Abstract
Teacher education programs are increasingly taking up commitments to prepare new teachers for equitable teaching. Despite best intentions, programs feel challenged to help candidates translate these commitments into classroom practice. Using a context-specific teacher education framework, we conducted a mixed-methods study of seven urban-focused programs to understand how they targeted preparation for urban contexts. We found that while programs offer multiple opportunities to learn about content embedded in context, fewer opportunities exist for candidates to practice in context, and that faculty play a critical bridging role in designing practice opportunities that are informed by program vision.
Keywords
Teacher education programs across the United States are increasingly establishing commitments to prepare new teachers to work in urban schools and communities (Williamson et al., 2016; Zeichner, 2006). Many such programs also express commitments to equitable and justice-oriented teaching but feel challenged to help aspiring teachers translate their commitments into practices that exemplify culturally expansive ways of teaching and learning (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Davila, 2011; Milner, 2010; Parkhouse et al., 2019). In part, this is due to a range of perspectives–often underspecified, about how we understand the term ‘urban’ and what it means to prepare teachers for equity and justice (Anderson & Stillman, 2010; Gadsden & Dixon-Román, 2017; Grant & Agosto, 2008; Matsko & Hammerness, 2014a; Mills & Ballantyne, 2016; Milner, 2012, 2015; Shah, 2021; Zeichner, 2006). Aspiring teachers may also face difficulties enacting justice-oriented commitments in classrooms because teaching instructional practices to support equitable instruction is not the norm in teacher education (Anderson & Stillman, 2010; Kavanagh & Danielson, 2019; Liu & Ball, 2019; Sleeter, 2012).
As teacher educators, we hold perennial wonderings, both scholarly and practical, about how to prepare aspiring teachers to effectively and meaningfully provide justice-oriented and equitable instruction to their students. Our interest in this topic is fueled by our own experiences as a research team: two of us are educators of color who readily draw upon our own experiences as students and teachers in predominantly white spaces; all three of us are active in our personal and/or professional communities around issues of equity; we have all taught in and studied teacher education programs that focus on preparing students for urban schools; and one of us has studied teacher education in international contexts where ‘urban’ is differently defined but issues of inequity still persist. Our definition of urban schools acknowledges the sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic dimensions that influence teaching and learning as well as the dynamics of racism, classism, and power that influence educational outcomes for students of color (Gadsden & Dixon-Román, 2017; Milner, 2015; Welsh & Swain, 2020; Williamson et al., 2016). By way of extension then, we are compelled to better understand how teacher education programs focused on preparing teachers for urban schools can be organized to afford candidates opportunities to develop deep awareness about the multiplicity of factors that shape teaching and learning while also equipping them with ways of engaging students in culturally expansive practices. While many references to urban contexts pertain to the United States, encouraging preparation programs to better understand how to help candidates learn and enact equitable practice, tailored to their own local contexts, is a worthwhile endeavor across the globe.
We have previously argued that taking up a contextual and systemic view of schools and schooling might be of benefit to candidates who will eventually teach in those systems; we have referred to this localized approach to preparation as “context-specific teacher education” (CSTE) (Hammerness et al., 2015; Hammerness & Matsko, 2013; Matsko & Hammerness, 2014a). Context-specific teacher education programs define, and then teach as content, essential knowledge and practices about students, neighborhoods, districts, schools, and policies (Matsko & Hammerness, 2014a). In this manner, CSTE promotes equitable teaching because candidates learn about specific students, communities, and schools where they plan to teach, and are prepared within these particulars. We have therefore speculated that the landscape and histories of Chicago as opposed to Brooklyn, or Philadelphia as opposed to Worcester, could necessarily result in different implications for teaching for equity in these contexts. Early evidence suggests that CSTE programs with a clear vision and opportunities to learn that are consistent with that vision can produce early career teachers who remain longer in the profession; these teachers also express a vision of practice that is aligned with their programs’ emphases (Matsko & Hammerness, 2014a; Matsko & Hammerness, 2014b; Tamir, 2013; Williamson et al., 2016). This initial work on CSTE offers a conceptual lens for education programs interested in exploring how they might start working with candidates to make meaning about the complex and layered contexts in which they will be teaching. Beyond making content embedded in context explicit and accessible to candidates, CSTE must also equip candidates with related pedagogies to reflect and draw upon that contextual knowledge in practice in culturally informed ways. Absent access to practices to enact equity-oriented commitments, even the best-intentioned beginners can perpetuate rather than disrupt the social inequities that are endemic to schools and communities (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2019).
Inspired by increasing evidence about the impact of pedagogies of enactment on preservice teacher learning (Grossman & McDonald, 2008; Kang & Windschitl, 2018; Kavanagh & Rainey, 2017; Reisman et al., 2019), we are curious to better understand the types of learning opportunities afforded to teacher candidates to develop the knowledge and accompanying practices to engage meaningfully with their students in urban schools and communities. McDonald (2005), for instance, found that candidates often learned about multicultural educational theories through reading and discussion rather than having practical strategies to implement in the classroom. Others concur: raising critical awareness of candidates through academic coursework alone is not enough (Kavanagh & Danielson, 2019; Liu & Ball, 2019; Shah, 2021). More must be learned about the ways aspiring teachers are prepared to enact instruction in equitable ways for students in urban schools and communities, and how programs are helping candidates understand and practice just teaching (Anderson & Stillman, 2010; Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2020; Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Sleeter, 2014).
