Building Community and Creating Change: Collaboratively Engaging Diverse Educational Constituents in Schoolwide Equity-Based Work

ABSTRACT

Teacher education has long been critiqued for failing to adequately prepare teachers to teach historically marginalized youth; thus, many have called for teacher education’s transformation to address this critical issue. Recognizing shortcomings within our own institution, we formed an Equity and Advocacy Committee that facilitated a series of public events focused on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Using surveys and focus groups, we studied the impact of this work on participants, who ranged from undergraduate and graduate preservice teachers to in-service teachers, administrators, and college faculty. Findings demonstrated that building community with a diverse group was a unique and impactful experience. Influenced by the content of the equity events, participants reported changed mind-sets and practices within their classrooms, schools, and communities. Data also revealed barriers to engaging in equity-based work and places where the work fell short of our goals. Implications for furthering similar equity-based work in teacher education programs are addressed.

KEYWORDS:

• Equity
• social justice
• teacher education
• preservice teachers
• in-service teachers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Struthers Ahmed

Kathryn Struthers Ahmed is an assistant professor of childhood literacy education at Hunter College, City University of New York. A former NYC elementary teacher, Kathryn’s current research explores preservice teachers’ learning about literacy teaching as they prepare to teach in urban schools.

Jody Polleck

Jody Polleck is an associate professor in literacy at Hunter College, City University of New York. Her research focuses on culturally sustaining instruction. Jody has taught for 25 years and has recently published her first book, Facilitating Youth-led Book Clubs as Transformative and Inclusive Spaces.

Lacey Peters

Lacey Peters is a tenured assistant professor of early childhood education at Hunter College, City University of New York. Her career in early childhood started in the preschool classroom where she taught children who were three-five years old. Her current research explores early childhood educators’ lived experiences in classrooms and examines their roles as policy enactors with a specific focus on teachers’ adoption of authentic assessment systems.