I've Got Your Back! the Importance of Care in Student Teaching in Urban Environments

Abstract

Research has found that the use of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) can improve academic outcomes for students in urban environments. As teacher educators, we are driven by such findings to understand how to best prepare teacher education students to enact CRP. The Elementary Education department in our university offers an urban immersive program that is meant to prepare students to engage in CRP and work successfully with children from a variety of backgrounds. To investigate what helped students in our program successfully enact CRP, we conducted a series of interviews after they completed the program. While we found that not all of our students enacted CRP, we discovered that our participants valued feeling cared for, and we utilized Nel Noddings’ ethic of care to understand how that care helps our preservice teachers (PSTs) care for their students in a way that could lead to the creation of culturally relevant lessons.

I feel like, if you don’t have a relationship with someone during your [student] teaching, it’s really hard because then you just feel like you might be failing.

Purposes

In order to help create teachers who are culturally relevant and successful working in urban environments with diverse populations, the Elementary Education department in our mid-sized, Midwestern university offers an urban immersive program, in which students participate in an intensive practicum in an elementary school of an urban district during their final semester of courses, followed by a semester of student teaching at the same school. The immersive program allows for a unique opportunity for PSTs to not only teach in urban schools but to also live within the same school neighborhood within the large Midwestern city. While living in the area is not a requirement of the program, the university campus is more than an hour drive from the urban district, and so living on campus and commuting to the school is discouraged. In order to investigate the experiences of the PSTs during our program and their subsequent student teaching, we conducted a series of interviews with students from our 2019, 2020, and 2021 cohorts. We were particularly interested in what is most helpful to our PSTs in successfully connecting with elementary students and using culturally relevant pedagogy during their student teaching experiences. We found that experiencing being cared for is one of the primary factors that our participants said helped them to connect to their students, which in turn was helpful to them as they worked toward creating culturally relevant lessons.

Theoretical framework

The majority of the elementary education students at our predominantly white institution (PWI) are white and female and often have limited exposure to students from diverse backgrounds. Scholars have found generally that many new teachers struggle to teach well in urban environments, and that more needs to be done to prepare teachers who plan to work in urban schools (e.g., Howard & Milner, 2021; Lee, 2018). In a study exploring predictors for teacher retention in urban schools, Whipp and Geronime (2017) found that one important predictor was whether the teachers had done their student teaching in an urban environment. Moreover, it is important that the time spent in an urban school for student teaching be successful.

In order to prepare our PSTs to become successful teachers in urban environments, a main focus of our program is on teaching students to use culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP; Ladson-Billings, 1995a, 1995b, 2008, 2014). This is because scholars believe that CRP is an effective tool in working with students, especially students from diverse cultural backgrounds (Anderson, 2015; Howard, 2003; Ladson-Billings, 2009). Ladson-Billings explains, “Culturally relevant pedagogy rests on three criteria or propositions: (a) Students must experience academic success; (b) students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; and (c) students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order” (p. 160). In order to be successful in all of these areas, teachers must know their students and understand their needs. Teachers must know students’ academic needs in order to help them grow and achieve academic success. Teachers must also know students’ cultural backgrounds in order to help students “appreciate and celebrate their own cultures of origin while gaining knowledge of and fluency in at least one other culture” (Ladson-Billings, 2014, p. 75). And, teachers must understand the struggles of the students and their communities in order to help develop their sociopolitical consciousness and move them toward activism. Ladson-Billings (2014) stressed that the critical consciousness piece of CRP is the one that is most often overlooked. We argue that for this component of CRP to be effective, teachers must deeply understand the oppressions and real-world problems that their students and families face. As instructors, we sought to facilitate our PSTs’ development of critical consciousness while engaging them at their level. To begin, we modeled culturally relevant pedagogy by developing meaningful relationships with them. In time, we came to know our PSTs in ways that allowed us to connect our instruction to their backgrounds and cultures and also help them learn to challenge the current social order. Finally, we intentionally offered extensive support to help our PSTs achieve academic success.

