetoric about teacher education programs. Focus is placed on my own experiences in a Teaching Internship Seminar course when applying the structures of CRT to encourage conversations on disruptive practices that facilitate social justice in a course within a teacher preparation program. The tenets of interest convergence and permanence of racism are examined in the context of course development as pedagogical practices that disrupt normative patterns in teacher education. I conclude by envisioning how faculty in teacher education programs might address these challenges in such a way that offers suggestions derived from these tenets.
Highlights
I use a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework as an analytic tool to examine and challenge the tensions, opportunities, and successes inherent in a Teaching Internship Seminar course for preservice teachers as it relates to race in education
In order to address the difficulty of preservice teachers to examine their own identity and how it intersects with beliefs about race and its impact in education, the use of a social media platform, Facebook, was used in the course to encourage students to serve as active participants in virtual discussions about the permanence of racism in education
I provided my personal experiences from my Teaching Internship Seminar course
Summary
I use a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework as an analytic tool to examine and challenge the tensions, opportunities, and successes inherent in a Teaching Internship Seminar course for preservice teachers as it relates to race in education. The use of CRT pedagogy in my Teaching Internship Seminar course has provided me with a space to utilize disruptive practices for counteracting traditional teacher education patterns that perpetuate racism in education. With this in mind, I have chosen to openly address issues of race and racism in education within a teacher education program to help students become more aware of the advantages and biases inherent in their positionality that will impact their future classrooms. Socially and racially progressive initiatives are systematically scaled back in sectors such as law and education when those initiatives don't serve the dominant population
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
