Reclaiming Place in Teaching: Future Teacher of Color Spaces as Communities of Resistance

Abstract

Through the lens of bell hooks conceptualization of communities of resistance—a homeplace in the midst of oppression for resistance and liberatory struggle—this study is an exploration of Future Teacher of Color collectives in two university contexts, unpacking how these spaces served as a homeplace for future critical teachers of Color amongst the overwhelming whiteness and race-evasiveness of their teacher preparation. This paper advances the idea that critical professional development are not just sites of learning, but are also sites where teachers of Color can feel whole and (re)claim a place in the teaching profession.

Keywords

identity race teacher candidates teacher development pre-service teachers teachers of color

Carla was a Latina elementary teacher candidate enrolled in a teacher education program (TEP) in Southern California. Growing up, many of her teachers carried deficit perceptions of her farm-working community, and so she pursued the teaching profession to be the culturally sustaining educator she wished she had. Unfortunately, her student teaching placement was with a white, long-time educator who carried many stereotypes and beliefs that reminded Carla of teachers from her own education.

One day this guiding teacher facilitated a discussion with her primarily Latiné¹ students about, “why Indian skin is red.” Carla was appalled by the racist troupes and misinformation embedded in the lesson, and she refused to collaborate. The teacher later expressed that she was disappointed and upset that Carla seemed disengaged during class that day, and said, “I think you should reconsider teaching. I don’t think this is the job for you.” When Carla asked for support from her university supervisor, she was essentially told not to ‘rock the boat’ and try and make it work. Feeling unsupported in the racism she was navigating, Carla began experiencing incredible stress. She ended up taking a leave from the program, questioning if she should even become a teacher (adapted from Kohli (2021), p. 67).

Students of Color² in higher education who consider a career in teaching often do so with the goal of being racially just, culturally sustaining educators (Achinstein & Ogawa, 2012; Brown, 2014; Paris & Alim, 2017). These students often navigated K-12 urban educational contexts and plan to teach in urban education to serve their communities. This has often been attributed to their own experiences navigating intersecting forms of oppression as K-12 students of Color (Irizarry, 2007; Irizarry & Donaldson, 2012; Kohli & Pizarro, 2016). Unfortunately, teachers of Color—like Carla—are often recruited into TEPs that are not designed for them. While programs continue to admit overwhelmingly white students nationally (AACTE, 2018), they also hire primarily white instructors (King & Hampel, 2018), and tend to center whiteness in the curriculum (Sleeter, 2001, 2016) policies, practices, and program culture (Kohli et al., 2022; Souto-Manning, 2019).

Within these contexts, teacher candidates of Color are confronted with a great deal of racial harm, both in the university aspects of the program, as well as in the field (Amos, 2019; Cross, 2005; Sleeter, 2008). This harm can make them question their place in the teaching profession, and can lead to their pushout (Kohli, 2021). For urban educators, a color evasive approach to teacher education that does not consider the candidate's racial background, as well as the racialized histories of their communities such as redlining, gentrification and displacement that stems from capitalism and white supremacy is dangerous.

There are clear ethical concerns in recruiting future teachers of Color into a racially hostile preparation program and profession. As TEPs recruit for diversity, it is imperative that they also work to foster healthy racial climates, which includes preparing future teachers of Color for and supporting them in the racism they will likely encounter in schools (Kohli et al., 2022). Yet, this is not consistently happening. As in the case of Carla, she was left to fend harm by herself, and it ultimately took its toll. So where do future teachers of Color find respite from the harm they endure in teacher education? How do they develop the skills they need to navigate and sustain themselves in the profession? Amidst the whiteness of teacher education (Sleeter, 2001), we argue that future teachers of Color need deliberate, collective spaces that center their belonging and ways of knowing in the profession.

Often designed by students and faculty of Color, Future Teacher of Color (FToC) organizations are racial affinity spaces that have formed at universities across the U.S. to provide future teachers of Color (and teacher educators of Color) the space to build community, restore their wellbeing, and advance their justice-centered goals. In this article, we analyze participant observation and interview data to explore the structure, purpose, and impacts of two FToC organizations at universities with racially diverse TEPs where almost half of teacher candidates identify as people of Color. Framed through bell hooks’s (2015) concept of communities of resistance—a homeplace amidst domination and oppression, and a homeplace for liberatory struggle and dreaming—we argue that, until TEPs are healthy spaces that effectively support and prepare future teachers of Color for the racialized barriers of the profession, FToCs serve as needed communities of resistance, where participants can resist dominant narratives of whiteness and (re)claim a rightful place in the teaching profession.