Research has found that teaching teacher candidates about culturally relevant pedagogy is not always enough to lead them to practice it in their own classrooms (Kea & Trent, 2013; Willey & Magee, 2018). Scholars have found that a variety of factors about placements can impact teacher success in implementing culturally relevant pedagogy. Some of the factors that were particularly relevant to our program and often reported in the literature included: the ability of the teacher to build relationships, develop a sense of self, and reflect on teaching (Brown-Jeffy & Cooper, 2011; Howard, 2003; Milner, 2011; Morrison et al., 2008). While all of those aspects are built into our program, one that really stood out in the course of this study was building relationships and the ethics of care. Without building relationships with students, families and community, it is not possible to create lessons that are relevant to the culture of the students. This is also necessary, according to Ladson-Billings (2014), in order to see students as subjects, rather than as objects. It is not possible for a teacher to successfully implement CRP if they continue to see the students they teach and their families as distanced from themselves. CRP also requires that teachers understand students’ needs—academic, social-emotional, and cultural. The importance of understanding and attending to the needs of others leads to the idea of care, and specifically, Nel Noddings’ ethic of care.

Noddings (1995, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2015) has long argued for the importance of care in teaching, both in showing care to children and in teaching them to care about one another. She writes that caring is a relationship between the carer and the cared-for, and that both parties have to contribute to the relationship in order for it to be successful. Defining care in this way aligns with Ladson-Billing’s notion of relationships between teachers and students in that both parties have to be invested in the relationship, and create one of care that is agreed upon by both the carer and the cared-for. A mutual investment is of particular importance in situations in which the identities of the teacher (often white, female, and middle class) do not match those of the students. Scholars have argued that when this mismatch happens, there are often problematic situations where teachers claim to “love” their students while seeing themselves as saviors or looking at the students with a lens of “colorblindness” (Aronson, 2017; Martin, 2022; Matias, 2016a, 2016b; Matias & Liou, 2015). We argue that this version of care is not what Noddings advocates for because it is not experienced by the students as authentic care and carries with it racist and colonialist undertones. Noddings (2002) recognized this issue in teaching and remarked,

Even for the majority who do ‘care’ in the virtue sense—that is, they profess to care and work hard at their teaching—there are many who do not adopt the relational sense of caring. They 'care’ in the sense that they conscientiously pursue certain goals for their students, and they often work hard at coercing students to achieve those goals. These teachers must be credited with caring in the virtue sense of the word. However, these same teachers may be unable to establish relations of care and trust. (p. 1)

A move toward this type of authentic care is a necessary pairing with Ladson-Billings’ call for culturally relevant pedagogy because a teacher cannot engage in critical consciousness with their students if they do not recognize their students’ humanity and understand their needs.

Furthermore, according to Noddings, within a caring relationship, the carer makes decisions to do things that the cared-for genuinely needs. It is important to note that this is not always the same as what the cared-for wants, especially in the classroom, but the carer must understand the cared-for well enough to recognize their needs and try to meet them. Because of this, what someone might do that would be perceived as caring by one person, would not necessarily be caring to another. This aligns directly with Ladson-Billings’ prescription for how culturally relevant pedagogy must work. In order to follow an ethic of care, and in order to successfully enact CRP, teachers must know their students well enough to understand what they each need and deliver it to them in the classroom in a way that the students recognize as being meant to meet their needs. It does not always have to be what the students want in the moment, but they must ultimately recognize that the teacher sees them and their needs and is working to help get some of them met.

In order for Nodding’s form of care to be taught, she argues that teachers must use modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation (Noddings, 1995). But leading this model of moral education requires teachers themselves to have sufficient knowledge of it. Therefore, scholars have argued that this ethics of care should extend to teacher education (e.g., Gasser et al., 2018; Jennings & DeMauro, 2017; Rogers & Webb, 1991). Additionally, some researchers have found that student teachers are more successful as teachers when they feel they have been in caring and supportive environments (Fives et al., 2007; Goldstein, 2003; Gravett et al., 2019; Hennissen et al., 2011; Schonert-Reichl, 2017). To that end, we worked hard to maintain an ethic of care with our PSTs and to cultivate a partnership with teachers in the district who also modeled care and support with our students.

While there is a clear connection between Nodding’s ethic of care and what is necessary to prepare lessons that align with Ladson-Billings’ culturally relevant pedagogy, there have not been studies that look at the link between a PST receiving and performing care that meets the criteria of Nodding’s ethic of care and the use of culturally relevant pedagogy by that PST. Filling this gap in the literature could be useful in helping teacher education programs think about what is needed to prepare teachers who effectively use CRP.

