Seeking Support in Teacher Education for Racial Knowledge: The Role of Professional Networks and Social Identities

Abstract

Drawing from the narrated experiences of teacher educators (TEs) at different institutions, this paper analyzes TEs’ perceptions of support related to their work in teaching about race and racism. TEs varied in the extent to which they viewed their institution as supportive, and they identified factors that signaled that their institution supported teacher learning about race and racism. TEs also described how their racial identities and positional privilege related to tenure status informed engagement with peers both for providing and seeking support. Implications for teacher education programs in providing support for TEs who teach about race and racism are discussed.

Keywords

race identity teacher education urban education diversity social

In recent years, diversity and social justice goals have become much more visible at institutions of higher education (IHEs), but the implications of these espoused aims are less clear (Berrey, 2015; Patel, 2015). The roots of diversity discourse are in more narrowly defined anti-discrimination work (Vertovec, 2012), but diversity initiatives have since expanded to include goals related to inclusion and social justice. However, social justice goals often are nested in broader institutional goals that have, at times, complex and conflicting motivations (Iverson, 2012; Patel, 2015).

Teacher education is positioned in a unique point of tension here; because of a growing sense of urgency around attending to educational inequity, teacher education has been posited as a potential site for addressing social justice issues (Milner, 2010; Villegas & Lucas, 2002), but teacher education programs have often been critiqued as inadequately supporting teacher learning about diversity, race, and racism (Ladson-Billings, 1999; Milner, 2017). Thus, stated commitments to diversity and social justice have proven insufficient to meaningfully support teachers in developing the skills needed to disrupt educational inequities (Berrey, 2015; King, 2016; Milner, 2010).

This research has pointed to the need for supportive programmatic structures that can sustain teacher educators (TEs) and their justice-oriented teaching goals (Picower & Kohli, 2017; Richmond et al., 2019). This need is especially critical for TEs working in the urban education context where it is critically important for teacher candidates (TCs) to understand complex issues of equity and justice as they prepare to work with more diverse student populations (Butler et al., 2021). More research is needed that examines the needs of TEs, especially those who teach about race and racism. Thus, this study explores how, in the context of broader institutional diversity discourse, TEs who teach about race and racism identify sources of support and how their social identities inform these experiences. The research questions for this study are:

To what extent do TEs describe their institution as supportive of the work of teaching teachers about race and racism, and what factors do they identify as supportive?

In what way(s) do TEs’ social identities affect their perceptions of their institutions as supportive?

I first frame the study as part of an existing conversation about developing teachers’ racial knowledge, drawing from research on teacher education and critical race theory. I then review research on social and professional identities in the workplace and outline how an examination of teacher educators’ professional identities is especially important for understanding diversity discourse and the work of teaching about race and racism. Then, I describe the findings of the study, organized into two sections: (1) factors TEs find to be supportive for the work of teaching for racial knowledge, and (2) the role of identity for TEs doing this work. Finally, I discuss the implications of the study.

Literature Review

Recommendations for teachers to develop racial knowledge have been taken up in teacher education research and practice (Crowley & Smith, 2015; Hayes & Juárez, 2012; Souto-Manning & Emdin, 2020). Racial knowledge refers generally to both historical racial knowledge and knowledge of contemporary sociopolitical and cultural racial issues. In reference to teaching and learning, racial knowledge is also often a signifier of the race-related knowledge and skills one needs to develop critical consciousness, build relationships with students/families of color, and respond to racially stressful classroom situations in a moment (An, 2017; Goldin et al., 2019); similar skills are sometimes referred to as racial literacy or critical racial literacy (Michael, 2015; Sealey-Ruiz, 2011; Stevenson, 2014). A growing body of research offers both pedagogical and programmatic recommendations for how teacher educators can support TCs in building racial literacy and racial knowledge (Ladson-Billings, 1999, 2014; Michael, 2015; Picower & Kohli, 2017). Flynn et al. (2018) describe a sequence of lessons that includes community-building, personal reflection, and curricular analysis, and scholars also emphasize the importance of exposure to historical racial knowledge and an understanding of systemic sociopolitical forces that uphold racism (Chandler, 2015; Crowley & Smith, 2015; King, 2019). While this research makes the case for supporting teachers’ development of racial knowledge, TEs who teach about race and racism continue to face challenges in practice (Howard, 2017; Sealey-Ruiz, 2017).

This disjuncture between the generalized recommendation to attend to race in teaching and the challenges TEs face has raised questions about how racial knowledge can be meaningfully incorporated into university-based teacher education (UBTE) programs. Seidl and Hancock (2011) suggest that TEs support white teacher candidates in deepening their insight into how their behaviors are perceived by people of color. Other recent research on teacher education cites white resistance (Flynn et al., 2018; Ohito, 2016) as a challenge of working with white pre-service teachers in particular, and some scholars suggest that we consider white teachers’ complex emotions, including experiences of guilt and paralysis (Flynn et al., 2018) as well as fear (Matias, 2016). Scholars have critiqued the lack of attention to racialized and embodied emotion (Matias & Zembylas, 2014). Ohito (2016), drawing on a pedagogy of discomfort (Boler, 1999), suggested that engaging not only intellectually with white supremacy but also on an emotional level is essential for the development of anti-racist teachers. At the programmatic level, Milner and Howard (2013) argued that attention to diversity must include initiatives related to teacher demographics and recommended studying programs with high success in recruitment and retention of teachers of color.