In this mixed methods study, we use an enhanced CSTE framework to explore the dimensions of context that urban teacher education programs target in their preparation for urban schools and communities. In the interest of attending explicitly to both content and practice, we examine distinctions between “opportunities to learn” about context (see Floden, 2002; see also Carroll, 1963) and “opportunities to practice” (see Ball & Forzani, 2009; Grossman et al., 2009) as reported by program candidates. Using an original survey, we gather data from candidates across seven urban teacher education programs to better understand the learning opportunities relative to content and practice that are offered. Based on our survey findings, we conduct a comparative case analysis of two programs to better understand and illustrate how they prepare candidates along various dimensions of context, with a particular focus on learning opportunities designed around localized content and practice. Together, our findings begin to offer insights to teacher educators, program designers, and researchers about how CSTE can be designed to help candidates translate their equity commitments and contextual knowledge into pedagogical possibilities.
Literature Review
Using a CSTE (Matsko & Hammerness, 2014a) framework as a starting point, and drawing from scholars of urban teacher education, we reviewed literature to elaborate the role that various dimensions of context play in the development of candidates. Given our focus, we only reviewed articles that referred to preparation for urban schools or addressed equitable teaching, including issues of racism, classism, identity, and power. We prioritized descriptive studies from which we could glean examples of content knowledge and related practices for work in urban schools. We highlight key findings from our review below.
Policy Context
Teaching for equity requires that candidates engage the sociopolitical contexts of teaching and learning (Anderson & Stillman, 2010; Nasir et al., 2016) and understand how macro-level politics can influence teachers’ capacity to teach for equity (Agarwal et al., 2010; Carter Andrews et al., 2017; Philip et al., 2018). Learning about policy and politics at the federal and local levels helps candidates begin to understand the complicated array of challenges associated with achieving equitable education for students of color. Cochran-Smith et al. (2016) found that although many programs identify as being about equity, few provided candidates with opportunities to consider how systemic injustices are perpetuated. For urban CSTE programs, this might mean asking candidates to read about the intersection of racism and public policy, and how legal, housing, and financial policies have consistently led to discrimination and injustice, and the history of racism in the United States (Desmond, 2017; Kendi, 2016; Rothstein, 2018). Candidates can also engage in the practice of looking for evidence of such injustices, such as racism as manifested in funding policies, in their school contexts, thus bringing to life the impact of inequitable policies on schools and districts (Lee, 2018).
District and School Context
Understanding how systemic racism and inequities play out in districts and schools is especially critical for candidates in urban teacher education programs to make the connection between broader public policies and their own local context. Historicized injustices and institutionalized racism shape practices, especially in high-poverty districts (Gadsden & Dixon-Román, 2017; Milner, 2015) but also in school districts serving higher-income students (Lewis & Diamond, 2015). For example, as long noted by scholars, disciplinary and academic tracking practices such as suspension rates (e.g. Milner, 2013, 2015), and referrals for special education (Blanchett, 2009) have disproportionately affected students of color. Aspiring educators must be aware of how district and school practices contribute to inequity. Programs we have previously studied ask candidates to read contrasting portraits of urban schools and districts such as those captured in seminal works by Kozol (2005), Payne (2008), and Rose (1995) to help reveal a long and persistent history of injustice; as well as more recent texts to reveal how justice-oriented practices must explicitly address race and racism in school contexts (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2019; Lewis & Diamond, 2015; Milner, 2015).
Neighborhood, Community and Family Context
Research calls for urban teacher educators to help candidates attune to the impact of larger policy contexts in their local neighborhoods and community settings (e.g., Lee et al., 2010; Williamson et al., 2016). For example, candidates read about the history of segregation in the city and how unjust and discriminatory housing and legal policies led to the composition of neighborhoods in Chicago today ( Matsko & Hammerness, 2014a; Moore, 2016) or, in New York, how the history of segregation in schools (Shapiro, 2019) affects school choice for parents today, especially for families of color (Ewing, 2018; Hannah-Jones, 2016). Taking a deep dive into neighborhoods, communities, and families can help candidates begin to see expertise rooted in the local neighborhoods and communities, connections between culture and learning, and learning as a racialized process—vital frames for candidates to acquire as they prepare to teach (e.g., Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Nasir et al., 2020; Sleeter, 2008; Valenzuela, 1999). One strategy to consider for learning in the context of community, is viewing community members as fellow teacher educators (i.e., community scholars) through whom teacher candidates may gain access to community knowledge in an equitable collaboration, grounded in mutual respect and reciprocity (Lee, 2018; Zeichner & Lee, 2016).
Context of Classrooms and Students
Spending time in classrooms with students is a critical component of localized teacher preparation and provides candidates an introduction to a district's chosen curricula. Gaining knowledge of local curricular expectations and practices puts graduates on firm footing when they enter classrooms as teachers of record (Feiman-Nemser et al., 2014). Candidates also need ways to integrate pedagogies to counter the problems of color-evasiveness (e.g., Shah & Coles, 2020; Varghese et al., 2019) because classrooms are not neutral. Although large U.S. urban public school systems tend to serve predominantly students of color, their curricula, instruction, and expectations tend to be based on European-American culture (Hollins, 2012), perpetuating an ideology of Whiteness in the U.S. teaching force (Picower, 2009). Candidates therefore need to honor multiple and expansive views of disciplinary knowledge (Warren et al., 2020), while also noting students’ racialized, classed, and gendered positions within classrooms (Dutro & Cartun, 2016). Using instructional strategies such as recognition and refraction to reorient classroom discourses in equitable ways (Calabrese Barton et al., 2020), candidates can begin to move towards a race-conscious use of curricula that align with, engage, and celebrate the lives of their students of color while fighting against the inclination towards low expectations (Milner, 2010). Finally, candidates need the skills to help their students see their own experiences within a broader system, withstand and navigate inequitable school experiences and recognize their own power to shape their narratives (Paris, 2012; Paris & Alim, 2014). This type of sociopolitical awareness, or critical consciousness (Freire, 1968/1970; Knight-Manuel & Marciano, 2018) is necessary for both students and teachers.
