Expressions of Authentic Voice: Urban High School Students’ Perceptions of Teaching as a Career Choice While Participating in a Pipeline Program for Aspiring Teachers of Color

Abstract

Students of color do not pursue teaching careers as often as their white counterparts. Project Teacher Development (PTD) is a partnership between a large urban school district and a public regional university to recruit and prepare students of color as future educators. The goal of PTD is to identify, mentor, and inspire high school students to pursue careers in education using Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as an interpretive framework. Results from this longitudinal qualitative study indicate increased awareness of teaching skills and expectations for college. Too often, programs in education expect future teachers of color to divorce themselves from their racial and ethnic identities. Participants in this study expressed authentic voice, which is essential to develop autonomy, relatedness, and competence—the foundational elements of SDT. While the challenges of recruiting and preparing teachers of color remain multifaceted, specialized pipeline programs that maximize success for marginalized students are essential.

Keywords

social justice urban education teachers multi-cultural education

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Amobi

F. A.

(2005). Preservice teachers’ reflectivity on the sequence and consequences of teaching actions in a microteaching experience. Teacher Education Quarterly, 32, 115–130.

Benton-Kupper

(2001). The microteaching experience: Student perspectives. Education, 121, 830–835.

Bireda

Chait

(2011). Increasing teacher diversity: Strategies to improve the teacher workforce. Center for American Progress.

Boser

(2011). Teacher diversity matters: A state-by-state analysis of teachers of color. Center for American Progress: Progress 2050.

Brockenbrough

(2018). Black men teaching in urban schools: Reassessing black masculinity. Routledge.

Cochran-Smith

Zeichner

K. M.

(2005). Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Dee

(2005). A teacher like me: Does race, ethnicity or gender matter? Paper presented at Presidential Session of the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Montreal, Canada.

Delpit

(2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New Press.

Deyhle

Swisher

(1997). Research in American Indian and Alaska Native education: From assimilation to self-determination. Review of Research in Education, 22, 113–194.

10.

Dixon

Griffin

Teoh

(2019). If you listen, we will stay: Why teachers of color leave and how to disrupt teacher turnover. The Education Trust.

11.

Egalite

A. J.

Kisida

(2018). The effects of teacher match on students’ academic perceptions and attitudes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 40, 59–81.

12.

Fann

A. J.

(2004). Forgotten students: American Indian high school student narratives on college access. UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Higher Education Research Colloquium. https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/oieresearch/conference/fann_200504.pdf

13.

Fraser

J. W.

Lefty

(2018). Teaching teachers: Changing paths and enduring debates. Johns Hopkins University Press.

14.

Gist

C. D.

Bianco

Lynn

(2019). Examining grow your own programs across the teacher development continuum: Mining research on teachers of color and nontraditional educator pipelines. Journal of Teacher Education, 70, 13–25.

15.

Glaser

B. G.

(1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis: Emergence vs. Forcing. Sociology Press.

16.

Gollnick

D. M.

Chinn

P. C.

(2009). Multicultural education in a pluralistic society. Pearson Prentice Hall.

17.

Graham

Erwin

K. D.

(2011). I don’t think black men teach because how they get treated as students: High-achieving African American boys’ perceptions of teaching as a career option. The Journal of Negro Education, 80(3), 398–416.

18.

Howard

T. C.

(2019). Why race and culture matter in schools: Closing the achievement gap in America’s classrooms. Teachers College Press.

19.

Kasser

(2002). Sketches for a self-determination theory of values. In Deci

E. L.

Ryan

R. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 123–140). University of Rochester Press.

20.

Kirkness

V. J.

Barnhardt

(2001). First nations and higher education: The four R’s—respect, relevance, reciprocity, responsibility. In Heyoe

Pan

(Eds.), Knowledge across cultures: A contribution to dialogue among civilizations (pp. 1–21). Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong.

21.

Kohli

(2018). Behind school doors: The impact of hostile racial climates on urban teachers of color. Urban Education, 53(3), 307–333.

22.

Kozol

(1992). Savage inequalities. Crown Publishers.

