Toward racially literate thinking: Investigating process within languaging race for white teacher candidates in the United States.

Abstract Summary

Abstract :

What constitutes racially literate thinking in discussions of race and how might it be evidenced in talk? Can teacher’s verbal processing about race be used as a tool to build an analytical scale to measure racial literacy? Alim (2016) argues race and language are inextricably connected where their functions inform one another. This research presentation focuses on methodological approaches to examine uses of language in discussions of race and how an epistemological inquiry might support teacher reflective practices toward racial literacy. Research on racial literacy has focused primarily within the construct of race relations, pedagogical approaches to teaching diverse texts, and exploring White dominance in the context of schooling and society (Twine, 2004; Guinier,2004; Rogers & Mosely, 2006/2008; Stevenson, 2014; Author, 2013). Within this early research, each focus, in part, on communication and the social aspects of “talk,” as a mechanism to develop racial literacy, even if articulated in policy. This research examines the “internal dialogue,” as a precursor to shared dialogue. I examine the languaging of race, as a means for teacher candidates to utilize language as a tool to think about race.







This presentation focuses on how using discussions of race in a teacher education course build languaging race as a means to develop racially literate thinking practices or their language-in-use (Bloome & Clark, 2006). This qualitative research is based on a seven-year study of teacher candidates’ digital video-tape journals, which are transcribed and coded examining uses of language developed in discussions of race over the 15-week course, as well the issues teacher candidates continue to process over the seven-year period and the commonalities within these discourses. Emergent themes within and among teacher candidates’ journals have been used to develop a scale for racial literacy that might be considered for transformative praxis.