Self
Teachers are the most accessible representatives of the educational system in which students participate. For this reason, how teachers teach and are prepared to engage in anti-racist teaching plays an important role in the experiences students of color have in school (Howard & Milner, 2021; Shah, 2021). Opportunities for teachers to see themselves as cultural and racial beings, and develop racial consciousness, which requires critical reflection on how one's positionality informs their approach to students and classrooms has been found to be related to their ability to employ behaviors in their classroom that promote equitable educational outcomes for racially minoritized students (e.g. Haynes, 2017). Programs are increasingly acknowledging the need to provide candidates with guided opportunities to consider their multiple, intersecting identities in relationship to power and privilege, as well as their own implicit assumptions and biases about schooling (e.g. Milner, 2012; Perry et al., 2003; Thompson et al., 2020). Some teacher education programs engage candidates in practices such as conducting “autoethnographies” (Feiman-Nemser et al., 2014; Pennington, 2007; Yazan, 2018) to unpack how their own lived experiences have shaped their perceptions about students and success. In whatever format, examination of self is a critical feature of teacher preparation.
Theoretical Framework
The theories, concepts, and studies noted along various dimensions of context, as theorized by this literature review, enumerate a myriad of learning and practice opportunities that ought to be afforded to preservice candidates. While numerous scholars have contributed deeply to our understandings of urban teacher education (see for example, Banks, Ladson-Billings, Gay, Milner) few frameworks allow us to consider contextual dimensions simultaneously with the goal of fostering equitable education for students of color. Towards that end, we offer a revised context-specific teacher education framework focused on preparing candidates for urban schools.
As previously noted, CSTE promotes equitable teaching because it prepares candidates to know their students in deep but holistic ways. Focused on urban contexts, this framework draws in essential contexts—families and communities, schools and districts, regional and federal policy, and now a context we name as “self” which speaks to the importance of candidates looking inwards to examine their own intersecting identities. Considering these dimensions as a collective punctuates the importance of considering context as an interactive system rather than a singular, static state.
Grounded in sociocultural learning perspectives, CSTE views knowledge and participation as inextricably linked to the context in which individuals interact with actors, practices, and tools whose roles have been negotiated over time (Danish & Gresalfi, 2018). With this dynamic view of students within a complex setting, candidates can begin to see the relationships between the micro-work happening in their classrooms and schools as influenced by macro-level influences such as local community and broader national histories and policies. CSTE also reflects the tenets of complexity theory (Cochran-Smith et al., 2014; Opfer & Pedder, 2011), which points to the nested contexts of preparation, making multiple, overlapping influences on teaching and learning visible (Cochran-Smith et al., 2014). Taking this broad, systemic view of education can deepen candidates’ understandings of their own positionality and that of their students, allowing candidates to advocate in more informed ways towards more just learning environments.
We theorize that meaningful urban-focused CSTE programs should offer candidates multiple opportunities to learn about content as embedded in important dimensions of context and accompanied by opportunities to build related robust instructional repertoires. Attending to contextually informed content and practice together should strengthen candidates’ capacities to provide equitable educational opportunities for their students of color. We also highlight the importance of vision in this revised CSTE frame, as supported by research noting the importance of a clearly articulated program vision (Hammerness, 2006; Hammerness et al., 2015; Kennedy, 1999), coherence as expressed through connections between courses, key program experiences, and work in the field, (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Grossman et al., 2009), and implementation of vision and coherent practice through faculty (See Figure 1). This framework, which is greater than the sum of its component parts, can serve as a useful analytical tool to examine the preparation opportunities afforded to candidates across multiple programs.
Context-Specific teacher education learning opportunities.
We apply this updated CSTE framework to an analysis of seven urban teacher education programs to begin to understand how they target their preparation, and the similarities and differences between them by asking: Research Question1) Considering opportunities to learn content and practice, what dimensions of context do urban teacher education programs address in their preparation? We then conduct a comparative case analysis to better understand and describe the candidate learning opportunities offered through select programs by exploring: Research Question 2) How do urban teacher education programs prepare candidates along various dimensions of context, again with a focus on both content and practice?
Data and Methods
To examine the preparation provided to teacher candidates intending to work with students in varying urban contexts, we used a mixed-methods study design relying on two primary data sources. The first data source is a survey administered to candidates across seven teacher education programs about multiple dimensions of context-specific preparation with attention to learning opportunities, program vision, and teaching intentions. We used candidate self-reports about their preparation to better understand what dimensions of context were addressed in preparation and the various opportunities they had to learn about each dimension of practice relative to that context. Next, considering patterns emerging from the survey, we conducted a comparative case analysis of two programs to highlight how they engage candidates in opportunities related to learning content and practices relative to the context. We first describe the design of our survey and case studies, follow with our analytical strategies, and then describe the study sample.
Survey Design and Development. Our survey design reflected our intent to study multiple programs’ relative attention to different dimensions of context ranging from self to policy. Within each context category, we asked for candidates’ self-reports about the opportunities to learn and develop knowledge about that context feature, the practical opportunities associated with the dimensions of context, program vision and teaching intentions to reveal similarities and differences in candidate preparation (RQ1).
