Vini Lander

Race, culture and all that: an exploration of the perspectives of White secondary student teachers about race equality issues in their initial teacher education

This research explores the racialised perceptions of White students teachers who are preparing to teach in secondary schools in a diverse society. Student teachers’ views about Black and minority ethnic (BME) pupils are often cast in the language of otherness. This research was conducted in a post‐1992 university in the south of England where the majority of students on initial teacher education (ITE) programmes are White, which reflects the ethnicity of serving teachers in England (95.5% of whom are White). In England all student teachers are required to fulfil the Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status 2007 which incorporates statements on the understanding of cultural and linguistic issues. It could be argued that the inclusion of such standards would result in student teachers who are competent in these aspects. But this is not borne out in the annual survey of newly qualified teachers. This research draws on critical race theory as a theoretical framework to analyse how the students’ ethnicity influenced their initial perceptions and how notions of White privilege might inform their positions and responses to race‐related issues in school. The interviews with student teachers revealed the inadequacy of their initial preparation to deal with the ‘scary’ situations associated with race issues in school. There are implications for ITE policy, the curriculum and practice with particular reference to the institutional and school‐based interface of ITE programmes.

Collusion or collision: effects of teacher ethnicity in the teaching of critical whiteness

Educational inequities persist in England today. Initial teacher educators are therefore charged with facilitating student teachers’ understanding of the issues pertaining to such inequities so they may work to disrupt them. Two lecturers at opposite ends of England, both with overwhelmingly White student cohorts, have approached this undertaking through the teaching of critical whiteness studies. This article exposes and explains the very different reactions of White student teachers to this approach given that one of the lecturers is Black and the other White. Explanations are viewed through a sociological framework which seeks to deconstruct normalized practices; in tandem with understandings of how whiteness operates to reinforce such normalization in order that inequitable power relations are reified. This revealed that student reactions were underpinned by racialised assumptions of teacher ability and motives, leading to collusion in whiteness for the White teacher and, for the Black teacher, a collision between her teaching and student perceptions of her role and values.

Initial Teacher Education

Schools and universities will be required to exchange written confirmation of preservice teacher placements once the placements have been negotiated. Initial Teacher Education Provider (ITEP) student placement confirmation needs to include names of pre service teachers who will be placed at the site, their student ID number, the total number of agreed days and the dates that the preservice teachers will be attending the site.

Diversity, equality and achievement in education

© Gianna Knowles and Vini Lander, 2011.Most classrooms contain children from a variety of backgrounds, where home culture, religious beliefs and the familys economic situation all impact on achievement. This needs to be recognized by teachers in order to establish fair, respectful, trusting and constructive relationships with children and their families, which will allow every child to reach their full potential. This book looks at real issues that affect teachers in the classroom, and examines a variety of influences affecting child development. It provides you with the theoretical and practical information you need to ensure you understand the complex factors which affect the children in your care, and it encourages good, thoughtful teaching. Dealing with some of the less widely addressed aspects of diversity and inclusion, the book considers: Children who are asylum seekers; The notion of ‘pupil voice’; What diversity and equality mean in practice; Gender and achievement; Looked-after children; Social class; Disability; Ethnicity and whiteness This book is essential reading for any education student looking at diversity and inclusion, and for teachers in role looking for advice on how to meet the professional standards.

Special Issue Race Ethnicity and Education: Initial teacher education: developments, dilemmas and challenges

