[Re]searching the run through inquiry: Negotiating the epistemological contract pedagogically

Jason A Ware, Purdue University

Abstract

The overarching function of this research project was to explore the ways in which using narrative inquiry pedagogically influenced pre-service teachers’ beliefs and claims of truth about teaching k-12 students of color. The exploratory question underpinning this project was the extent to which pre-service teachers’ belief systems, and what they perceived as truth about students of color, were informed by notions of racial supremacy. I explored how an inquiry project could be instrumental in transforming any unjustified beliefs. I gained access to 36 pre-service teachers’ beliefs and claims of truth through their narratives about experiencing a course-based research project. The research project facilitated pre-service teachers’ interviewing and observing practicing teachers in their respective classrooms, conducting brief literature reviews, developing a community engagement event to bring educators and k-12 students’ of color families together, and reflecting about their experiences via interviews, written reflections, and written course assignments. I made sense of the pre-service teachers’ experiences narratively. The findings suggest that the pre-service teachers constructed beliefs about students of color from practicing teachers’ narratives and justified their beliefs with k-12 teachers’ stories about classroom teaching experience. Pre-service teachers’ beliefs included, in part, that ethnicity is not an issue in students’ academic engagement, that parents of color cannot parent or help their students academically, and that k-12 teachers respond to the challenges of teaching diverse students by banding together. Findings further suggest that pre-service teachers are more likely to think analytically about their own beliefs, and those of k-12 teachers, when teacher educators mentor them over time and create learning environments that facilitate pre-service teachers academic engagement at the emotional, cognitive, and personal levels.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Malewski, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Teacher education

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