Essential and Insightful Narratives of Teacher Candidates: Challenges with an Equity Initiative in Teacher Education

Abstract

The Diverse Schools (DS) Initiative[1] combines two pedagogical approaches - culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching - into an approach called Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy (CRRP). The DS Initiative uses CRRP as a theoretical framework for equity-based work in a university-school based partnership. This critical practitioner research considers teacher candidates’ perspectives and experiences with respect to the DS Initiative. The findings are drawn from semi-structured interviews with ten teacher candidates. The teacher candidates’ narratives, which highlight the challenges of the DS Initiative, are discussed and analyzed in hopes of recognizing the usefulness and importance of engaging teacher candidates in the co-creating and co-designing of equity initiatives in teacher education.

[1] Diverse Schools (DS) Initiative is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of the program.