Much of this scholarship is rooted in critical race theory, which brings race and racism to the center of analysis. CRT originated in legal studies (Bell, 1987, 1992; Crenshaw et al., 1995) and describes how social institutions have upheld racism over time (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). CRT takes as a core assumption that racism is a normal, ever-present part of American life and also highlights racism as both institutional and interpersonal (Ladson-Bllings & Tate, 1995). CRT scholars have offered recommendations to support teacher education for racial knowledge that focus primarily on (a) structural reforms at the program level in UBTE programs and/or (b) curricular reforms and critical reflection in the classroom (Milner & Howard, 2013; Zeichner, 2010). Scholars have used the principle of interest convergence, which suggests that white people advance the interests of people of color only when it converges with their interests, to critique the persistent patterns of racial inequality within teacher education (Milner et al., 2013; Sleeter, 2017).

We have learned about the challenges of teaching white teachers about racism and white privilege (Crowley, 2019; Garrett & Segall, 2013; Jupp et al., 2016; Warren & Hotchkins, 2015) and examined the unique needs of TCs of color (Achinstein & Ogawa, 2012; Gist, 2017). More recent research also has begun to examine the experiences of teacher educators themselves, acknowledging the importance of attending to the identities and needs of TEs to improve teacher education (Matias, 2016; Picower & Kohli, 2017). Much of this research provides meaningful insight through insider perspectives on both the challenges and the possibilities that exist in the field (Bennett et al., 2019). In general, research on teacher education often focuses at either the level of the teacher education program as an institution or at the level of individual classrooms. However, few draw explicit connections between experiences of individual TEs and program structures, and more research is needed to bridge this divide, especially as it offers broader programmatic implications of teaching for racial knowledge.

Theoretical Framework

Research on teacher education is largely focused on how programs can more effectively train teachers. Less has been done to explicitly examine the social world and professional identities of TEs, especially for TEs who teach about race and racism. Drawing from social identity theory and organizational studies on diversity in the workplace, I develop a theoretical framework for support factors that are important for TEs who teach about race and racism.

Social Identity in the Workplace: Seeking Support, Affirmation, and Stability

Scholars have explored links between individual behaviors and broader organizational culture, which is defined as a set of beliefs, values, and assumptions that are shared by members of an organization (Schein, 2010). Individual identity, which has been described as personality traits and other “core concepts” of the self (Korte, 2007) is understood as one key driver of individual behavior, but research in organizational studies has also focused on the interaction between personal identity and social identity (Hogg et al., 1995; Korte, 2007). Social identity theory (SIT) explores how social identities, such as racial or religious identities, inform individual behavior. SIT describes social identities in terms of “in-group” and “out-group” prototypes and posits that group members are motivated to favor acceptance in and identification with the in-group through a process called self-categorization (Hogg et al., 1995; Sets & Burke, 2000). Social identities may help explain why individuals display distinct behaviors as their identities become salient within a particular context (Singh & Winkel, 2011), especially in increasingly diverse work environments.

Power and status also mediate social identities and relationships along axes of social difference in ways that influence individual behaviors (Ely & Thomas, 2001; Singh & Winkel, 2011). Scholars have found that, for racial minorities, changes in perceptions of respect and psychological safety in the workplace can shift attitudes towards the organization (Singh & Winkel, 2011). Emerson and Murphy (2014) explain that social identity threat occurs when different social groups “experience exactly the same physical setting in psychologically distinct ways because of sociocultural and historical legacies” (p. 509). Relatedly, Chugh and Kern (2016) explore how one's “self-view” is impacted by experiences of “self-threat,” in which an individual's self-view is challenged, and “self-protection,” in which an individual attempts to maintain a positive ethical self-view; such experiences are highly relevant to teaching for racial knowledge, where developing positive racial identities requires grappling with challenging moral and ethical questions. DeCuir-Gunby and Gunby (2016) suggest that there is a relationship between having a positive racial identity, being able to cope with racial microaggressions in the workplace, and job satisfaction. Thus, attention to salient social identities such as race could be important to understand individuals’ behaviors in the workplace.

Professional Identity and Professional Networks in Teaching and Teacher Education

Research on professional identity as a form of social identity has explored how individuals develop and modify behavior based on self-categorization related to these identities (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009), and professional identity has been defined as being “the set of expectations developed by the individual regarding themselves and their abilities, based on their experiences and personal background, as well as on others’ expectations” (Avidov-Ungar & Forkosh-Baruch, 2018, p. 184). Studies of professional identity in education have largely focused on “teacher identity” and suggest that teachers inhabit multiple professional identities and address “social, cultural, and political (micro and macro, individual and group) aspects of identity formation” (Sachs, 2001, p. 154).

In addition to research on teacher identities, a growing body of research has explored how university faculty and teacher educators specifically develop their identity in the higher education context. Factors found to either enhance or constrain university teachers’ identity development have been largely attributed to either organizational culture or institutional systems and structures (van Lankveld et al., 2017). Specific to multicultural teacher education, Gorski (2009) conducted an analysis of teacher education to develop a typology across multicultural teacher education and characterized different courses from more conservative to more critical frameworks that TEs use in their work, which has implications for how they might understand their identities as “justice-oriented” educators.

Across several of these studies, professional networks have been identified as important for the development of teachers’ professional identities, as teachers construct identity through social interaction (Izadinia, 2014; van Lankveld et al., 2017). In particular, building professional networks has been identified as important for developing teacher educator identities. Izadinia (2014) found that teacher educator identity development could largely be categorized in relation to either “self-support” or “community-support” activities (p. 432). Factors such as collegial peer relationships, learning communities, and high-quality induction programs play a positive role in teacher educators’ identity formation (Izadinia, 2014; van Lankveld et al., 2017). These findings suggest that professional networks within the work environment play an important role in developing and sustaining teacher educators’ professional identity and feelings of support.