Overview of the program

In this section, we will give an overview of the program in which the student teachers in this study participated. This is important because it can provide some context for what we did to help establish an ethics of care. This also gives background on what instruction our student teachers had in CRP before being assessed on their ability to create and enact lessons aligned with CRP in their student teaching placement.

The context for our study is an immersive program in a midwestern, inner-city school district that occurs during the fall semester prior to student teaching. Our program offers elementary PSTs an opportunity to engage with K-6 students from diverse backgrounds while being supported by K-6 practicing teachers and university faculty. It does so by encouraging the participating PSTs to leave campus and move into or close to the district so that they can learn not just about their school, but also the families of their students and the surrounding community. Our university campus is more than an hour away from the school district where the program is held and the participants are at the school or other sites in the district for four to five days a week. This makes it necessary for students to move off campus, and for faculty to connect students with affordable housing within the school district.

The school district in which we are housed is a large district in which over 65% of families qualify for free/reduced lunch. Within the district, 19.5% of the population are English language learners, with a multitude of different languages spoken. The PSTs in our Urban Internship are placed in two different elementary schools within the district (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Demographics of two elementary host schools (U.S. News & World Report L.C., 2023a, 2023b).

The components of the program were developed specifically to support learning based in CRP and an ethics of care. Each PST is paired with a mentor teacher at one of our participating schools. The school district follows a balanced calendar and so our program starts in late July, prior to the university academic year. PSTs begin the first teacher workday with their mentor teachers as they attend staff meetings together and plan prior to the arrival of students. The PSTs are involved in all aspects of teaching with their mentor teacher and assist every day during the first week when the elementary students return to school. After the first week, the PSTs remain in their mentor teacher’s classroom working with students for three full days a week. They also attend grade level meetings, professional development sessions, and parent-teacher conferences. Outside of school hours, they attend back to school nights, movie nights, family nights, and other after-school activities such as an annual roller-skating party.

For the other two days each week, the PSTs attend their university courses and engage with the community. University courses are taught in the school or at another site in the local community. Courses offered sometimes vary, but currently include methods courses for elementary teaching, teaching to diverse learners, reading, and mathematics. Learning about students from diverse backgrounds, teaching English language learners, and the importance of culturally relevant teaching are a central focus of all of the courses. The courses include instructions on how to design lessons that are culturally relevant. This includes having students read literature on culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy by Ladson-Billings (2008) and Alim et al. (2020). Cohorts are generally small, and time is given to building community within the cohort. In building community, we are explicit with students about what we are doing and why, so that we can serve as a model for good practice in the classroom.

This learning is also supported by what the PSTs are required to do outside of teaching and their coursework. Group visits and guest speakers are incorporated into the program to promote an understanding of and immersion into the community. The PSTs visit local food pantries, churches, mosques, parks, tutoring centers, and other sites. Guest speakers from local organizations such as an immigrant and refugee support and advocacy organization help the PSTs to better understand some of the local residents, including families that live within the school neighborhood. Finally, the PSTs are required to do a minimum of 9 h of community service. With all of the requirements, the program can seem quite daunting for a semester prior to student teaching. But immersing the PSTs into the school and community provides the time and space for them to learn how to build relationships, reflect on their own teaching and the teaching of their mentor, and make sense of who they are as developing teachers.

Early in the semester, within the classroom, PSTs plan and implement occasional lessons in literacy and math. Later in the semester, they plan and teach a week-long literacy unit integrating at least one other subject. PSTs ultimately teach at least one lesson in every subject. They are given extensive feedback on their lesson plans by their professors and mentor teachers and complete multiple revisions prior to being approved to teach.

Methods and data

The participants for this study are 19 PSTs from our elementary education department who completed student teaching in the urban district where our Urban Immersion Program (UIP) takes place. The majority of the participants identified as monolingual, native English-speaking adults in their early 20’s. Thirteen participants came from suburban upbringings and five were from rural communities. One participant was raised both in the city and the suburbs due to divorce. One participant was a graduate of the school district where the internship was located. Two of the participants in the study participated in the fall internship, but chose to student teach at a different location for an out-of-state experience. Of these participants, nine were hired as full-time teachers in the district after graduation.

While the information gained from our research will certainly inform the UIP, the purpose of our research was not to evaluate our program. Rather, the purpose of our study was to investigate the experiences and perspectives of our PSTs during their semester of teacher preparation in the UIP and during their 16 weeks of student teaching in an urban elementary school. We sought to understand their challenges and successes, what they learned, how prepared they felt, and what they took away from our program. Data for our qualitative study was gathered through a series of semi-structured interviews conducted during and after the participants’ student teaching semester. Interviewing our participants allowed us the opportunity to ask open-ended questions over a range of topics and also ask follow-up questions and follow new lines of inquiry raised by the PSTs.