To develop opportunities to learn items, we reviewed existing surveys about teacher preparation, and surveys about cultural relevance concerning community awareness, and candidates’ experiences of learning to teach across different racial backgrounds/ethnicities, socio-economic classes, languages, and identities (Kennedy et al., 1993; NCTRL, 1991; see also Boyd et al., 2006, 2009). When possible, we employed previously validated survey items such as the Teacher Education and Learning to Teach (TELT) study survey (Kennedy et al., 1993; NCTRL, 1991) which focused upon candidates’ preparation to work with students with varying backgrounds. For instance, we asked candidates to self-report how much opportunity they had in their coursework to “learn about the racial backgrounds of students where you are likely to teach” and to “learn about economic backgrounds of students where you are likely to teach.” The opportunity to learn items were scaled from 1 (no opportunity) to 5 (extensive opportunity). Concerned about ‘socially desirable’ responses, we framed learning opportunities questions in the context of coursework and clinical experiences to get close to actual candidate experiences (Boyd et al., 2009; Floden, 2002; Schmidt et al., 2011).
Once opportunities to learn questions were identified, we created parallel questions to capture candidates’ opportunities to practice that learning in context. These items sought to capture how challenging an idea or skill was to take up and how evident that idea or skill would be in candidate practice. For instance, we asked “how challenging is it to learn about the communities in which you are likely to teach?” We also asked, “in my teaching practice you would see evidence that I draw on knowledge from the communities that surround my school.” The challenge items were scaled 1 (not challenging at all) to 5 (extremely challenging); while the evidence of practice items was scaled 1–5 with equivalents between 1) strongly disagree to 5) strongly agree.
Our final categories of questions were related to program vision and teaching intentions. Vision items related to its articulation, its coherence, as experienced by candidates, and its implementation through faculty. While not the same as retention rates, we used teaching intention as a proxy for the influence of programs on candidates’ readiness to teach.
Survey Implementation and Analysis. Our survey was created and administered electronically via Qualtrics in June of 2016 to candidates from seven teacher education programs during the final weeks of their program to ensure they could respond about their entire preparation experience. To mitigate concerns about implicit pressure or response bias, surveys were sent after the close of the quarter or semester, thus ensuring grades or program standing were not affected.
We first used descriptive statistics to group responses by dimensions of context and learning opportunity. We examined data for patterns to better understand the experience of candidates enrolled in the programs to first determine what dimensions of context were addressed in their preparation. We then used a non-parametric test of variance to compare item responses, given that most responses were ordinal, Likert-scale values. Using a Pearson's chi-square (χ2) test, we identified all items bearing significant variation. We chose this method because our overall survey item mean score (4.18/5) was so positively skewed. We interpreted significance to indicate aspects of teacher preparation that differed most across programs, and therefore warranted the most attention. We then examined response patterns by program to discern the learning opportunities offered to candidates, relative to content and practice. This gave us an opportunity to explore similarities and differences in learning opportunities, vision, and outcomes (RQ1).
Comparative Case Studies Design and Analysis. To add nuance to survey results, and to explore how preparation programs engaged candidates in learning opportunities relative to content and practice (RQ2), we developed comparative studies of two teacher education programs (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2017). We selected these two cases because their candidates reported the highest ratings in areas suggested as key differentiators for CSTE programs. We also selected these programs because they were situated in the same city—which we felt would bring out either similarities in approach, or potential differences in preparation. Drawing on program documents from program directors, including syllabi, programs of study, and course requirements and key course assignments, we coded data in a closed manner, using categories from our CSTE framework. All data was double coded to ensure agreement of interpretation across the team.
Sample
The survey was electronically administered to 223 individuals across seven teacher preparation programs that identified as preparing for urban contexts. In total, 178 candidates participated in the survey resulting in a 79.8 percent response rate. The number of participants from each program answering each item ranged anywhere from 18 to 46. See Table 1 for candidate demographic data.
Demographics of Candidates Surveyed.
The program sample included undergraduate and graduate programs, secondary and elementary programs from public and private institutions, and ranged in location from coast to coast. Programs differed in size and acceptance rates, and in design, including part- and full-time options. Common to all programs, however, was their expressed commitment to issues of equity and preparing candidates to teach students of color.
Results
We first looked at the dimensions of context the programs in our sample address in their preparation. On average, our findings as reported by candidates, revealed that programs were taking up an expansive view of context in their approach to preparation. All urban teacher education programs in our study provided candidates with some opportunity to learn about every dimension of context named in the CSTE framework—self, classroom and students, families, communities and neighborhoods, district and school, and policy. The mean survey ratings for learning opportunities ranged between 4.10–4.31 suggesting that programs “explored in some depth” each dimension of context in our framework.
Opportunities to Learn about Content
While on average, candidates indeed reported having some opportunities to learn overall for each dimension of context, there were a few items associated with specific context dimensions that indicated important program differences. One such item was in response to opportunities to learn about strategies to establish classroom norms, within the classroom and student dimension. Challenges in setting up productive classroom communities have long been viewed as expected for novices (Veenman, 1984), regardless of context; however, the noted variation in this item across programs may suggest there are programs that are providing learning opportunities which lead some candidates to feel more or less prepared than their peers in other programs. Another item with variation referenced opportunities to learn about the cultural norms in the communities in which candidates completed their student teaching experiences in the dimension of context related to neighborhood, community, and family. Finally, we identified some variation in survey responses regarding programs’ treatment about local policy and about education policy more broadly. Thus, while programs generally offered learning opportunities about content associated with each dimension of context, variation across the noted items could be interpreted to signal the importance of helping candidates build awareness about the communities in which they were placed —ranging from its cultural norms to policy.