The Role of “Diversity Discourse” and “Diversity Perspectives” for Group Identification

While much of this research on social identity examines the behavior of individuals, these theories are also useful for uncovering insights about group behavior and organizational culture. Specifically, understanding the impact of diversity and diverse perspectives on organizations is important for research and practice related to on social identity and difference (van Dick et al., 2008, p. 1483). Ely and Thomas (2001) developed a framework for defining types of organizational “diversity perspectives,” which they explain as normative beliefs and expectations that can be both explicit, as through written policies, and implicit, through assumptions underlying group structures. The authors named three types of “diversity perspectives”: “integration-and-learning,” “access-and-legitimacy,” and “discrimination-and-fairness.” Members of organizations that shared the “integration-and-learning” perspective demonstrated an interest in learning from one another in a way that supported mutual development of “a range of cultural competencies that they can all then bring to bear of their work” (p. 242). The “access-and-legitimacy” perspective was based on the “recognition that the organization's markets and constituencies are culturally diverse” which requires the institution to match that diversity in an effort to appear legitimate; this perspective more narrowly defines the cultural identities of racial minorities. Finally, the “discrimination-and-fairness” perspective was characterized by viewing diversity as a “moral imperative” (p. 245), and this perspective tended to support colorblind attitudes (p. 246). Relatedly, van Dick et al. (2008) describes organizational beliefs about diversity as “pro-diversity” or “pro-similarity.” The authors found that group members with pro-diversity beliefs favored working in heterogeneous groups over homogenous groups, and vice-versa. These constructs of “diversity perspectives” and “diversity beliefs” offer insight into how differences in beliefs about diversity in the workplace are enacted.

In institutions of higher education (IHEs), “diversity” as a concept has been described as intentionally ambiguous in ways that is strategic for these institutions (Berrey, 2015). “Diversity discourse” also has been critiqued as sustaining whiteness in ways that advance the corporate aims of IHEs but that are actually in conflict with the substantive messages of diversity, inclusion, and social justice (Patel, 2015). In this sense, critiques of the use of “diversity” in IHEs have most closely aligned with an analysis of these institutions as utilizing an “access-and-legitimacy” perspective, where diverse individuals are incorporated into the institution but not positioned as individuals that can substantively contribute. Similarly, Warren (2015) critiques white female teachers as at times having “good intentions” imbued with whiteness in ways that supports misperceptions of students. These well-intentioned projections of the needs and contributions of students of color suggests that teaching and teacher education often lack “integration-and-learning” perspectives in which the substantive contributions of people of color are meaningfully solicited and incorporated into institutional ways of working.

Understanding how TEs’ expectations and behaviors reflect and/or resist these diversity perspectives is an important and understudied area of research in teacher education. Further, in teacher education, this work has special relevance because of the emphasis on education as social justice work (Milner & Howard, 2013; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). Together, an understanding of the formation of teacher educator identities and diversity perspectives provides a useful framework for situating this work.

Method

This qualitative interview study draws from data from a larger phenomenological study of the pedagogy of teacher education for racial knowledge. The phenomenological lens grounds the study in a “close analysis of lived experience to understand how meaning is created” by participants, exposing assumptions about our ways of knowing (Starks & Trinidad, 2007, p. 1373). TEs for the study were recruited from across multiple institutions using purposive sampling and recommendations via snowball sampling. Eight TEs participated in this study and represented diversity across a number of axes that were captured through an online recruitment survey. Snowball sampling was used as a form of purposeful sampling to identify participants who could provide rich description of their experiences and the phenomenon under study (Creswell, 2013). The demographic characteristics of the TEs in this study are summarized in Table 1. All TEs had experience teaching about race in predominantly white teacher education programs. This study did not focus on the experiences of TEs who worked at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) because of an expected difference in institutional history and student demographics, although future studies of this nature might include or exclusively examine this TE population. Recruitment emails were sent out through education networks to solicit initial recommendations, and recommended experts were invited to complete a selection survey and to recommend participants. Selection criteria included: (a) be teacher educators with experience teaching in predominantly white teacher education programs; (b) work with undergraduate, graduate, and/or in-service teachers in urban contexts; (c) have primary instructional goals related to race/racism (e.g. in a “Social Foundations” or “Diversity/Equity” teacher education course). Core instructional goals for the course were assessed through self-report using an interest survey. Often titled something like “Social Foundations of Education” or “Diversity and Equity in Schools,” these courses cover content related equity issues such as segregation, achievement/opportunity gaps, and school discipline. In a university-based teacher education program, these courses are typically the primary source of information for teachers about issues of justice, equity, and diversity in education. For this study, TEs who only teach disciplinary methods courses and who were not full-time faculty were excluded for analysis to focus on the institutional experiences of isolation for TEs who teach “Diversity and Equity” courses as full-time members of an organization. Three of 8 TEs - Kate, Hannah and Melissa – described experiences teaching at both traditional and alternative/residency-based teacher education programs. Several TEs, including Elizabeth, Hannah and Melissa, referenced experiences as leaders (director/chair) within their teacher education program.

Table 1.

Participant Demographics.

Name^*	Gender	Race	Years Exp.	Institution Type	Geographic Region	Status	Level of Students⁺
Sarah	F	B/W	6	Public	Northeast	Tenure-track	UG / M / MA
William	M	B	6	Private	Northeast	Tenure-track	UG
Kate	F	W	7	Public	Mid-Atlantic	Clinical	MA
Melissa	F	B	11	Public	Northeast	Tenure-track	UG / M / MA / IS
Andrea	F	W	10	Public	Mid-Atlantic	Tenured	UG / M / MA
Peter	M	W	10	Public	South	Tenured	M
Hannah	F	W	16	Public	Northeast	Tenured	UG / M / MA
Elizabeth	F	W	17	Private	Northeast	Tenured	UG / M / IS

All names are pseudonyms.

⁺

UG – Undergraduate (pre-service teachers).

M – Traditional Master's program (pre-service teachers).

MA – Alternative certification / non-traditional master's program.