The education of new teachers is a fundamental aspect of education provision within any country in the world. The education of pre-service teachers is known to have a direct impact on the outcomes for children in our schools. In England, teacher education within universities has been subject to erosion with the introduction of more school-based training and greater scrutiny by the government inspection agency, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) (Department for Education 2011). The education of teachers in England continues to be an arena within which greater and greater government control is being exercised (DfE 2011). The preparation of teachers in England within the higher education sector has recently had to demonstrate greater flexibility as market forces have been brought to bear with the forthcoming introduction of School Direct in September 2013 (DfE 2011). This new training route reinforces the conception amongst some of the teacher as a technicist rather than an intellectual (Down and Smyth 2012). Under this new School Direct training regime new entrants will be trained to become teachers in one year, in one school, in one locality with minimum input from a higher education institution. The outcomes of such parochial preparation to teach will no doubt be documented in future years. In England, as in most countries, such as Australia and Norway, the pupil population is becoming increasingly diverse whilst simultaneously neo-liberal ideology plays out (Ball 2012) through government policies to limit the content of the teacher education curriculum to a list of classroom related competencies which include little or no reference to diversity, ‘race,’ ethnicity or culture. The significance of these factors on the lives of children within a diverse society are absent within the official Teachers’ Standards 2012 (Department for Education 2012). This mismatch between the content of the teacher education curriculum, the ethnicity of the candidates who enter pre-service courses (in 2011, 12% of primary trainee teachers in England were from Black and minority ethnic [BME] groups [National

Advancing Race and Ethnicity in Education

This book aims to promote and advocate a range of contemporary issues related to race, ethnicity and inclusion in relation to pedagogy, teaching and learning.

Invisible and hypervisible academics: the experiences of Black and minority ethnic teacher educators

ABSTRACT This qualitative study investigated the experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) teacher educators in England and Australia working within the predominantly white space of the academy. Data analysis was informed by a multidimensional theoretical framework drawing on Critical Race Theory, whiteness and Puwar’s concept of the Space Invader. Findings suggest the participants in both national contexts felt marginalised, and encountered subtle everyday racism manifested as microaggressions that contributed to the academics’ simultaneous construction as hypervisible and invisible, and as outsiders to the academy. Vulnerability, insecurity and precariousness was generated through the participants’ positioning as space invaders within the university and borne from surveillance by students and managers. The paper argues that despite long-standing Equal Opportunity policies tenacious racism in the academy must be disrupted through structured career support and mentoring for BME staff and wider staff development on implicit bias and everyday racism.

'I Love a Curry': Student-Teacher Discourse around 'Race' and Ethnicity at a UK University.

Abstract This paper presents aspects of a small scale study that considered student teachers’ language and discourse around race and ethnicity at a university in the northwest of England. The first part of the paper critiques current education-related policy, context and practice to situate the research and then draws upon aspects of critical race theory and whiteness theory as frames of reference. In the research, 250 student-teachers completed questionnaires that invited responses to statements about race and ethnicity and this was followed by two semi-structured group interviews. A discourse analysis approach was taken to analyse the language used in the questionnaire responses and, in particular, the group interviews. Recurrent discursive configurations were characterised by language that signified othering, correct knowledge, personalisation and discomfort. Hesitations and silences during group discussions perhaps intimated thinking time and also maybe a reluctance to talk about aspects of race and ethnicity, and what was not said remains significant. It is suggested that a reconstruction of a teacher/educator subjectivity that fosters self-reflection on values and racial positioning, is needed in teacher education, alongside critical examination of the silences and discomfort surrounding race and ethnicity.

“We’re not British values teachers are we?” Muslim teachers’ subjectivity and the governmentality of unease

Abstract This paper is a critical investigation of a group of eight Muslim religious education (RE) teachers’ views of fundamental British values in education (FBV). Findings demonstrate that as teachers of multicultural RE, they experience dissonance accommodating the requirements of FBV, and are critical of its divisive effects upon their students. They are able to reclaim some professional agency through their problematisation of FBV and reinterpretation of its requirements through the pluralistic discourse of RE. Drawing from Foucault’s analysis of power, we argue that the teachers’ views reveal that FBV is a disciplinary discourse, acting upon teacher and student bodies as a classificatory and social sorting instrument, which we conceptualise as an expression of the “governmentality of unease”. We conclude that further empirical research is required to critically examine how teachers are enacting this policy to assess how FBV continues to shape the education environment and the student and teacher subjects of its discourse.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

This chapter examines factors related to the lack of representation and recruitment of teachers from Black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds within the teaching profession in England. It considers policy initiatives and research related to BME teacher recruitment and retention to identify the barriers which inhibit BME people entering the profession; and how current changes in teacher training in England may lead to an even less ethnically diverse teacher workforce in the future.