The participants for this study were chosen through a purposeful, convenience sampling (Patton, 1990). Seventeen of the participants were selected because they were PSTs in our UIP. The other two participants were selected because they were from the same midwestern university and student taught in the district, but due to their coursework on campus, were not able to enroll in the fall UIP. The reason for including them in the study was that their experience was similar to our PSTs in every way except they did not participate in the UIP, and thus, could potentially provide valuable data to compare and contrast with our program participants. All of the authors of this study were or are professors in the UIP courses and, therefore, had the participants as students the semester prior to student teaching. Additionally, two of us were supervisors of their student teaching experiences. We all were involved in the interview process, but those of us who were student teaching supervisors were not involved in the interview process until after the conclusion of the student teaching semester. All interviews that took place during student teaching were conducted by the third author who was not a student teaching supervisor and had no possibility of being a future instructor of the participants.

Initially, it was the intention of the researchers to interview each participant three times: once during the first or second week of student teaching, once during the eighth or ninth week of student teaching, and once after student teaching was completed. However, due to COVID-19, PSTs in the spring 2020 cohort ended student teaching early and were only able to participate in two interviews. Questions for each of the three interviews varied, but did have some overlap (see Appendix). Questions for the first interview focused on how prepared the PSTs felt and what impacted their preparedness as well as goals they had for student teaching. Questions from the second interview centered around the experiences and interactions of the PSTs that were most impactful as they student taught. Lastly, questions from the third interview covered a wider range of topics and were reflective in nature.

The key for each interview was that questions were intentionally designed and implemented to elicit responses about the relationships the PSTs made, how they utilized culturally relevant pedagogy, and how participating in the UIP impacted their student teaching experience. For example, the question “Where do you receive support with your struggles in student teaching?” was intended to elicit insight into the relationships the students were building during student teaching. While responses to the series of questions “What are your memories of interacting with parents, families, or caregivers? What are your thoughts following these interactions? Do you hope to continue working with your students’ families in the future? What might you do differently or the same?” coupled with responses to “What do you think of the curriculum? Do you follow the curriculum or have you been able to create your own? Please explain.” can provide data related to how our PSTs incorporated CRP into their teaching during their student teaching experience.

All interviews were audio recorded and later transcribed. The data was collected and stored in an online storage system for analysis by the three authors. We each used emergent, open coding (Stemler, 2001; Strauss, 1987) to code the transcriptions individually. In this, we followed the direction of Corbin and Strauss (1990) that we should code “conceptually similar events/actions/interactions” (p. 12), rather than a line-by-line approach. After completing our codes individually, we met together to perform selective coding and organize the data. Because we each brought different prior knowledge of the participants and interviews to the coding, we were able to provide more nuance to the coding process. Some scholars have found that having multiple researchers discuss coding together allows for building a stronger consensus and greater trustworthiness (Cascio et al., 2019; McAlister et al., 2017; Sweeney et al., 2013). This is sometimes referred to as investigator triangulation (Stahl & King, 2020). In order to add to our trustworthiness, we also engaged in peer debriefing with critical colleagues (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

For the content analysis, a table was created to organize and delineate the codes (see Table 1). To track how the raw data evolved from codes into themes, we used a code mapping technique. Anfara et al. (2002) suggest following such a protocol enables transparency in the processes of qualitative analysis (see Table 1). Reading Table 1 from the bottom up reveals how the data moved from codes to themes through three iterations of content analysis of the transcribed responses. The first iteration, completed individually by each researcher, included a surface content analysis of the responses to identify initial codes. This was followed by the second iteration where pattern variables were identified. Next themes emerged from the variables in the third iteration. Finally, the researchers compiled and discussed individual codes to reach a group consensus on specific themes. Table 1 demonstrates the path that two quotes took as they were first coded and then eventually grouped into the theme of care.

Table 1. Code Mapping Technique with Interview Responses.