IS – In-service teachers.

Five of 8 TEs identified as white and 3 identified as Black (1 of whom also identified as biracial Black/white). Six TEs identified as women and 2 as men. The average number of years of experience was ten years. Six of 8 TEs taught at traditional public universities and 2 taught at private universities. Three of the eight TEs for this study taught at Hispanic-serving Institutions (HSIs). The universities at which they teach varied greatly in program structure, from student demographics to program structure; some of these differences in program structure are captured in the final column, which indicates the program level of students that each participant taught. As is evident in Table 1, many teacher educators work with teachers across multiple levels, from pre-service novice teachers to in-service teachers with years of experience. While the program structures varied greatly, the institutions presented a degree of similarity across their mission statements in relation to teacher training, with the exception of Elizabeth's institution, which had a religious affiliation and explicitly tied its mission to religious values.

Data Sources

Data sources included two interviews, focus groups, and classroom artifacts such as course syllabi and assignment descriptions. Semi-structured interviews made it possible to capture the most robust descriptions of participants’ experiences (Smith & Osborn, 2003). The first interview, a personal history interview, asked TEs to review personal and professional trajectories into their current role and to describe their current institution, including descriptions of colleagues, students, and perceived power dynamics within the institution. In the second interview, a teaching interview, TEs described their approach to instruction and discussed the artifacts that were shared, including an in-depth description of at least one sample week or unit within their syllabus. In addition, descriptions of the social justice aims of universities were triangulated through review of public websites of each university. Finally, 3 focus groups were conducted using BlueJeans, a web-based platform, and each focus group had 3 TEs, for a total of 9 TEs. Morgan and Hoffman (2018) described focus groups as having special utility for deep engagement with themes that emerge from individual interviews and suggest that participants offer new perspectives through “sharing and comparing” phenomenon in focus group interactions (Morgan & Hoffman, 2018, p. 250). For this study, focus groups were created through criterion-based heterogeneous grouping, and a semi-structured protocol was used based on themes that emerged from individual interviews.

Data Analysis

Data for this study was coded during two rounds of coding using the Atlas.ti coding software. For first cycle coding, I used in vivo coding with the intention of prioritizing narrated experiences of participants (Charmaz, 2006; Saldaña, 2009). In a second round of coding I was refined code categories and subcodes (Ravitch & Carl, 2016; Saldaña, 2009). Data for this study were drawn from the code category “Institutional Context.” Codes applied for contextual factors included: “institution-diversity”; “power”; “colleagues”; and “program-structure” (See Table 3). In addition, I wrote reflexive memos during data collection and analysis to examine how my assumptions and biases might influence the research methods and analysis for the study, and I triangulated the data across interviews and classroom artifacts. Finally, member checks were used to assess participants’ views of the credibility of the findings (Creswell, 2013).

Findings

In identifying sources of support within their institutions, the TEs in this study situated their work of teaching about race and racism in relation to institutional goals related to diversity and social justice. All TEs identified their institutions as having goals related to race, diversity, and social justice, and university “diversity statements” were cross-referenced on the public websites of each university. Across the universities represented in this study, the public diversity statements were readily accessible, and stated diversity aims were similar. Schools described themselves as “respecting difference,” “welcoming,” “inclusive,” and “valuing diversity.” Stated aims included goals such as diversifying the student body, “fostering tolerance,” and “pursuing justice.” Websites listed links to campus events and organizations such as multicultural centers and cultural student clubs. For 6 of 8 universities, websites offered links to official campus policies related to discrimination, bias, and harassment. Three of 8 schools linked to a detailed strategic plan or diversity report with more specific and thorough goals.

TEs varied in the extent to which they viewed their institution as supportive of these “diversity” goals, and they identified factors that signaled to them that their institution supported teacher learning about race and racism. They described how peers, administrators, and the institution broadly worked towards these goals. First, they identified administrative alignment with social justice goals as a signal of support for their work. Second, they identified professional networks, both within and beyond their institution, as important signals of support. Finally, TEs described how their racial identities and positional privilege related to tenure status informed how they both providing support to others and sought support.

Factors Viewed by TEs as Supportive of Teaching for Racial Knowledge

The role of administration in signaling alignment to diversity discourse

TEs varied in the extent to which they viewed their organizational culture as in alignment with its espoused aims. About half (4/8) of TEs expressed some skepticism about whether they had support that went beyond discursive or superficial support for teacher learning about race and racism, and they viewed administrators as playing an important role in signaling support for this work. Other TEs described feeling as though they were part of a “team” and feeling that administrators and program leadership were supportive, suggesting “pro-diversity beliefs” (van Dick et al., 2008) and “integration-and-learning” diversity perspectives (Ely & Thomas, 2001).

Melissa, for example, was a Black woman who had been at her institution for six years. She felt her school was authentically committed to its espoused goals related to diversity and inclusion. She said that this sense of support became especially salient for her when she visited colleagues at other institutions. She elaborated:

I think that as a wider university, folks truly do work towards social justice aims. I think everyone has a different role to play in that work, and it's not only thinking about: “How does it play out in our curriculum?” “Who are we having our students read?” “Where we having them learn how to teach?” But also some of the larger structural aspects that need to change. (Interview #1)

She said these questions came up within her department as they considered how to prepare teachers. In terms of the structural aspects that needed to change, she noted that her school had recently adjusted admissions criteria to eliminate some standardized testing requirements, and she highlighted recruitment initiatives that focused on increasing representation for faculty and students of color. For Melissa, structural changes indicated alignment between institutional diversity discourse and the practices that supported these goals. Melissa also described administrative support as important for her when she first arrived at the school as a program director for one of the teacher education programs that focused on supporting urban teacher preparation. She explained:

[Our dean] is highly supportive of my work. When I came here as a director … I met with [the Provost] monthly. And so I feel like when I see him, he knows me and will ask me questions and will be interested in knowing what we need to do to improve the work that [I’m] doing. So I feel highly supported. (Interview #1)

Thus, for her, these frequent personal interactions with administrators were useful as opportunities for Melissa to share feedback, questions, and concerns about the progress of her program. These relationships also signaled to her that administrators supported her work and were invested in her programmatic and instructional aims.