23.

Ladson-Billings

(2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. The remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84.

24.

Martin

P. S.

Baxter

A. G.

(2001). Mentoring African American middle school students: Applying principles of antiracism education to the problem of closing the Black-White achievement gap. Paper presented at the Annual National Conference of the National Association of African American Studies and the National Association of Hispanic and Latino Studies, Houston, TX.

25.

Maxwell

(2015). Sometimes you win sometimes you learn for teens. Little, Brown & Company.

26.

McMillan

J. H.

Schumacher

(2001). Research in education: A conceptual introduction (5th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

27.

Meckler

Rabinowitz

(2019). America’s schools are more diverse than ever. But teachers are still mostly white. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/local/education/teacher-diversity/

28.

Merriam

S. B.

(1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. Jossey-Bass.

29.

Miles

M. B.

Huberman

A. M.

(1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.

30.

Milner

H. R.

Howard

T. C.

(2004). Black teachers, black students, black communities and brown. Perspectives and insights from experts. The Journal of Negro Education, 73(3), 285–297.

31.

Milner

(2015). Start where you are but don’t stay there. Harvard Education Press.

32.

Murray

Jenkins-Scott

(2014). We need teachers of color in our classrooms. Education Week, 34(3), 24.

33.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). Percentage of student enrollment by race/ethnicity. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_103.10.asp

34.

Noguera

(2009). The achievement gap: Public education in crisis. New Labor Forum, 18(2), 60–69. https://doi.org/10.4179/NLF.182.0000008

35.

Noguera

Wing

(2006). Unfinished business: Closing the racial achievement gap in our nation’s schools. Jossey-Bass.

36.

Oyserman

Destin

(2010). Identity-based motivation: Implications for intervention. The Counseling Psychologist, 38(7), 1001–1043.

37.

Patton

M. Q.

(2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. SAGE Publications.

38.

Riser-Kositsky

(2019). Education statistics: Facts about American schools. Education week. https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/education-statistics/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0C26N0V1EJXD0_hXdMqTHMsANF3jMjgdoDg_JKxBR7WLrNiqkpUWlrWu0

39.

Ryan

R. M.

Deci

E. L.

(2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.

40.

Ryan

R. M.

Deci

E. L.

(2013). Toward a social psychology of assimilation: Self-determination theory in cognitive development and education. In Sokol

B. W.

Grouzet

F. M. E.

Muller

(Eds.), Self-regulation and autonomy: Social and developmental dimensions of human conduct (pp. 191–207). Cambridge. University Press.

41.

Sleeter

Milner

H. R.

(2011). Researching successful efforts in teacher education to diversify teachers. In Ball

A. F.

Tyson

C. A.

(Eds.), Studying diversity in teacher education (pp. 81–104). Rowman & Littlefield.

42.

Soenens

Vansteenkiste

(2011). When is identity congruent with the self? A self-determination theory perspective. In Schwartz

S. J.

Luyckx

Vignoles

V. L.

(Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 381–401). Springer Science.

43.

Torres

Santos

Peck

Cortes

(2004). Minority teacher recruitment, development and retention. Brown University: Education Alliance.

44.

Toshalis

(2014). Grow tour own teachers for urban education. In Milner

R. H.

Lomotey

(Eds.), Handbook of urban education (pp. 217–238). Taylor & Francis.

45.

United States Commission on Civil Rights. (2004). Closing the achievement gap: The impact of standards-based education reform on student performance. United States Government Printing Office.

46.

Vare

J. W.

(1994). Partnership contrasts: Microteaching activity as two apprenticeships in thinking. Journal of Teacher Education, 45, 209–217.

47.

Vidakovic

(2016). Inspiring teens: A guide to living a life without regret. Author.

48.

Villegas

A. M.

Irvine

J. J.

(2010). Diversifying the teaching force: An examination of major arguments. The Urban Review, 42, 175–192.

49.

Witmer

(2014). Ethnically diverse education students’ perceptions of mentoring: Implication for career aspirations and college success.