Demographic and Ideological Whiteness of Teacher Education

Matias et al. (2014) explained, “whiteness is a social construction that embraces white culture, ideology, racialization, expressions and experiences, epistemology, emotions, and behaviors” (p. 290). Maintained and invisibilized by beliefs in meritocracy and race-evasiveness, whiteness has pervaded the U.S. educational system since the establishment of common schools in the 1800s, where white dominated instructional and assessment approaches were developed as the standard (Bonilla-Silva, 2017). This system forced, and continues to force, students and teachers of color alike to navigate educational institutions that are inherently not built for them (Love, 2023).

Despite the rapidly increasing racial diversity of U.S. public school students, teachers remain largely white. In the 2020–2021 school year, while only 46% of students identified as white, an overwhelming 80% of the public-school teaching force was white, with the minority of educators identifying as 9% Latiné, 6% Black, 2% Asian, 2% multiracial, less than 1% American Indian/Alaska Native, and less than .05% Pacific Islander (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Teacher preparation programs maintain this disparity, with comparably low enrollment of future teachers of Color. Matias et al. (2020) has argued that TEP is dominated by whiteness. Nationally, in addition to an overwhelmingly white demographic of pre-service teacher candidates, teacher educators, classroom-based practicum supervisors, classroom cooperating teachers/master teachers, and school administrators who partner with TEPs, the curricula, teaching philosophies, and norms of programs are also shaped by ideological commitments to whiteness (Matias et al., 2020).

In a 2020 study, the New Teacher Project showed that 48 U.S. states and Washington, D.C have higher percentages of white teacher candidates than they do white public-school students (The New Teacher Project, 2020). Furthermore, in 35 of the programs that had enrollment of 400 or more, 90% of enrollees were white. Additionally, in a 2019 report by American Association for Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), the data revealed that, not only were enrolled students overwhelmingly white, education deans and directors are over 80% white, and 87% of adjunct instructors and 91% of tenure-track/tenured instructors hired to teach within TEPs were also white.

Unfortunately, while the pervasive whiteness and race-evasiveness of teacher education is not new (Aronson et al., 2020; Lucas, 2010; Sleeter, 2016), many barriers to racial justice seem to remain static. A 2020 study explored how select teacher educators presented white social science teacher candidates with counternarratives to dominant history (Aronson et al., 2020). And although many of the white teacher candidates expressed feeling “dismayed” and “lied to” in their reckoning of incomplete historical narratives that frame people of Color through deficits, they often deflected the personal culpability of not knowing multiracial history to the current structure of the educational system, and at times even expressed a complacency to those dominant narratives of whiteness.

Relatedly, in Sleeter's (2016) review of research on teacher education, she included a study where a white teacher who received explicit race-focused teacher education still chose to move forward with a race-evasive curriculum that protected the comfort of her white students and silenced her Black students. With the acknowledgement that only so much can be done in one course, Sleeter (2016) called on TEPs to recruit, select, and train teacher candidates in collaboration with communities of Color, as well as hire teacher educators who have evidence of well-serving racially minoritized students.

Teacher of Colors Navigating Racial Harm

While whiteness has persisted over time in the U.S. educational system, so has the supportive presence of teachers of Color for students of Color. For example, in the late 1800s, Indigenous teachers in government boarding schools would covertly infuse linguistic and cultural affirmation within a curriculum designed for cultural genocide (Gere, 2005). In the 1920s, Carter G. Woodson founded the Negro History Bulletin for Black teachers to share resources and advance teaching practices to support Black students (Givens, 2021). Around the same time, the Mexican consul in Los Angeles created Spanish language and Mexican history courses for students who were being put down for speaking Spanish and were being acculturated into Eurocentric norms. While Brown v Board was celebrated as a civil rights gain, it caused significant pushout of Black teachers due to white racist animosity (Bell, 2005); yet Black teachers persisted through Freedom Schools and other educational avenues to instill cultural pride despite antiblackness in mainstream schooling (Love, 2023). Even today, you see teachers of Color reimagining schooling to value and center the histories, languages, cultures, and experiences of communities of Color (Kohli, 2021).