Other TEs described how they had become involved in leadership roles within their schools and engaged in collective advocacy to actually change leadership structures within their schools, demonstrating an “integration-and-learning” diversity perspective (Ely & Thomas, 2001). For example, Elizabeth, a white TE who had been teaching for seventeen years, described how becoming part of an Equity Committee within her school was an important experience for her in seeing how the institution and school leaders supported her work. Her dean supported an initiative to provide scholarships that supported the recruitment and retention of TCs of color, and the Equity Committee was able to advocate for adding a representative from their committee to every faculty-hiring search. Elizabeth highlighted that support from school leaders was important for TEs’ perceptions of whether or not their work is supported, and that individual school leaders can play an important role in supporting specific initiatives that TEs’ viewed as relevant for their work, such as recruiting and retaining TCs of color.

In contrast, Kate described her institution as a place where faculty sometimes faced repercussions or consequences for challenging structures that perpetuate racism and inequity in their work. Kate was a white woman working at an urban teacher residency program that offered an alternative certification master's program, and she expressed skepticism about the institutional commitment to social justice. She felt that upper-level administrators were disconnected from the issues that teachers faced, and she believed that the administration was sometimes a “big hurdle” if they didn’t “want this work to happen, for whatever reason: them not wanting to get sued; or because they don’t think it's important” (Interview #2). Peter described similar institutional politics at his university. Peter was a white male who had been teaching at his university for ten years, and he was in a leadership position within his department. Like Kate, he also critiqued upper level administrators who were responsible for managing diversity initiatives as heavily influenced by financial interests and local politics. Overall, these findings suggested that despite relative consistency around explicit social justice or diversity goals across institutions, TEs experienced variance in the way institutions enacted these goals, and they viewed administrators as having the capacity to signal alignment to these broader goals through program initiatives, opportunities for collaboration, and leadership structures.

Drawing Support From Professional Networks: Accentuating Shared Social Identities

TEs varied in the extent to which they identified peers as a source of support in teaching teachers about race and racism. TEs also identified the importance of building professional networks with other justice-oriented TEs beyond one's own institution through formalized and purposeful collaboration.

Collegial networks within the institution as sources of support

Kate identified a lack of alignment with her administration, but she frequently described a strong sense of alignment with her colleagues and offered examples of giving and receiving support from her peers. Like her, many of her peers wished that the organization had a “more radical” approach to justice-oriented work (Interview #1). In addition to this broader sense of a shared interest in social justice and equity, Kate also described how she worked collaboratively with her peers to use a racial lens and a critically conscious lens when making curricular modifications. Kate co-taught and co-planned a social foundations course with colleagues. One of her colleagues, native to their city, suggested reorienting their curriculum to focus more on their local context. Kate described their collaboration process:

We went through and decided, alright, what are our objectives, how are we going to focus. We decided to stick with focusing on the Black community in [this city]. I'm glad that we did that… I haven't taught diversity classes in that way and I was a little nervous… So I was really grateful for her - she took the initiative and she put herself out there. (Interview #2)

Kate went on to share that this move to teach a course centered on anti-Black racism was important in helping her better align her curriculum with her own personal beliefs and teaching philosophy. It is also notable that the collaborative partners that Kate, a white woman, most frequently cited were women of color (Black and Latinx women). Kate's connection with her colleagues around a strong shared professional identity and her emphasis on the contributions of their diverse perspectives suggested an “integration-and-learning” perspective.

Hannah also emphasized the importance of teamwork when describing how she engaged in the work of teaching about race and racism and said that being part of a team of TEs who shared a vision for teachers as critically conscious social justice educators was important to her. Hannah was a white woman working at a public university with sixteen years of experience. She shared an example of a time when her team responded collectively to a student who was struggling with her development of her “racial lens.” Hannah explained:

We were able to sit down with her as a team: her field advisor who has a very strong racial lens, a woman of color; me; her mentor; and the program director; to sit down, be explicit, and name, “What I'm hearing is a savior complex.”

… In my old experience, this would have been an issue between me and the student, and it would have been a “she said/she said” moment. And I could have seen her going to my department chair and it becoming a whole thing. And now … she got feedback from me, from her field advisor, and from the director. … Yeah, so it's having that kind of backup and support, and other people to talk through these ideas. (Interview #1)

Hannah went on to describe how diverse backgrounds and perspectives of her and her colleagues—as parents, long-time residents of the area, and women of color—further enriched their ability to work together. Like Kate, Hannah described a shared professional identity with her peers around their strong “racial lens” and a belief in the value of diverse perspectives as contributing to the quality of their work.

Not all TEs experienced high levels of identification with their colleagues. Some TEs described feeling that the collective “commitment to diversity” was not enacted in authentic ways in their colleague's teaching and research. Sarah was a biracial woman who worked at a public institution in a large urban context. She described her school as big and bureaucratic, and while she highlighted the institution's “activist ideals” and the diversity of both her students and the faculty, she raised questions about whether these ideals translated into “deeper” engagement with social justice issues across the curriculum. She explained, “I get the sense that everybody's like, sure, this is good, but [they’re] not necessarily bringing it into their content” (Interview #1). Sarah's concern was not necessarily an expression of misalignment with her peers, but she did not feel a strong sense of shared identity around the importance of teaching for racial knowledge.