Interview responses
Third iteration: themes to inform research question
Nel Noddings’ Ethic of Care: Participants were cared for and valued feeling cared for, and in turn, this care helps our pre-service teachers care for their students and create culturally relevant lessons.
Second iteration examples: pattern variables (examples)
Code 1 – building relationships
Code 1 – peers
Code 2 – CRP
Code 2 – building relationships
First iteration examples: Initial codes/surface content analysis (Examples)
Code 1: I mean, there’s a lot of different things that helped me get there. I mean, one is just like, the relationships I have with like my peers, and like other professors, and like, other faculty knowing that, when I did start to feel like a little stressed, like, I could reach out and be like, I don’t know how to handle this, and I could get someone to help me like, streamline a process. (Response to Interview 1 – Q3)
Code 2: It’s a whole different outlook as teacher now it’s like, they’re not just one individual, they have so many more things going on at home. And like, I just feel like a more of a mother than a teacher. Now along with the teacher. I'm like, these are all my little children. And like, I already I already cared about them. But now I'm like, I hear about all your family to like, how’s your brother doing? How was your mom doing? Like, did you get that job? Like? How can I help you? And I didn’t, like I knew I would help the children anyway. But now like, I find myself helping the parents like, oh, like I heard this job is open, if you can find a job there or like, how is like even just a baby like, how are you doing? Or is dad back or anything like that, like just becoming more of an educated teacher with their families. (Response to Interview – Q2)
Raw data

Results and discussion

While it was not the focus of our questions, the theme of care came up regularly in our interviews. Care came up both in relation to how the PSTs worked with children and in how the PSTs coped with the rigors of student teaching. While we will briefly discuss our PSTs’ feelings of care for their elementary students, the majority of our focus will be on the care our PSTs received, as that kind of care is less often focused on in the literature. The care our PSTs received first-hand also served as an intentional model of how they might care for their own students. Experiencing or engaging in that kind of care relationship in the school setting was part of what helped them more successfully offer care to the children in their classrooms. It was our hope that that kind of care, one that included an understanding of the needs of each student, would lead to implementation of CRP.

All of our participants talked about the difficulties of student teaching in an urban environment and the ways in which receiving support and care were important in their success. Several mentioned specific moments of emotional difficulty in which they questioned their ability to teach. One participant shared, “…There was one day where I had a terrible day and on the verge of like, you know, just a break down… . but my mentor teacher was like, ‘It is okay, like, this happens. You’re gonna have bad days. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher.’” Another participant said, “There were a few times where I came crying. She was like, try this, or, you know, don’t beat yourself up. So, it wasn’t just teaching support, but also emotional support.”

Many of the participants mentioned similar moments of uncertainty and the difference that having unconditional support made to them. One participant shared that the whole team of teachers that they were a part of encouraged them, “they were like, you’re doing great, this is going to happen in teaching, it happens to us all the time, don’t let this get to you. Tomorrow’s a new day and everything is going to be fine.” Overall, the participants talked about the fact that they felt like they were in a caring relationship, and that made them feel more confident about their abilities in the classroom. This was highlighted by one participant, “You just felt valued and appreciated. And you feel like you’re really a teacher during those times.” For all the participants who mentioned care, it was clear that it was a care that fit in with Noddings’ notion of care. Participants genuinely felt cared for, and therefore entered willingly into the care relationship with their mentor teachers. They mentioned moments when they needed support, and they felt that their mentor teacher understood what they needed and provided it.

Not every PST had a mentor teacher who showed an ethic of care, and in those cases, participants talked about other people who showed them care and support, such as other interns, their university supervisor, and other staff within the school. The PSTs had a need, and they looked for a caring relationship in which someone would see and meet the need. One participant talked about relying on “the relationships I have with my peers, and other professors, and other faculty knowing that, when I did start to feel like a little stressed, I could reach out and be like, I don’t know how to handle this, and I could get someone to help me.” The care the PSTs received from their professors during the same semester they were heavily involved in the field made a larger impact on them:

I definitely had professors before urban that I was able to connect with and like build really strong relationships with. The fact that I was in a school all the time and helping students through their emotions and helping them through their academics. Well, I also had a teacher that was helping me through my academics. I feel like that went hand in hand. So, I feel like even though I've had caring professors in the past, I feel like that made more of an impact, because I was teaching at the time. So, I feel like that was really important that I had [experienced that] during that time where I was in the class…. I feel like you guys genuinely care.