However, as many teachers of Color step into the profession, often to engage youth from their communities in humanizing, rigorous, and culturally sustaining ways, they can encounter racialized challenges—both in TEPs and in the field. Amos (2010, 2019) found that teacher candidates of Color experienced trauma through being ignored and silenced by their white peers in class, while also being subjected to racist and deficit commentary. Kohli (2009, 2019, 2021) documented how teacher candidates of Color have experienced microaggressions and stereotypes about their identity, resulting in them feeling like they do not belong in the profession. For those who make it to the classroom, in-service teachers of Color have expressed feeling questioned in their pedagogy, hypervisible for race-work, and invisible for leadership (Kohli, 2018, 2021). They also expressed feeling harm when witnessing fellow teachers express racist or deficit thoughts about students and families of Color (Philip et al., 2017). Grooms et al. (2022) found that these racialized harms impacted their psychological well-being and job satisfaction and should be considered a significant factor teacher of Color attrition.

So, what about those who persist? Research has shown they often have strong racial literacies, are immersed in communities of resistance with like-minded educators or as part of racial affinity spaces, and through those communities, are able to organize for change. Michael and Conger (2009) defined an affinity space as “an assembly of people gathered with others who share a common element of identity in order to explore, celebrate, sustain, and process their experiences around that identity” (p. 56). As whiteness often cultivates a sense of othering of people of Color (Okun, 2021), racial affinity spaces are critical spaces to reflect on, strengthen, and feel empowered in their intersecting identities (e.g., culture, dis/ability,³ ethnicity, gender, immigration status, race, religion, occupation, etc.) (Varghese et al., 2019).

When faced with racial and ideological isolation at their schools, many teachers of Color who self-identify as justice-oriented have sought out racial affinity spaces to find community and grow toward their professional goals (Kohli, 2019; Kohli et al., 2015; Mosely, 2018; Strong et al., 2017). Groups like the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) (Strong et al., 2017), the Association of Raza Educators (Zavala, 2011), the Black Teacher Project (Mosely, 2025) and the Institute for Teachers of Color (ITOC) (Kohli et al., 2022) are all models of racial affinity critical professional development (CPD) spaces that provide teachers of Color a community to name oppression and imagine liberation.

For example, Kohli et al. (2021) shared the example of Juan, a Latiné elementary school teacher who attended ITOC:

This was the first time I felt that the presenters, concepts, and language were giving [language] to what I was feeling and had not previously been able to name … I was learning the concepts, framing and tools that I had been missing. I left ITOC that year feeling energised, seen, and knowing that my feelings and experiences were valid. I felt that I could speak up and push for change. (p. 98)

By attending the racial affinity CPD of ITOC, Juan felt validated, seen, and strengthened in his ability to push for change. While ITOC is just one example of racial affinity CPDs, it is well documented that these spaces are successful in supporting teachers of Color to center their epistemological orientations, draw on their assets, and feel a sense of belonging, deservedness and purpose within the predominantly white profession of teaching (Wong, 2016; Yang, 2022). They have also been shown to foster community, encourage leadership, center health and wellness, ultimately supporting retention in the teaching field (Kohli, 2021).

Given the positive impact racial affinity CPD spaces have for in-service teachers of Color, students of Color in higher education have similarly organized to create critical communities to prepare themselves to enter the predominantly white teacher workforce. Historically, scholars have studied university-based counterspaces, and have described them as places where students resist and navigate hostile racial climates of higher education (Armbruster-Sandoval, 2017; Chang, 2002; Patton, 2010; Yosso & Lopez, 2010). However, racial affinity spaces for future teachers in university-based teacher education spaces have not been well documented in research. Building from bell hooks’s (2015) theorization of communities of resistance, this article explores why and how future teachers of Color in university settings participate in FToCs and what the impact of these spaces is on their sustainability, wellbeing, and feelings of belongingness in the profession.