“Part of a collective”: external and cross-institutional professional networks

Developing external and/or cross-institutional professional networks, or becoming “part of a collective,” was identified as an important tool for professional support by 4 of 8 TEs in the study, who built cross-institutional connections with peers with shared interests. Notably, 3 of 4 TEs who described being engaged in cross-institutional collaboration were also those who identified as having relatively strong collegial networks within their institutions. In contrast, TEs who did not have strong collegial networks within their institution sometimes identified other forms of self-support but did not identify cross-institutional collaboration as useful resource for support. In other words, some TEs had multiple forms of community support, while others had none.

TEs in this study who were part of cross-institutional profession networks identified as being part of a formal “collective” or “collaborative” or described their frequent collaborative engagement with other researchers and practitioners with shared interests specifically around race and equity. Peter, for example, had strong relationships with peers in his department and also developed practices for sustaining relationships with TEs and researchers across the country. To build his network, he frequently emailed researchers at other institutions after he read an article he liked to let them know that he “loved it [and] can’t wait to use it and cite it” (Interview #1). Like Peter, Hannah also leveraged her research connections to strengthen her professional network. She described being with the “same crew” at national conferences and explained that, as a group:

We have conferences, we go to each other's conferences, we put on conferences ourselves together, and we’ve developed a shared analysis through that process. We all kind of rely on each other's scholarship and each other's work. I think that's kind of the number one way that my own professional growth has been shaped. (Interview #1)

Their experiences highlighted how external, cross-institutional professional networks served as a source of support through research collaborations and professional opportunities such as conferences. TEs also mentioned networks outside of academia as supporting their work as advocates for social justice more broadly. Hannah referenced her connections to educational justice organizing, and Melissa described a range of smaller conferences that tend to cater to teachers of color or teacher educators focused in urban contexts. Two TEs had participated in fellowship programs focused on educational equity in teacher education and referenced these programs as inspiring curricular modifications. These examples suggest that external professional networks have special utility for these TEs.

In addition, some TEs explicitly warned against the danger of isolation. Melissa, for example, said, “I think I would not be able to do this work as I do it today if I wasn’t a part of multiple collectives” (Focus Group). She described collectives as providing opportunities to be pushed in her reflective practice, to vent, and also offering space to feel rejuvenated. In contrast, Andrea expressed a desire for these kinds of connections but said she did not know how to get more connected to other like-minded TEs. Andrea had been teaching at her university, a large public institution in an urban context, for ten years. For her, the sense of isolation extended both within and beyond her school. She explained, “I don't have anyone to think with me about what pre-service teachers need to know about these issues,” and she added, “I don’t really even know where those conversations are” (Interview #1). TEs descriptions of their experiences with or desires for collaboration outside of their institution highlighted external professional networks as a desired source of support for teaching about race and racism. For these TEs, having stronger support within their institution correlated to being able to identify resources for support in external professional networks (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Types of Support for TEs.

		Type of Support
Name*	Race	Administrative / Program Leadership	Collegial (Intra-institutional)	External (Cross-institutional)
Sarah	B/W	o	-	+
William	B	o	o	o
Kate	W	-	+	o
Melissa	B	+	+	+
Andrea	W	o	-	-
Peter	W	-	+	+
Hannah	B	+	+	+
Elizabeth	W	+	o	o

o no strong positive or negative association with perceived support.

- negatively associated with perceived support.

+ positively associated with perceived support.

The Role of Identity for TEs

TEs’ described how their personal identities informed their perceptions of support within the institution. In general, white TEs who held tenure status described viewing themselves as advocates for other faculty and engaged in helping behaviors for colleagues, and this “advocate” role was imagined and executed with nuanced differences by each TE. This “advocate” identity was especially relevant for TEs who already had strong intra-institutional collegial networks. For three Black TEs in tenure-track positions, racial identity was also salient, and they described being viewed as the “race person” within their organization. The experiences of these TEs suggest that racial identity and positional privilege influenced how TEs identified sources of support and engaged with professional networks.

Table 3.

Sample Codes.

Code	Description	Example(s)
Context: Institution- Diversity	References to diversity as concept and ideology within the institution.	“I would say 60% of our faculty have an actual something in their research and teaching focused on diversity issues, and then another 20–25% at least pay lip service to it.”
Context: Power	Description of how power, privilege, and oppression operate within institution – particularly as relates to race, but also to other issues.	“The university could see me as an asset because I'm a white person who talks about race; that could be something that's good for them. Like, we have a white person focusing on these diverse issues, you know?”
Context: Colleagues	Descriptions of colleagues, specific experiences with colleagues, or reflections about how peers influence practice.	“Across the entire university there's a contingent of faculty, and we sort of all know each other, that when we're talking about social justice we have a particular focus on race.”
Context: Program Structure	Description of program structure and features that influence TE practice.	“It felt like the teacher education program placed student teachers less and less frequently at neighborhood schools. They were less frequently with schools where students were all Black, predominantly Black or all or predominantly Latino/Latina.”

The role of advocacy for white TEs

Five TEs identified as white and four of the five also held tenure status at their institution. Each described ways in which they viewed their role as leveraging institutional power to support colleagues, and this was particularly true for TEs who already viewed themselves as part of a strong professional network within their institution.

For example, Peter described the importance of “strategizing” with peers who were faculty of color and/or non-tenured faculty around social justice issues. He identified the privilege he held as a white man with tenure and felt it enabled him to “leverage things in a way that allowed space for other people to speak and be heard” (Interview #1). He described this sort of strategizing as both happening in the moment and requiring proactive planning with his colleagues, and he characterized these experiences as collaborating with, not speaking on behalf of, his colleagues of color.