The mentor teachers and professors were modeling care for the interns by offering them support when they were emotionally vulnerable. Because the interns received a caring relationship that helped them see themselves as typical beginning teachers and not as failures, they were able to offer more emotional support to the children in the classroom when they themselves were feeling emotionally charged and vulnerable. They also understood what it felt like to recognize the care and be in a caring relationship, rather than to receive superficial “care.”

Building good relationships was a theme that quickly surfaced as a main goal for the PSTs. Some PSTs also mentioned the desire to create relationships not only with the students, but also with their families and the community as a whole. In talking about a desire to build connections, some PSTs also talked about the importance of knowing students in order to be able to create lessons that are culturally relevant. Many went on to talk about relationships they were able to build with students that had been considered “difficult” and the ways in which they were able to show care to those students. In this way, PSTs talked about their own care for students and the ways in which it impacted their ability to be successful as teachers in the classroom. One intern explained in an interview:

I was able to make connections with the students that are more unwilling to make the connections. It’s easy to make the connections with the students who are easy going, and they love school, they love their teacher, they love everything about it. But, then you have students who -and, it was my first experience with students who were like, labeled as defiant, or they had ADHD - I really took time to build those relationships first, because I knew that the other relationships would be easy going, like the girl who had like the highest reading levels. She was, of course, easy to build a relationship with because she loves school, she loved her teachers. She told me she loved me on the second week of school. But the other students, I mean, it was tough. I had students say, “I hate Miss Smith.” And that’s when I knew I'm really making an impact in your life if you hate me. And of course, you know, he didn’t hate me later in the day. I even got like a love letter from him the next week. But it was just nice being able to interact with those students. I made sure to tell him, “you’re doing mean things, but you’re not a mean, kid.” So, I really feel like being in this immersive experience, I was able to just jump in and build the relationships with those students, because I knew that if I didn’t, then they definitely would not have let me been successful in teaching.

This anecdote appears to demonstrate Noddings’ notion of care between the PST and the student. Noddings notes that sometimes what someone needs in a caring relationship is not the same as what they want, and that is evidenced in the child saying that he hates the PST, but later giving her a love letter. What is important to note, however, is that because of the power dynamic, students may indicate their belief in the care of an authority figure (with a love letter, for example) without actually feeling it. This can especially be the case when the student teacher is white and the student is part of a minoritized group. Because we did not interview the children, there is no way to know whether that was the case within this anecdote. With a racial identity mismatch, student teachers may need to work harder to ensure that the relationship of care between themselves and the students is genuinely felt by the child and the caring relationship is entered into without a feeling of coercion.

Several PSTs added that their experience contrasted with previous experiences in their teacher education program that lacked opportunities to learn student needs, build relationships, and connect with students. The time spent in the classroom aided in the ability for the interns and PSTs to begin to build caring relationships with their students. Three full days was the minimum requirement for the field experience and most interns fulfilled over 400 h in the field. This highlighted the significant amount of time compared to the traditional practicum, which typically offered 30 h in the field per semester. Building genuine, caring, and reciprocal relationships built on understanding the needs of students takes time. This surfaced in the data in assisting the interns as they built meaningful relationships of care with their students:

One of the biggest things is that we’re in the room three days. So, we really learned from the get go, how important relationships are and how to build relationships. Because when you’re in the classroom for an hour during practicum, two times a week, you’re focused on getting your lesson out and getting it presented in a way that makes sense. But, when you’re in the classroom three full days, you realize that it’s not just about content. And, just the sheer amount of time that we’re there made a difference. I think, from every professor, I had at least in UIE, all talked about the importance of relationships and talked about, like, ‘They won’t care about what you have to say to them unless they care about you.’ And so, I think it was just instilled through all of the professors. That building relationships was important. Like, we had to do it.

All interns voiced their goal of building relationships with students and acknowledged that the amount of time that was spent in the classroom setting allowed them the opportunity to take time in building those trusting relationships that are not always so easily established. To develop relationships of reciprocal care takes dedicated time and the building of trust, which cannot happen as easily when teacher candidates have less time in classrooms. This ethic of care also requires that a teacher really know what it is that each student needs, which can only be established with time.