Opportunities to Practice in Context
When we focus more on the experiences in teacher education that help candidates build their capacity to practice, rather than just building contextual awareness, we see much more variation expressed in candidate self-reports. The mean for practice items, which asked about the challenge of enacting practices as they relate to the different dimensions of context, as well as how evident certain aspects of practice are in candidates’ instruction, ranged from 1.99 to 4.73. This range is considerably larger than the spread indicated by the opportunities to learn items. While lower candidate ratings for practice items are not entirely surprising for preservice teachers about to enter the profession, it is interesting to note that the dimensions of context in which we see the most variation have again to do with neighborhood, community, family and classroom and student dimensions. For instance, we see differences in responses to items which asked candidates about their capacity to draw upon knowledge about communities and neighborhoods to support student learning. Although not statistically significant, we also found notable variation in the item related to engaging with students’ families (with an overall mean rating of 3.75). This was interesting because while candidates reported consistent opportunities to learn about the communities and neighborhoods across all programs, they indicated differences in their responses about being able to draw on these knowledge bases in practice.
In the dimension related to classrooms and students, we saw the most variation across programs in candidates’ reports about their capacity to identify and address diverse learning needs, implement instructional strategies for English-language learners, and students with special needs. While again these findings are not altogether surprising given their complexity and novices' emerging skills, they do point to the need for providing candidates with concrete opportunities to consider how to use knowledge gained about students to support pedagogical and learning environment design decisions. We also saw significant variation across programs in items asking about candidates’ capacities to adjust instruction for students based on their racial and economic backgrounds, their ability to adjust practice based on systematic inquiry, and capacity to interact with individuals across cultural differences. Because learning how to engage in context-specific teaching is, at its heart, about working in particular communities, which translates to knowing and working with specific students—these items may be especially important indicators of strong CSTE.
Program Vision
Our survey inquired about program vision–its articulation, coherence, and implementation via faculty as a feature of CSTE. Across our results, we found the most variation reported by candidates across programs regarding vision. Eleven of fifteen items showed meaningful variation, suggesting that even programs attending to context may find that their candidates are not experiencing a clear sense of the program's commitments as expressed through their vision, nor perhaps seeing connections across courses—such as between practices and foundational ideas. We turn to a few survey results to elaborate.
For example, one vision-related item asked whether candidates experienced preparation that emphasized teaching in urban schools (however defined by their programs). Responses to this item, summarized in Table 2, suggest that five of seven programs in our sample did not have any graduates who disagreed with this statement. That was not the case, however, for programs 6 and 7, which had a quarter of its graduates respond in disagreement. Programs 1 and 2 also had candidates respond neutrally to this statement about emphasis, despite having the highest proportion of candidates reporting agreement or strong agreement. Even though our sample's programs self-identified as having an urban focus, our range of results aligns with prior work underscoring confusion that can arise with varying interpretations of the term “urban” (i.e., Milner, 2012).
My Program Places a lot of Emphasis on Teaching in Urban Schools.
*Program ASTER; **Program BLOOM.
Also related to vision were the items related to constructs about social justice and equity (Tables 3 and 4). In addition to programs in our study having self-identified as having an urban focus, they also expressed commitments to social justice. For both questions, most candidates from every program agreed or strongly agreed with statements asking about the emphases on justice and equity in their programs. The percentage of respondents who disagreed with the statements varied greatly, ranging from 0% to as much as 20%. Interestingly, we observed more response agreement regarding programs’ emphases on equity rather than social justice, which is a concept noted in prior literature as carrying multiple meanings (Grant & Agosto, 2008). Our findings made us curious about whether terms such as social justice and equity may have been potentially conflated by programs, and about how explicitly the terms are named and defined with candidates. These results also raise questions about the relationships between teaching in urban schools, social justice, and equity. Can one be in an urban teacher education program without attending to issues of justice or equity, or both? These data illuminate the criticality of program vision and its relevance to candidates’ understanding about what they are learning about, practicing, and why.
Teaching for Social Justice is Central to my Program's Mission.
*Program ASTER; **Program BLOOM.
The Importance of Equity is Stressed in my Program.
*Program ASTER; **Program BLOOM.
Most notable in our results were candidate responses about faculty relative to program vision, in either amplifying the work of context-specific preparation, or potentially detracting from it. Of the nine questions regarding the role of faculty, responses to eight items varied significantly among programs. These items probed into faculty's classroom pedagogies, their knowledge of contemporary schools and youth, ability to connect assignments to the field, and the degree to which they exhibit care about their own students’ learning. Data (Table 5) suggest that even thoughtfully organized programs that attend deeply to context can still have differences in how well-connected faculty are to schools, their candidates, and to the rest of their programs, which dilutes program coherence. Beyond curriculum, for an ideal optimization of CSTE, programs must attend to important pillars of preparation including having a clear vision and coherence between various features of preparation. Faculty who are well informed about the contexts for which their programs are preparing teachers can serve an important role by expressing their program's articulated commitments in the design of their courses and the opportunities to learn content and practice in context afforded to candidates.
Candidate Responses About Program Faculty.
*Program ASTER; **Program BLOOM.
Teaching Intentions
Finally, we examined candidates’ outcomes in the form of their future teaching intentions, focusing on the item, “I plan to pursue a teaching position in an urban school setting upon graduation” as an indicator about how candidates are thinking about their employment post program completion (Table 6). While there are multiple reasons that teaching intentions may not necessarily indicate teaching commitments, we note that 11–27 percent of respondents in a few of the programs responded neutrally, and sometimes negatively. This data might mean candidates who do not plan to pursue a teaching position in an urban school are doing so because their programs provided a substantial set of understandings and experiences about teaching in urban settings that resulted in a change of course. Another possible reason could be related to candidates feeling ill-prepared, suggesting their experiences could have been stronger around opportunities to learn, practice, and/or vision. That said, candidates have a myriad of personal and familial issues that might require them to look elsewhere for employment, suggesting that our data regarding teaching intentions have nothing to do with their preparation. While our data cannot appropriately be used to make any causal links between teaching intentions and program quality, it seems that programs would be interested in knowing if their graduates are entering into the contexts for which their preparation is designed.