Communities of Resistance

For historically marginalized people, survival and thriving has always been intertwined with collective resistance to an oppressive reality. Bell hooks (1994, 2015) reminded readers of the way Black women have created collective places to love and nourish themselves and their families within racially hostile societies. Framed as a homeplace, “where one could freely confront the issue of humanization; where one could resist” (hooks, 2015, p. 42), she builds from Thich Nat Hahn's concept of community of resistance, who explained that these “should be places where people can return to themselves more easily, where the conditions are such that they can heal themselves and recover their wholeness” (Hahn, as cited in hooks, 2015, p. 43). Living in conditions that do not allow for racially minoritized people to feel fully humanized or whole can be very taxing, and there is a need for safety and shelter to allow for collective resistance and liberatory dreaming.

While hooks (2015) was describing the utility of communities of resistance for Black people globally, this framework is also a useful tool for teachers of Color who are navigating an educational system that is operating through whiteness and racial hostility (Kohli, 2021). For justice-oriented teachers of Color who engage in communities of resistance—often created as racial affinity spaces for CPD—they feel less isolated, they feel more capable to resist racism, and they feel affirmed in their vision for education (Kohli et al., 2022). Being in a community of resistance, thus, enhances their ability to (re)claim their place in a white dominated educational system and build the futures they want for their communities.

In this article, we engage the concept of communities of resistance to frame the work of FToCs. We show how FToCs provide important and needed spaces for future teachers of Color to find a homeplace within TEPs that tend to be overwhelmingly white, othering, and racially hostile. FToC serves as a place where they can process broken trust with the educational system, identify harm, and vision a collective resistance.

Methods

We are three educational researchers who all identify as justice-oriented women of Color, study racism and racial justice initiatives in K-12 school and/or teacher education, and have worked directly to build and/or facilitate and support Future Teacher of Color groups across four different universities. The first author is a Black and Asian former K-12 teacher, teacher educator, and researcher with deep commitments to educational justice who has helped to lead two FToCs. The second author is a Latina doctoral student, former K-12 parent liaison, and the founder of two different FToC spaces. The final author is a South Asian professor, former middle school teacher, teacher educator, co-director of a racial affinity professional development space for teachers, and faculty director for an FToC.

In this article, we explore the experiences of future teachers of Color who participated in FToC spaces at two different universities with significant populations of teacher candidates of Color—California University (CU) and Pacific North University (PNU). With astute awareness of the demographic, cultural, and ideological whiteness of the teaching profession and teacher education, both of these FToCs were designed for future teachers of Color to come together and explore their positionalities, process racialized harm, and build community toward collective resistance and reimagining of teaching and teacher education.

All three authors co-conceptualized the study, which we designed as a qualitative study. Two of the authors created, facilitated, and researched two distinct FToC spaces and collected data from August 2023 through January 2024. We began by meeting and discussing our experiences with FToCs. Each site, PNU and CU, was considered an individual case study (Creswell, 2014) where the researcher of that site collected and preliminarily analyzed their data, as described in the sections below. Finally, all authors collectively analyzed the data across sites, articulated the findings, and collaborated in the writing process.

For the site of PNU, data collection consisted of interviews with graduate students of Color with experience working as TEP coaches at the PNU. With verbal consent, participants agreed to 20–30 minute recorded interviews. Data also consisted of artifacts from in-person FToC meetings, including fliers, interest forms, photographs of student work, meeting notes, and a qualitative feedback form. All artifacts were anonymized for participant confidentiality. Data analysis consisted of three phases. First, interviews were transcribed using Otter A.I. Then, a codebook table was created for descriptive and process coding to look for patterns across interviews and the artifacts (Miles et al., 2014; Saldaña, 2015). Codes from this analysis included “racial microaggressions,” “whiteness,” “community,” “social justice-oriented,” and “well-being.” Finally, literature related to our conceptual framing of communities of resistance was revisited to consolidate codes into themes (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2021).

For the site of CU, data collection consisted of audio-recorded meetings that were then transcribed. Transcripts went through an iterative coding process, first using a system of open coding and then refining the codes into categories (Saldaña, 2015). Initial codes included “identity,” “community,” “action,” “positive feelings of TEP” and “negative feelings of TEP.” Reflexive memoing and member checking were used to refine codes (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2021). Through the lens of communities of resistance, thematic analysis was used to uncover themes, such as “resistance” and “homeplace” from the data (Ryan & Bernard, 2003).