While knowing and caring for students is an important first step in the process of enacting Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), it is not enough by itself. In talking about a desire to build connections, some interns also talked about the importance of knowing students in order to be able to create lessons that are culturally relevant. Evidence from the data showed the interns started to work to extend this care into their instruction. Interns needed time to get to know their students in order to adapt the curriculum and to make it more culturally relevant. Culturally relevant pedagogy was prioritized in the UIE through readings, activities, modeling, and lesson planning. There was a new, mandated curriculum at the schools in which the mentor teachers were adjusting to, so this made it especially cumbersome for the interns to digest. Some interns took the opportunity during the fall semester to create more socially just lessons. They took great pride in their hard work. One participant shared:

One of my big goals was kind of to check myself and make sure that I was ready to walk the walk of a socially just educator in a diverse setting. My mentor teacher let me give real world connections and extensions to the reading series, when I saw fit, or when I saw it was lacking. So, when we were reading about Jane Goodall, we did research, and we read about scientists and environmental scientists of color. I was telling them that there’s way more accomplishments done by a bunch of different people other than Jane Goodall. And then we got to have good conversations like, why is Jane Goodall lifted up higher than any of these other people you’re researching? And we can have that conversation of like, who else is out there? And, are we getting a full story from our books and from what we’re learning in school? Or are we going to have to find some other things ourselves?

Providing supplemental resources and activities that helped the sixth graders think critically about their mandated curriculum and to question the status quo, was a great start in practicing culturally relevant pedagogy. By going through this process, the students realized there were other scientists besides Jane Goodall, and those scientists were of color, looking like themselves. Seeing the possibility of themselves as scientists was a need for these students. Creating culturally relevant lessons was a goal for this participant, but it was also clear that he wanted to provide a meaningful curriculum for his students because he cared about them and their connection to what they were required to learn in school.

Another participant’s lessons included a unit on current events in politics and climate change that involved student activism. She also took one of the lessons she observed from her mentor teacher in fall to her student teaching classroom in the spring:

My mentor teacher in the fall did a big unit on names and having the students know the importance of their names - going home, figuring out what that means to their family. So, they have that personal connection with it. That was one thing I knew going in this semester [of student teaching]. I was like, we’re doing it, I want them to go home and ask their parents where their name came from… Just knowing that my mentor teacher did that, and then doing it myself. It was great for this for me to learn more about the students from their family and why they chose their name, and kind of how that shapes them. I had a student come in the next day. He was like, ‘I know where my name came from.’ Like, without even being prompted! I asked, what he learned. And I had him share with the rest of the class and he his face lit up. The students were really excited about it. They really seem to like start building connections with each other.

These lessons, as well as the many other culturally relevant units of study observed in the field, showed how powerful the outcome could be if there is proper time to absorb the culture of the school, to engage and learn from the elementary students, to collaborate with mentor teachers and professors in order to create culturally relevant units of study, and to use the curriculum to strengthen the bond between students in an identity-safe classroom (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). Being in the classroom for a minimum of three full days a week, allowed the interns to build the relationships necessary that allowed them to think about their students’ interests, funds of knowledge (González et al., 2011; Moll et al., 1992), and needs in order to create culturally relevant lessons and units that were meaningful to their students.

It is clear from looking at our data that our PSTs were in caring relationships with their mentor teachers (or some other adult in the school), and they were able to build caring relationships with their students in the classroom. The data also supported that as part of caring for the students during their positions as interns, the beginning roots of CRP were beginning to develop. Only some of the interns showed the ability or confidence to elevate their lessons to CRP. With support from their mentor teachers and supervisors, some were attempting to implement such results. Building relationships with their students assisted in this growth, as well as the safety to take such risks with caring and encouraging mentor teachers and professors that would not let them fall. Additionally, we cannot ignore the fact that as professors, we continue to learn from our teaching and research. This has helped inform us as we further develop our program and make intentional measures to better support our interns as they practice CRP. Implementing CRP does require more time than following a prescriptive program, so we also acknowledge that it does seem that it takes a caring teacher to have the drive and commitment to create culturally relevant lessons for their students. The data from our study indicate that interns are more likely to establish caring relationships with their students when the interns themselves are provided a caring and supportive environment to thrive in. This sometimes allows the interns the opportunity to begin the practice of CRP as they use the caring relationships with students, their knowledge of the community, and time to adapt the curriculum. While receiving an ethics of care helped our student teachers enact an ethics of care, which set them up for CRP, it was not enough to lead student teachers to practice CRP. While it is an important step in giving student teachers a tool they need to enact CRP, more is needed to lead student teachers to successfully plan and teach culturally relevant lessons.