I Plan to Pursue a Teaching Position in an Urban School Setting upon Graduation.
*Program ASTER; **Program BLOOM.
In sum, our survey results highlighted that while most programs in our sample attended to various dimensions of context to prepare their teachers (RQ1), helping candidates to enact their commitments requires greater opportunities to practice. That is, even when candidates had opportunities to learn about differences across particular communities and students with whom they will work, they seemed to have fewer opportunities to practice how to draw upon that knowledge in ways to inform their instruction. The results also speak to the importance of a clearly articulated vision—especially around program use of terms such as equity and justice, and supporting faculty to understand program vision. In the following section, we highlight two programs from our survey whose candidates reported relatively more opportunities to learn and practice working with families and communities, a stronger awareness of the role of policy, and clear understandings of their program's vision. They also reported strong intentions to teach in the communities for which they were prepared.
Comparative Case Studies: A Closer Look at Two Programs
Our primary intent for this comparative analysis was to begin to illustrate how programs engage their candidates in learning about content and practice relative to their selected contexts (RQ2). While our broader survey results generally pointed to little variation across programs in opportunities to learn about content associated with various dimensions of context, we found significant differences in program vision, and opportunities to practice around the contexts of specific students, families and communities, and policy. We selected two programs as focal cases with consistently high candidate ratings in these challenging areas of preparation. These selected programs shared a strong commitment to developing teachers for the very same context, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), which provided us with an interesting opportunity to consider preparation similarities and differences.
Program ASTER. Program ASTER is part of a large midwestern university program. Over the years, it has developed into a pre-service undergraduate program emphasizing the value of community-based partnerships in identifying and realizing shared educational goals. It provides candidates with extensive opportunities to develop community-focused knowledge and pedagogical skills in the communities and schools where teachers are most needed. University faculty also work alongside school-based practitioners and community scholars—ensuring pedagogy and academic content are integrated into areas of community-led and identified needs. In one pre-student teaching experience, candidates are fully immersed in the city's highest-need communities for four weeks. Candidates delve into classroom teaching alongside CPS summer school teachers; participate in a community-based internship; pursue professional development seminars hosted by community scholars, school-based practitioners, and university faculty; and live with host families in the community.
As candidates progress into their senior year, two avenues are offered: a semester long student teaching placement through the district, following a more traditional placement model in one classroom; or a year-long internship that immerses candidates within a school's community, providing methods classes at the host school with opportunities to observe teaching and practice. During the first semester of student teaching, candidates participate in coursework taught by a team of university and school faculty. Aligned with the school site's curriculum, candidates actively bridge theory to practice in the school's classrooms. At the start of the following semester, guided by school-based mentors, candidates incrementally assume responsibility for planning and instruction as interns until they have full control of the class. In both tracks, candidates participate in professional development designed together with community- and school-based partners, enhancing candidates’ understanding of local schools and communities and further developing their teaching.
Program BLOOM. BLOOM is also designed to prepare teachers for work in CPS explicitly promoting teaching as “intellectual work” that requires nuanced understanding of the context, subject-matter expertise, extensive clinical and pedagogical training, and critical inquiry of the self. Associated with a small private university, Program BLOOM results in a Master of Arts in Teaching and state licensure in elementary school teaching followed by post-graduation support. The first academic year of the program, called the Foundations year, integrates multiple strands of work—tutoring, guided fieldwork, academic and methods coursework, and an introspective “soul” strand. In addition to working with children and adolescents in structured, supervised school settings, a review of course syllabi from the Foundations year indicates systematic opportunities for candidates to reflect on their evolving teacher identity, learn the history and policies related to local and public schooling, and participate in facilitated discussions about race, power, privilege, oppression, and justice. During the next phase of the program, candidates are immersed in a yearlong clinical residency. One half-year rotation is with program-selected partner charter schools that use instructional practices taught in the program, emphasizing literacy and mathematics; while the other half-year placement is in a neighborhood school where the focus is on getting to know students and families in the context of community and developing an integrated unity of study. During the final summer of the program, candidates complete one last course, taught by the program's induction coaches, designed to smoothly transition candidates into their own classrooms. A major focus of the program's two years of mentoring and induction post-graduation support is on developing alumni to be classroom-based teacher leaders and future Clinical Instructors for the program.
Comparative Analysis. As previously noted (see Tables 2, 3, 4) candidates in programs ASTER and BLOOM report strong ratings across items related to program vision, including an emphasis on teaching in urban schools, commitment to social justice, and equity. Unlike our broader sample, these programs reveal more consistency across candidate responses, suggesting that they have clear expressions of their program emphases. Importantly, candidates’ responses suggest that they understand these commitments as integral to their program visions. One reason that candidates may see and understand these program commitments as familiar and authentic to their experience is because these words and ideas are used consistently across program handouts, course syllabi, and key assignments. Almost every document we reviewed either made mention of the some aspect of Chicago, the goals of developing capacity as an urban educator, or explicit mentions of equity and/or social justice.