We then met biweekly to discuss those preliminary findings.

Through discussion, and a collective analysis of the codes between sites, we began to see that FToCs serve as communities of resistance for teacher candidates of Color. Thus, we revisited the data through that conceptual lens, and formulated findings. With a short space to communicate what emerged, this paper is in no way exhaustive to what was found. Instead, it includes brief representative excerpts that shed light on the purpose, value, and need of FToCs for teacher candidates of Color.

Findings

While so much of addressing diversity in the teaching force is focused on recruitment, it is important to consider the harm teacher candidates of Color experience when they enter historically predominantly white institutions, and spaces shaped by whiteness. Until we create healthy racial climates, teacher candidates need support systems to navigate harm and feel a sense of belonging in the profession. In our data analysis process, we found that both FToCs, while in such distinct and different contexts, and structured in distinct ways, served similar purposes within the institutions they were housed in to support teacher candidates of Color. In this section, we will introduce the context of each FToC and its institution, and discuss how it served as (1) a homeplace amidst a dominating presence of whiteness, and (2) a homeplace for liberatory struggle and reimagination.

FToC in the Pacific Northwest

The PNU is located in a city within the Pacific Northwest where 60% of the residential population is white. In local schools, students of Color make up over half of the population, yet 80% of the teaching force is white. In the 2023–2024 academic year, however, 60% of students enrolled in PNU's TEP identified as students of Color. FToC was first organized by graduate students whose work and research focused on supporting pre-service teachers and had experience working in racial affinity spaces with current and future educators. Their goal was to support justice-oriented future teachers of Color to process and heal from racialization within their own educational experiences and prepare themselves to navigate race and racism within the predominantly white profession of teaching.

The FToC group was open to teacher candidates of Color, as well as undergraduate and graduate students of Color across the university who had aspirations to enter the education field broadly. Through fliers, emails, and social media posts from the education studies department, students of Color at the PNU were invited to fill out an interest form to join the FToC group. The interest form asked for their personal information such as contact information, pronouns, racial/ethnic identity, major, and future career aspirations. It also asked them to confirm their interest in participating in the FToC group for the 2023–2024 academic year and for permission to receive information about upcoming meetings and events. While there was no formal enrollment or registration in the group, about 30 students expressed interest in participating in FToC. Of those 30 students, about 8–10 students were consistent throughout the year in participating at each meeting and community events.

A Homeplace amidst a dominating presence of whiteness

The PNU was a place that served a majority of future teachers of Color. However, from being placed in schools with a majority white staff and teacher mentors, to taking classes mostly taught by white instructors, teacher candidates of Color still experienced racial harm within their teacher preparation. For example, Talia, an Asian American graduate student and TEP coach for teacher candidates, described that teacher candidates of Color would often come to her for support in navigating whiteness in their teacher placements. She shared an example:

I had a Vietnamese teacher candidate, Jade, who shared that her mentor teacher, a white woman, encouraged her to visit other math classrooms to see other teaching styles. When Jade went into a different classroom to observe the other teacher who was also white, the teacher shared with her class, “We have Jade visiting today. She's working on becoming a teacher. So if you need help, you can also ask Jade. I'm sure she's good at math.”

Jade being told she was “good at math” was a racial microaggression rooted in the model minority myth of Asian Americans (Petersen, 1966).

Racial microaggressions are everyday manifestations of racism that can occur as verbal or non-verbal racial assaults (Pérez Huber & Solorzano, 2015). While some may argue that being described as “good at math” is a “compliment,” the model minority myth perpetuates stereotypes of Asian Americans as having a higher work ethic or, in this case, higher intellect in math, to advance myths of meritocracy that solidify deficit ideologies of other racial/ethnic communities (Chou & Feagin, 2015; Dennis, 2018; Yu, 2006). As the teacher positioned Jade as “good” at math solely based on her identity as an Asian American teacher, she not only reinforced a stereotype for her students about Asian Americans, she also fostered racialized discomfort for Jade.

