We Have Met the Enemy in Teacher Education; It Is Us—Teacher Educators and the Bad Faith of Our Niceness, Not Teachers

Abstract

In this conceptual essay, the author draws on the concept of bad faith to explore its connections to Niceness and role in sustaining the historical failures of U.S. teacher education to prepare future teachers to effectively teach learners from diverse backgrounds through culturally responsive pedagogy. Bad faith is a useful, albeit underutilized, concept in considering and challenging the patterned historical inequities maintained by Niceness in teacher preparation programs. Applying a critical race theory (CRT) methodology and analysis, the author presents and interrogates three representative exemplars of a logic of racism operationalized through bad faith, then insulated by Niceness in U.S. teacher education. These exemplars serve as conceptual case studies that are constituted as composite scenarios of patterned enactments of bad faith authorized by Niceness within U.S. teacher education; these cases demonstrate how [and why] the bad faith–Niceness interplay informs the work and [good] intentions of stakeholders most often in ways that further, rather than challenge, historical failures of U.S. teacher education for culturally responsive pedagogy.