The Layered Toll of Racism in Teacher Education on Teacher Educators of Color

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

Analyzing structural racism in teacher education, the article applies a critical race theory lens to qualitative questionnaire findings from 141 Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American teacher educators across diverse U.S. universities. Participants report being hired to teach race and racism amid race-evasive colleagues and predominantly white student groups that enable educators to protect and leverage whiteness. The authors argue teacher education programs are structured to produce racial stress and harm, and they propose steps toward advancing racial justice.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Background and Purpose

Methods and Participants

Key Findings and Interpretation

Whiteness and Resistance in Coursework

Racial Stress, Harm, and Program Structure

Implications and Recommendations

AERA Open January-December 2022, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 1–12 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584221078538 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2022. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) The Layered Toll of Racism in Teacher Education on Teacher Educators of Color Rita Kohli University of California, Riverside Marcos Pizarro San José State University To systematically explore the structural racism that teacher educators of Color endure, this article uses a critical race theory lens to analyze the findings from qualitative questionnaires with 141 Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American teacher educators who work in diverse universities across the United States. We learned that many of the participants in our study were hired to teach race and racism among race-evasive colleagues and predominantly white students that are enabled to protect and leverage their whiteness. As we frame their experiences, we argue that teacher education programs are, infact, structured for teacher educators of Color to experience racial stress and harm. We end by suggesting steps teacher education programs can take to advance racial justice. Keywords: critical race theory, racism, teacher education, teacher educators, teacher educators of Color Tamika is a fifth-grade educator in Southern California with a sunny disposition and a positive, encouraging approach to teaching and change. She was also the only Black doctoral student in her program, and the only Black woman (educator or student) in the social foundations class she was teamteaching with three other teacher educators of Color1 (including one of the authors) . Several of the white teacher candidates in class questioned the content of the course syllabus, argued over grades, and would regularly put their feet up on the desk, whispering and laughing throughout the larger class and her section. The final paper was designed for teacher candidates to critically analyze their educational experiences using the course frames and academic scholarship. One white teacher candidate, Mary, wrote in her paper,“this is a useless assignment.” Overall, she did not successfully accomplish the assigned task, and she was graded accordingly. The day after papers were returned to teacher candidates, Tamika received an email from Mary with the subject heading,“Angry.” Below is an excerpt: I don’t even know where to begin other than to say you have more than a handful of extremely angry and infuriated students on your hands. Yes, I am one of them. I barely slept last night because I was so angry and trying to figure out what I was going to say and how. I thought about sending you the screenshots from the group message, I thought about writing responses to your comments on my paper and scanning it back to you, I thought about scheduling a meeting. It goes on. Many of us are angry for the same reasons. In the grading for this class, we are being marked down for things that are trivial and trite . . . I firmly believe, as do several others, that this paper was grievously unfairly graded. . . . Several students have mentioned that they are going to write scathing evals [evaluations] for this class. I would have, had I not already done mine before getting this paperback . . . I overheard some will be going to the dean. When Tamika shared the email with us, she lamented,“All I was trying to do was to get them to dig deeper in their reflection.” While Tamika was focused on supporting teacher candidates to strengthen their analysis of educational inequity, Mary leveraged whiteness2 in her resistance to Tamika’s goals. Despite not seriously engaging the course content, she felt secure in disrespectfully communicating that she was“angry” for being marked down on things she did not believe were important. Her enactment of whiteness was also intertwined with deficit

FAQs

What perspective and research method does the article use?

The article uses a critical race theory lens and analyzes qualitative questionnaire findings from 141 teacher educators of Color.

What do the findings suggest about teacher education programs?

The study argues that teacher education programs are structured in ways that subject teacher educators of Color to racial stress and harm.

How does the article illustrate resistance and harm in the classroom experience?

Through a detailed participant narrative, it describes how resistance can involve disputing course materials and leveraging whiteness, undermining the instructor’s goals and professional security.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam