White Preservice Teachers and Antiracist Practice: Enabling Trajectories of Learning and Identity in Teacher Preparation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Preparing white antiracist teachers is an enduring challenge for teacher education. In this article, I demonstrate that white preservice teachers need ongoing access to a full range of learning and identity resources if they are to develop strong connections with antiracism and develop as antiracist teachers. I present data from an 18-month study that illustrates how white preservice teachers’ trajectories of learning and identity are shaped by their access to and engagement with distinct types of learning and identity resources. I discuss the significance of specific resources and identify factors that seem to influence the availability and uptake of such resources by white preservice teachers. I argue that an explicitly resource-rich orientation to preservice teacher learning can be leveraged by teacher educators to ensure that white preservice teachers have access to and engage with the types of resources needed to form a strong identification with antiracist practice and develop the capacity to enact it in the classroom.