Hannah described similar experiences and acknowledged that part of her ability to engage in this advocacy came from her own positional privilege being a white, tenured professor; she said these identities gave her “institutional power in a way I didn’t have before” (Interview #1). She explained that this access to institutional power, in conjunction with the fact that “most of the work that I do is alongside women of color,” were the power dynamics that most enabled her to be part of a team that worked towards the stated social justice aims of the program.

Like Hannah and Peter, Elizabeth described her role as an advocate primarily in relation to her positional privilege as a white, tenured professor, especially given her many years of experience within her institution, but expressed some ambivalence. She explained that while she was the chair of the Equity Committee, they had not “been able to institutionalize practices the way that we want to, partly because of a lack of leadership and support” (Interview #1). Elizabeth noted that she did wield some power as a white person that gave her a sense of freedom both within the classroom and in her relationships with others, but she did not describe this power as translating into her work with the committee.

Kate did not hold a tenured position at her institution, but she did describe her role and relationship with her peers in terms of “strategizing” based on positionality and power. Kate clearly articulated an awareness of both her racial identity and her status within the institution, and she explained how these identities influenced her engagement with her colleagues towards both their instructional goals and broader institutional goals related to equity. When it came to advocating for more structural and programmatic changes, her status within the organization became a more salient identity. “I’m not that important of a person on the power scale,” she explained; she felt that people with more experience in the organization were more likely to be heard by administrators.

This awareness of the way that social identities related to race and tenure status related to power and access within the institution allowed these TEs to advocate for change in ways that might accentuate their similarities to other justice-oriented teacher educators and mitigate potential identity threats related to race and/or positional privilege.

Unlike the other white TEs, Andrea did not describe the experience of strategizing or being an advocate. She discussed feeling supported by her immediate peer group, but she did not explicitly describe working with her colleagues as advocacy or strategizing for change. Andrea's experience seemed to differ from the others, perhaps because she felt somewhat isolated within her institution.

Being “the race person”: The experiences of black TEs

For Black TEs in this study, strategizing took a different form. These TEs described feeling that their peers viewed them as “the race person,” and they responded to this projected identity in different ways.

As the only Black woman in her department and one of few people of color, Melissa felt that her racial identity was salient, and she was also aware of the power dynamic of being on tenure-track. Even in the context of her relatively supportive environment, Melissa noted that she felt that she played a particular role within her school:

There's identity that you think about within yourself, and then how folks around you think about you that informs your identity. As time has gone by I realized, yep, I'm going to be the race person in the department. And I'm going to do that to my best ability. That means I need to be confident no matter where I bring up issues around race. (Interview #1)

She described trying to be strategic in naming race as an issue in faculty meetings, both being cognizant of and playing into her multiple identities as a junior faculty member, a Black woman, and the designated “race person.” Notably, because of the relatively strong collegial network at her school, Melissa took on this identity as the “race person” and said that doing so was bolstered by having support from peers with similar justice-oriented goals. When she spoke up about race and justice in faculty meetings, she felt supported. Melissa's institutional context and professional network enabled her to strategically take on this identity with the support of her colleagues.

Sarah shared the experience of having been identified by others as the “race person.” She described previous professional experiences where she “wasn't trying to do the thing about race and racism, but it's like, oh you're going to do ‘the thing about race and racism.’ There's that idea that people of color can just do that” (Interview #1). However, Sarah did not describe her current institution as a place where she felt her racial identity was particularly salient in shaping her colleagues’ perceptions of her as the “race person.” It is perhaps notable that Sarah also described her current institution as more racially diverse than Melissa's, and Sarah noted that the demographic diversity of her faculty was something that she appreciated because she felt that her peers were more likely to understand and be open to her work.

William also identified himself as being categorized as a “race person” by members of his organization. He was uncertain about his own alignment with this identification, and he did not identify sources of support within his institution for responding to or negotiating this identity as the “race person.” William was in his second year at the university, and he said that, being a Black male who taught predominantly white students, “I get why I get hired at most places. Because, you know, ‘oh, he's black—he can come in here and teach a course on race’” (Interview #1). William shared that it seemed to be an expectation from his department administrators that he teach courses that would challenge his mostly white students about their whiteness. William elaborated:

In some ways I get evaluated based on my ability to [teach white students about race] well. I don’t think they would ever say that, but it's understood that that's going to be vetted in the courses that I teach. … It's part of their kind of moral compass in a teacher education department. They don't want to prepare teachers who think certain ways about communities of color. (Interview #1)

For William, then, particularly as a Black male teacher educator, he felt assessed on this role as a “race person,” that is, as a TEs who teaches about race and racism, and, like Melissa, he felt that this assessment was tied to his identity as a Black male. However, unlike Melissa, it generated some internal conflict to be identified in this way, even though he “understood” that it was an expectation. While he did share that he thought being able to teach about race “was why I was hired” (Interview #2), he did not describe having a strong sense of this professional identity or a desire to adapt to this role. He also did not identify sources of collegial support for strategizing around this ascribed identity. Rather, his uncertainty and ambivalence about the role and its expectations led to some frustration. William said that sometimes he had moments where he felt, “This is not fun - I don’t enjoy this!” While William said that the department administrators “genuinely want to support” his growth and development, he also lamented that their expectations for him sometimes complicated his ability to define instructional goals. Overall, William seemed frustrated by the expectation that he would fill the role of being “the race person” in his department.

Discussion

It remains clear that the work of teaching teachers about race and racism is challenging and that UBTE programs need to do more to support TEs who do this work. TEs in this study saw their institutions as making explicit commitments to diversity and social justice, but they differed in the extent to which they viewed their schools as truly committed to this work. It is this variance across institutions that is notable, because they were able to identify factors, such as administrative support and collaborative peer networks, that they viewed as more or less supportive for their work in relation to these broader commitments to diversity and social justice. Their ability to develop a shared sense of professional identity with their colleagues, particularly as justice-oriented teacher educators, was influenced by these factors. Across their experiences, it appeared that those who have the strongest collegial networks are also best positioned to access external resources and cross-institutional professional networks for support. Those who were able to develop strong cross-institutional networks referenced the importance of utilizing structures within the academy, such as collaborative research and conferences, and the need to look outside of traditional academia to broader networks of justice-oriented educators and activists as well as localized communities of practice.