In Tables 7–10, candidates in programs ASTER and BLOOM report on their learning experiences relative to community engagement and educational policy. While overall responses are still skewed relatively positively for both programs, here we begin to see some differences emerge around opportunities to learn and practice related to neighborhoods, communities, and education policy. For example, ASTER emphasizes community partnerships and interaction in a very intentional and intensive manner, by providing immersive opportunities to engage with the local neighborhood and community members over the course of a program. Nearly 70% of their candidates report strong agreement and agreement about experiencing this learning opportunity, with no candidates reporting disagreement (see Table 7). Program documents, course syllabi and assignments reveal multiple immersive opportunities for candidates to experience firsthand how issues of racism, cultural and linguistic power, and class are manifest in schools and communities. ASTER also affords candidates numerous examples of community funds of knowledge, such as engaging with community educators and seeing the inextricable links between culture and learning (e.g., Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Nasir et al., 2020). Program BLOOM on the other hand, discusses community more broadly, and focuses more on policies that affect neighborhood and community circumstances rather than interacting directly with community members. This difference is reflected in the data: about 17% of the respondents from BLOOM disagreed with the statement about neighborhood engagement (see also Table 7). These differing results reflect Program ASTER's work alongside community members and community-based organizations to co-construct courses and clinical activities that introduce the assets of the community to candidates before they even step foot into a classroom; ASTER also has a fully immersive, pre-student teaching, summer experience wherein candidates live with community host families. This acculturation process provides community members with the ability to guide, teach, mentor, and support teacher candidates as they live, learn, and deeply engage in both school- and community-based experiences through co-teaching, and service-learning internships, respectively.
I Engage with the Neighborhood Surrounding my School.
I am Critically Aware of my own Cultural Identity.
Regarding educational policy (Table 8), 46% of the respondents from ASTER reported having learning opportunities, while nearly 61% of the respondents from BLOOM agreed. Our review of Program BLOOM materials revealed that students participated in multiple readings and assignments designed to teach them about the role of federal influences on state education legislation and policy through NCLB and every student succeeds act (ESSA) as part of their foundations coursework. Candidates in BLOOM also had opportunities to engage in practice regarding policy by completing “school studies” in which they interviewed a variety of stakeholders with attention to issues of policy to begin to understand how intersections of race, power, and funding influenced their schools. Coupled with other learning and practice opportunities identified through a review of course syllabi from the Foundations year, candidates had guided opportunities to learn about key issues in the history of public schooling and that of Chicago, and participate in facilitated discussions about race, privilege, and intersectionality. Together these in-depth learning opportunities help BLOOM candidates see their own experiences, as well as that of their students and schools relative to a broader, power-laden system with inequitable resources and policies. They also help candidates draw important connections between macro-level policies in Chicago Public Schools as well as the state of Illinois and the resulting impact in their schools. In ASTER, candidates also learn about the impact of local policy, but do so from a grounded practitioner-based perspective and implicitly through the lens of community-organizations with whom they partnered. These differences in experiences are reflected in candidate reports about learning opportunities in policy related practices. They also begin to illustrate how preparation programs might attune to and frame the features of their surrouding policy contexts in similarly compelling, but curricularly differing ways using opportunities to practice (RQ2).
My Program Helped me to Better Understand Educational Policy.
While these examples are far from exhaustive, we use them to offer initial insights into how programs preparing candidates for the very same city and district can engage urban-focused CSTE. The comparative cases reveal patterns that are consistent with key findings from the survey. They also offer images of learning opportunities designed to practice drawing from context, which appeared to be more challenging for programs in the broader sample to address. Although preparing for the same district Programs ASTER and BLOOM are by no means identical in their approaches or in the opportunities they offer candidates to learn or practice dimensions of context—nor should they be. What they share are strongly articulated equity-minded visions, and opportunities for candidates to both learn about related context and practice-relevant instructional strategies.
Despite program differences, we see the least spread between ASTER and BLOOM's candidate responses about their intentions to teach in urban schools (see Table 6). We also see that candidates from Programs ASTER and BLOOM report an overwhelming sense of readiness, related to their understanding about the causes of poverty, systemic inequality, and critical awareness about their identities (Tables 9 and 10). Most candidates in both programs agree or strongly agree that they were able to develop these understandings through their respective programs. We use these finding to assert that strong preparation programs can make differing programmatic decisions related to context and still prepare teachers well, if they focus on opportunities to both learn and practice in their respective contexts and are united around their program visions. We also speculate that the rich quality of preparation as captured by these opportunities to learn and to practice might also be related to graduates’ strong intentions to teach in urban schools.
I Understand the Systemic Causes of Poverty and Social Inequity.
Discussion
The increase in the number of programs moving away from universal preparation to preparation geared for urban schools and communities heightens the need to surface aspects of preparation that might help candidates prepare well for specific urban contexts and illustrate how to develop candidate capacities such that they can meaningfully practice their equity commitments in the classroom. We apply an enhanced framework of CSTE to first learn what dimensions of context are present in urban teacher education programs, and what opportunities to learn they offer candidates regarding content and practice. Our results revealed that the programs in our sample offered candidates access to some learning opportunities across each dimension of context identified in the framework: policy, district and school, neighborhood and communities, students and families, and self. These findings, on average, suggest these urban teacher education programs have taken up an expansive view of context in their preparation, and are indeed “context-specific” in nature. We offer these findings towards continuing to build an evidentiary base supporting the potential utility of a CSTE framework for programs interested in targeting their preparation for urban schools.
When we look at learning opportunities offered within each dimension, however, some interesting variation across programs emerges. The items in which candidates reported about their opportunities to learn about specific students, families, and communities showed differences across our sample. When we zoomed in on the practice opportunities that candidates had to draw out the knowledge embedded in the context about their students and families’ needs, the differences became even more compounded. That candidates have fewer opportunities to practice during their preparation aligns with prior scholars’ call for more practice-based teacher education (Ball & Forzani, 2009; Grossman & McDonald, 2008). This call to practice is especially relevant when we consider how the dynamics of racism, classism, and power are rooted in urban schools, and shape educational outcomes for students. It is not enough to know and care about justice and equity, aspiring teachers must have the skills to practice equity-oriented teaching and work towards more just learning spaces (Calabrese Barton et al., 2021; Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Kavanagh & Danielson, 2020; Sleeter, 2014). We would argue, then, that urban teacher education programs that are able to provide candidates with meaningful opportunities to learn about content and opportunities to practice relative to various dimensions of context are getting at the heart of CSTE. That is, opportunities to practice how to use contextual knowledge about their communities, families, and students to infuse classroom instruction, might serve as the differentiators of CSTE, rather than the presence of learning opportunities more generally, across the dimensions of context themselves.