Limitations

The nature of the program may be a limitation. Students self-select to the program, and it may be that there are factors related to who they are and their disposition toward children and culturally relevant pedagogy that makes them fundamentally different from students who would not choose to be a part of this program. It is possible that some of those traits have influenced their relationships with children more than the program itself. These interns may arrive onsite more open to the concept of CRP and more invested in practicing the methods to implement CRP.

Implications for teacher education

The study demonstrates the importance of PSTs having mentor teachers who exhibit an ethic of care toward the PSTs. This is both to provide the support PSTs need to be successful and to provide a model for care for others that PSTs can apply to the children in the classroom. Oftentimes, teacher preparation programs question what criteria teachers should possess in order to be considered for a role as mentor. This study indicates that an ethic of care should be one of them.

However, while an ethic of care is important, it does not, in and of itself, comprise all that is needed to enact culturally relevant pedagogy. While an ethic of care does lead PSTs to understand the needs of the children in the classroom, it does not mean that PSTs cater their instruction to those needs or the needs of the families and community. Both mentor teachers and teacher educators need to be intentional in how they talk about how to move beyond an ethic of care and into CRP. While having PSTs show a deep level of care for children is wonderful, it is not enough to truly meet the needs of marginalized students.

Scholarly significance of the study

This study highlights the importance of care in helping student teachers be successful in teaching in urban environments. The care that the PSTs received both helped provide support and served as a model of care for student teachers to practice with the students in the classroom, and to further practice culturally relevant pedagogy. All of the participants told stories of the care that they were able to provide to their students during their student teaching. Of additional importance is the fact that approximately half of these participants went on to accept teaching positions in the same urban district in which they did their student teaching, indicating that they felt prepared to work successfully in an urban environment upon graduation. While in recent semesters we have seen more evidence of culturally relevant pedagogy in student teaching, what is still not known is whether that care will translate to better enacting of culturally relevant pedagogy and content area-specific effective teaching practices in their future classrooms. More work needs to be done to understand the link between an ability to care for students and an ability to use that care to provide culturally relevant instruction.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Appendix

First Interview for Urban Student Teachers

1. How is your student teaching experience going so far? What is going especially well for you? What do you find challenging?

2. How well prepared did you feel for student teaching? What helped prepare you? Is there something you wish you knew better or had experience with before arriving to student teaching?

3. How did your classes from the fall semester in Urban Immersion Program impact your preparation for lesson planning this semester?

4. Is everything going as expected with your student teaching placement so far?

5. What are your goals for this semester?

6. Is there something you’d like to share with me about your experience so far?

Second Interview for Urban Student Teachers

1. How is your student teaching experience going? What is going especially well for you? What do you find challenging?

2. Where do you receive support with your struggles in student teaching?

3. What has worked well for you with student teaching?

4. What do you think of the curriculum? Do you follow the curriculum or have you been able to create your own? Please explain.

5. How did your classes from the fall semester in the Urban Immersion Program impact your preparation for lesson planning this semester?

6. Tell me about a recent story you’d like to share of your experience as a student teacher in an urban school.

7. Have you interacted with parents, families, or caregivers? If so, how? What are your thoughts following these interactions? How do you hope to continue working with your students’ families?

8. Anything else you’d like to share? Anything you think would be helpful for me to know researching student teachers in an urban setting?

Third Interview

1. How did your student teaching experience go?

2. What was the biggest learning experience you had this semester? Please explain.

3. What was the most positive experience you had this semester? Please explain.

4. What were your biggest struggles or challenges this semester? Please explain.

5. What had you wished you’d known or experienced before coming to student teaching? Please explain.

6. How did your classes from the fall semester in the Urban Immersion Program impact your preparation for lesson planning this semester?

7. What are your memories of interacting with parents, families, or caregivers? What are your thoughts following these interactions? Do you hope to continue working with your students’ families in the future? What might you do differently or the same?

8. Anything else you’d like to share? Anything you think would be helpful for me to know researching student teachers in an urban setting?

9. What were your goals for the Urban Immersion Program and the whole experience? Were they met?

10. What aspects of the Urban Immersion Program helped or influenced the relationships you had with your students?

11. Based on our initial meeting, some people mentioned that they asked their relied on their mentor teacher when they needed help while others did not. Did you rely on your mentor teacher? How did this affect your student teaching experience?

12. How is the job search going? Where did you get a job? Did Urban Semester come up during your interview(s) either from you or the interviewer?

13. Why did you want to enroll in Urban Immersion Program – what were your goals?