A critical analysis of course syllabi in teacher preparation: a systems-based approach

ABSTRACT

This theoretical paper utilises qualitative research methods to investigate the communication of anti-racist pedagogy in required teacher preparation coursework. Using the two-pronged theoretical framework of Critical Race Theory and White Teacher Identity Studies, the researcher analyses enactments of race-visible pedagogy on course syllabi. The findings report two courses that most clearly communicate anti-racist pedagogical enactments centred on critical thinking about race and power. The discussion evaluates the consistency with which courses across the focus department engage anti-racist instruction, as communicated on curricular materials. The researcher analyses these documents in relation to the focus college’s diversity and inclusion statement and university’s anti-racism statement, exploring critically how anti-racist institutional goals are transformed into substantive action and communicated on course curricula. The researcher argues for a systems-based approach to anti-racist curriculum and offers a critique of course documents as vehicles for reproducing, rather than disrupting, Whiteness in teacher preparation.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical race theory
• white teacher identity studies
• teacher education
• whiteness
• course syllabi
• curriculum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Hegemonic language in this work warrants criticality. There exists a range of opinions on whether to capitalise labels that represent groups of people. In this paper, I capitalise Students and People of Colour as ‘indicator[s] of personhood, culture, and history’ despite historical attempts to erase such identities (Mack and Palfrey 2020). In alignment with White Teacher Identity Studies (WTIS), I have chosen to capitalise White because capitalising only non-White identifiers could maintain Whiteness as the norm from which other identifiers delineate (Mack and Palfrey 2020). Capitalising White also aims to recognise complicity and ownership in racist structures (Ewing 2020).

2. The term ‘colorblindness’ is here used because it exists in a direct quotation. In other sections of the paper, I substitute this term with ‘colour-evasiveness’ to avoid ableist associations of the term ‘colourblindness’.