When aspiring teachers get fewer opportunities to carefully learn about and then practice instructionally supporting the very students, families, and communities with whom they will eventually work, we are reinforcing rather than dismantling barriers to equitable outcomes for students of color. Teacher education programs need more nuanced portraits of what practice-oriented teacher education looks like (Grosser-Clarkson & Neel, 2020) in the context of urban-focused CSTE. Our comparative case study of two programs begins to offer textured insights into how some programs might engage candidates with the complex histories and politics related to local schools by having them interview various stakeholders to develop school portraits with attention to dynamics of race, class and power; or how candidates can begin to develop a nuanced knowledge and practice base in collaboration with the surrounding community and family expertise against the backdrop of work in challenging schools in those same communities. These studies affirm that there is no one “right” way to engage in urban CSTE, but that candidates must be engaged deeply, from multiple dimensions of context with a focus on practice.
Our study also affirmed the necessity of a clear vision of teaching as scholars have long noted (i.e., Hammerness et al., 2015; Kennedy, 1999) and we see its importance again as it relates to urban teacher education. Our case study candidates’ survey data showed consistently strong levels of agreement between program emphases and their opportunities to learn and practice. This finding is in stark contrast to candidate reports from our broader sample, which prompt consideration of the usage of common terms, such as “social justice” and “equity,” the degree to which these terms are made clear to candidates, and candidates’ opportunities to learn about their program visions. These concerns about clear use of terms such as urban, social justice, and equity cannot be downplayed (Arbaugh et al., 2015; Grant & Agosto, 2008; Shah, 2021; Zeichner, 2006).
Another striking finding of this study also related to the implementation of a clear vision is the important bridging function of faculty. We saw the most variation in survey responses across the programs on this point, reminding us that faculty awareness of the context, knowledge of the program vision, and ability to use instructional pedagogies to mirror that vision in their pedagogical decisions are critical to the development and enactment of context-specific programs. We speculate that, in the same way opportunities to practice emerged as a differentiating feature of urban CSTE, so too are faculty. Faculty that are well versed in program goals, as well as the realities of the contexts in which candidates will work, can serve as critical arbiters of coherence around a vision; informed faculty are also more suited to designing opportunities to practice across the dimensions of context.
Our survey carries limitations that must be acknowledged. First, the seven urban teacher education programs in our sample were self-selected. In future work, we might broaden our sample of urban teacher education programs studied to determine whether patterns identified in this study hold. A second limitation of our study is that our survey findings were based on candidate self-reports. Beyond self-reported survey data, data about candidates’ practice as teachers of record through classroom observations, interviews, or focus groups with students would begin to help us understand the impact of urban-focused CSTE, and most importantly a view of students’ experiences with teachers prepared in that manner. Finally, we note limitations with our survey items themselves. While many of the opportunities to learn items came from previously validated surveys, the opportunities to practice items were newly designed by our team. We also did not investigate dimensions of context relative to one another, or as they relate to issues of race, class, and power. In other words, we asked candidates about how strongly they agreed/disagreed about various learning opportunities in their programs, rather than which dimensions of context they had the most or least opportunities to learn, or which dimensions in their mind were most related to issues of power and privilege, as examples. These subtle shifts in questioning may have led to different results. In future surveys, we would consider revising the survey with a psychometric lens and build a set of measures that represent the various aspects of our framework as they relate to practice. Each of these limitations hold opportunities for continued and further research.
Despite these limitations, we are encouraged by our initial suggestive findings regarding the necessary features of urban CSTE programs and see this study as taking a step towards building an evidence base for the influence of teacher education programs (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Sleeter, 2008, 2012). Our data indicate that our revised CSTE framework might serve as useful to teacher educators and programs interested in centering their emphases in educational equity for students of color. Our work further reveals how programs that may share seemingly similar language and goals have made different choices about preparation in their settings, and that there is no “one way” to address a context specific approach to urban teacher preparation. In other words, our data does not reveal significant differences in the types or categories of contextual learning opportunities offered to candidates; rather, it points to the importance of needing opportunities to ‘practice in place’ within each of those dimensions of context. Together, these findings begin to illuminate the many aspects of practical design and implementation (Shah, 2021) that teacher educators and program developers must attend to considering layered and multifaceted frameworks such as CSTE. Although the programs we studied are situated in the U.S., they illustrate the potential of taking up an expansive view of context, regardless of global context, and shoring up opportunities for candidates to not just learn about but also practice enacting their equity-focused commitments.
When intentionally curated and designed, as illustrated by our cases, preparation programs can afford candidates opportunities to practice in ways which value the cultural knowledge embedded in urban settings. Learning in context does require opportunities to practice in place with attention to programmatic and curricular choices that help candidates more deeply understand the dimensions of context our various programs may represent: from emphasizing learning about national policy and national contexts, to neighborhoods and community histories, to specific schools and students, and self. By helping candidates understand teaching and learning, during preservice preparation, from a deeply personal and individual level while also helping them to acquire historically informed, policy-driven, systemic perspectives, they will learn in context and begin to enact practices that can drive towards equitable outcomes for students of color. While more is to be learned, this study pushes us one step closer to begin to understand what it means—and looks like—to prepare teachers well for particular and complex settings.