Unfortunately, it seems, the more isolated TEs are within their institution, the more isolated they remain. The findings from this study suggest that some programs are particularly supportive for TEs who teach about race, while others are not. These findings resonate with other work that has examined the types of institutional supports needed for teacher educators who teach about race and racism, which often point to the importance of leadership and broader communities of support as critical for the success of diversity/equity initiatives within a teacher education program (Gorski & Parekh, 2020). IHEs can better support this work by facilitating access to professional networks (e.g., with increased funding for research and travel to relevant conferences) and creating intra-institutional communities of practice for teacher educators to engage in discussions about teaching for racial knowledge. The latter practice would not only strengthen professional networks but also signal to TEs that there is a broad commitment from administrators and faculty to the work of teaching for racial knowledge.

Notably, those who had strong perceptions of support often described experiences shaped by “integration-and-learning” (Ely & Thomas, 2001) diversity perspectives, where their administrators, colleagues, and institutions seemed to share an understanding of the value that diverse perspectives bring to the core work of the institution. Diversity discourse has been critiqued as rhetoric that capitalizes on diverse individuals as mere representatives of inclusive institutions without any substantive commitment to structural changes that would authentically include those diverse individuals (Berrey, 2015; Iverson, 2012). While this remained true for some TEs in this study, others perceived their institutions as more authentically supporting racial diversity and diversity goals. In doing so, these institutions were perceived as supporting the work of teaching teachers about race and racism. Generally, institutions were perceived as supportive when administrative leaders were more vocally, explicitly supportive of TEs’ justice-oriented work and when visible, structural changes were made within the institution over time. For IHEs seeking to more authentically enact their social justice goals, investing in strong leadership and taking concrete steps towards structural change appear to be two promising approaches.

Finally, TEs highlighted ways that their own racial identities and tenure status affected how they strategized around seeking or offering support to peers, which underscores the role of social identities in mediating the significance of professional networks and professional identities for TEs who teach about race and racism. Thus, more research is needed that examines how these factors—racial identities, professional identities, and professional networks for support—are interrelated and how we might develop an agenda for programmatic reform that better supports TEs who teach about race and racism.

Implications

These findings have important implications for teacher educators and teacher education programs broadly. For teacher educators, they point to the significance of participating in and building collaborative teams both within and beyond institutions. Especially for those working in programs where they do not feel a sense of institutional support, it is important to seek out opportunities such as professional development organizations, conferences, and other teacher educator collectives that are engaged in similar work. The emphasis placed on cross-institutional collaboration by TEs in the study also highlights a need for more cross-institutional perspectives in research on teacher education. Existing research in teacher education largely focuses at the level of a single classroom or single institution, and more cross-institutional perspectives can expand our understanding of the complexity of both programmatic structures and individual teacher education classrooms. Collaboration is a core feature of academic work, and future research should systematically examine how cross-institutional collaboration is shaping the work of teacher educators. This study is also based on a limited sample of teacher educators whose experiences are not generalizable, and these findings are worth further exploration across other institutional contexts and through future research with larger samples of TEs.

The findings of this study also offer clear imperatives for UBTE programs to better support the work of teaching teachers about race and racism specifically. This study offers a hopeful perspective about the role of institutions in realigning diversity perspectives in an institution but suggests that institutions must be purposeful in supporting those who teach about race and racism by providing access to professional networks and creating environments where the key aims of their work are supported. This support currently exists through explicit diversity goals but must be supported through practices and an organizational culture that demonstrate alignment to these goals. The TEs in the study affirmed other contemporary research that shows that most IHEs do have an explicit commitment to diversity and social justice (Berrey, 2015; Patel, 2015; Souto-Manning & Emdin, 2020), and the findings from this study indicate that in at least some cases, TEs feel that their institutions are indeed committed to these ideals. The broad skepticism in the field, however, about the authenticity of diversity discourse, suggests that these experiences are not the norm. If some TEs feel supported in their work as part of a team of justice-oriented teacher educators, we can learn from programs that offer this support. As part of a future research agenda, teacher education researchers and program leaders can continue to critically inquire about the sense of misalignment between espoused diversity goals and implicit diversity beliefs as they are experienced by members of their institution.

The varied experiences of TEs’ in this study demonstrate that as IHEs we need to learn more about how institutional diversity discourse plays a role in the experiences of faculty and students. Some administrators are making meaningful structural changes at their schools to demonstrate that they understand how to align their programs to the stated diversity aims of their school. Notably, in the stories shared in this study, change often required partnership with people of color and including people of color in leadership to learn from diverse perspectives. It does not seem coincidental that those individuals who viewed their schools as aligned to social justice aims also described witnessing systemic changes to support increased recruitment and retention of teachers and teacher educators of color, which is consistent with recommendations in the literature (Ladson-Billings, 2011; Milner et al., 2013). Small shifts in program structure, prioritization, and structures for professional and collegial support can create the organizational climate to signal to those who are engaged in teacher education for racial knowledge that their work is important and will be supported.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Lisette Enumah

Author Biography

Lisette Enumah completed this research at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include teacher education about race and racism, racial equity in schooling, and professional support for teachers and teacher educators of color. Her most recent publications include “Interpretive frames for responding to racially stressful moments in history discussions” in Theory & Research in Social Education (2020) and “Using video to highlight curriculum-embedded opportunities for student discourse” in Journal of Teacher Education (2020).

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