The (Im)possibility of (Un)doing diversity in teacher education: (In)visibility of faculty of color in the accreditation standards

ABSTRACT

This paper challenges the constructed coherence of dominant, normative diversity discourses and over-simplistic prescription of diverse faculty roles in teacher education programs. First, in the discourse analysis of US teacher education accreditation standards, this paper pays particular attention to tensions and contradictions that exist within the conceptualization of diversity categories as a commodity, interpersonal interaction, and competency. Second, drawing on concepts of power, forms of knowledge and subjectivities, the authors strategically use their collective biographies as data out of which they observe, understand, and make visible multiple and mobile discourses at work in the (re)constitution of themselves as faculty of color within a predominantly white institution. A discussion of the ambivalence in subjectivities and their day-to-day negotiation of power across interactions to provide students with diverse perspectives generates questions for further conversations that resist the simplistic and limited notions of doing diversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity
• teacher education
• standards
• faculty of color
• collective biography
• discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.