The power of role-modelling: White teacher educators normalising anti-racism and cultural reflexivity for White pre-service teachers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Every child has a right to feel culturally safe in schools, yet for countless Indigenous students this is not the case. Many White pre-service teachers in Australia enter initial teacher education with a limited understanding of racial identity, Indigenous knowledge or White anti-racism. This autoethnographic study applies Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour to understand the role of the White teacher educator in racial conscientisation of White pre-service teachers. We examine how White teacher confidence in enacting anti-racist behaviours builds when White teacher educators role-model the professional approaches which White teachers can use to teach about race and be culturally reflexive in K-12 classrooms. Such cultural reflexivity requires that White teachers acknowledge their positionality and make visible Indigenous cultural authority over course material. In doing so, this culturally reflexive approach provides an effective and authentic critical pedagogy for developing anti-racist conscience and practice amongst White educators.