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Aspiring Teachers and Urban Education Programs

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Abstract

Research stresses a need for more contextually nuanced urban teacher preparation programs that explore racially oppressive structures in society. This article presents a case study of five aspiring teachers who participated as mentors in a 2-year program for ninth grade students at Riverview Academy, an urban school. This study uses the opportunity gap explanatory framework to analyze if and how, through this program’s preparation protocol, these five aspiring teachers learned to build on rich community based knowledge, while problematizing the various social, political, and economic conditions that contribute to racial inequity. Participants’ individual shifts varied, but, the group came to collectively “see” and name three consistent issues. Unfortunately, they were unable to formulate broader critiques of the “unseen” racialized macro-systems underpinning the micro-issues they saw. This study raises important questions and implications that speak to the ways in which racist macro-structures shape and are shaped by micro-level behaviors, beliefs, perceptions and outcomes, particularly in the context of preparing future teachers for work in urban settings.

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Notes

  1. Throughout the paper we refer to our sample participants as “aspiring” teachers or educators. We intentionally avoid using the term pre-service teachers because, at the time of this study, these undergraduate students, expressed an interest in teaching but had not been admitted to a master’s level program for teachers.

  2. Anti-Black federal policies have upheld the racial status quo across various systems in society—legally sanctioned segregation (see Plessy v. Ferguson), discriminatory employment practices (Drake and Cayton 1962), exclusive government funded assistance policies (Anyon 2014), and racially restrictive covenants in housing (Gotham 2000; Rothstein 2015).

  3. In fact, a recent report read, “there remains a $23 billion gap between white and nonwhite school districts, even though they serve the same number of children” (p. 2). Located at https://edbuild.org/content/23-billion/full-report.pdf.

  4. For contextual purposes only, we briefly describe the 9th student selection process. At Riverview, we started open recruiting with flyers during quarter 1 with a goal of enrolling 40 students to begin in the spring, or quarter 2. Because we only had a few applicants respond, we asked the 9th grade school counselor to help identify students who might benefit from additional support in English Language Arts and math. By fall, we reached our goal.

  5. Among the group who was excluded for not participating for the full 2 years, there was 1 White male student and 6 White female students.

  6. The opportunity gap survey, developed by Milner (Vanderbilt University) and Mark (Coastal Carolina University), was adapted from Milner’s (2010) opportunity gap explanatory framework. For more information on Opportunity Gap Explanatory Framework, see Milner (2012) in references.

  7. We began by assigning the neutral response option zero points. Then, depending on the survey item, strongly agree or strongly disagree was assigned a value of + 2 or − 2, and agree or disagree was assigned a value of + 1 or − 1. For items, such as “I believe that the location of the school is inconsequential to my success with students,” we assigned − 2 points to strongly agree responses. According to the opportunity gap framework, educators who see the context as unrelated to students’ school success tend to reflect a context-neutral mindset. On the other hand, we assigned + 2 points to responses that strongly disagreed with this statement. The maximum possible score was 20.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rowan University, James Hall 2nd Floor, 201 Mullica Hill Rd., Glassboro, NJ, 08012, USA

    Adam Alvarez

  2. University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, USA

    Abiola Farinde-Wu

  3. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Lori Delale-O’Connor

  4. United Way, Mississippi, USA

    Ira E. Murray

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  1. Adam Alvarez
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Alvarez, A., Farinde-Wu, A., Delale-O’Connor, L. et al. Aspiring Teachers and Urban Education Programs. Urban Rev 52, 880–903 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-020-00550-6

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