Similarly, Priya, another TEP coach and FToC member, shared how teacher candidates of Color often experience racialized harm from course instructors. She described a story where teacher candidates of Color in the program were upset by the diminishment of racism by one of their white male instructors:

Teacher candidates of Color expressed their frustration to me when the white male co-instructor on the first day shared a fun fact on his “get to know me” slide, that he once got away with being detained at the airport for being suspected as a terrorist. As a white man, saying that this experience was a “fun fact” just meant something so different; especially sharing it in a course on multilingual learners where we talk about the experiences of refugees. When I went to go talk to him about it, he became really defensive.

Because people of Color often racially profiled and interrogated by people in positions of power based on phenotype, name, and accent, the white instructor's “fun fact” made light of the trauma, anxiety, and harm that hypervigilance at security checkpoints often cause people of Color (Baker, 2002; Laurencin & Walker, 2020).

As Priya mentioned, it is important for teacher educators to understand their positionality and the context they teach in.⁴ In this case, the white male instructor who co-taught a class about how to engage with multilingual youth, many of whom are refugees from different countries, did not consider how making fun of his airport experience was harmful to teacher candidates of Color and the students they serve who may have confronted xenophobia or racial profiling in their own lives.

In thinking of ways to support teacher candidates of Color, Talia and Priya believed a racial affinity space could offer collective support for future teachers of Color to navigate the whiteness in their teaching placements and in their program courses. While it was not in their control to stop white mentor teachers or professors from saying racial microaggressions and/or believing racial stereotypes, they believed a racial–ethnic affinity group at the PNU could provide a space to collectively process racial harm, brainstorm ideas on how to address issues of racism with leaders at the school, and offer a safe community away from the whiteness.

With this context in mind, the FToC group at the PNU was created in 2022. Starting with an initial information session, students of Color from across majors, departments, and levels were invited to attend an information session hosted by graduate students of Color. When asked about what topics students would be interested in discussing in the FToC space, students listed:

How to bring up topics of racial and social justice to the institutions/schools we work in

First-year teachers going into their classes in majority-white schools/spaces

Imposter syndrome

Ethnic studies as required curriculum in K-12

Volunteer experiences/activities that involve the community & education

Navigating application process

As demonstrated by the topics FToC members listed, concerns around race was at the forefront of their interests such as bringing up topics of racial and social justice, navigating majority white schools and ethnic studies. With the creation of FToC, students at PNU wanted to move away from the whiteness experienced within formalized TEP settings and instead provide a place for joy and a homeplace for future teachers of Color.

A Homeplace for liberatory struggle and reimagination

As this was the first racial affinity space for students of Color from across all majors, as well as teacher candidates of Color, the organizers wanted to engage students in an exercise to imagine what the FToC space could be and what they wanted it to feel like. They built from Love's (2019) definition of freedom dreaming, where she extended Kelley's (2002) Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination to teachers. Love (2019) argued:

Freedom dreaming gives teachers a collective space to methodically tear down the educational survival complex and collectively rebuild a school system that truly loves all children and sees schools as children's homeplaces, where students are encouraged to give this world hell. (p. 102)

The organizers of PNU's FToC extended Love's work from considering the freedom dreaming of in-service teachers to future teachers. They imagined it as a critical practice for future teachers of Color to return to as they transition from undergraduate programs to a teacher credential program, teaching placements, and finally their K-12 classroom, where they can continue to refuse the racial othering of traditional TEPs and schools, and reimagine a reality where they can thrive.

Two sessions were organized where FToC members could collectively freedom dream about what they hoped to feel when participating in the FToC space. After sharing a meal together, getting to know each other, and explaining the intentions behind organizing an FToC collective, students engaged in a discussion and wrote on chart paper their answer to: “How do you want to feel in this space?” The list of words they compiled were

Confident

Encouraged

Hopeful

Safe

Comfortable

Excited

Happy

Included

Supported

Belonging

Able to relate to other people

Welcomed

Respected

Valued

Heard

Encouraged

Joyful

Cheerful

Understood

Like we can relax and hang out

Well-fed

From wanting to discuss issues related to imposter syndrome and how to navigate majority-white schools as first year teachers, they dreamed of feeling safe, welcomed, joyful, and well fed. It was evident from this exercise that they wanted to build a community at the PNU that could support the wellbeing and success of future teachers of Color. As a result, the graduate students co-organized a year-long program that would help future teachers of Color feel a sense of community within and outside of the institution. In addition to the initial freedom dreaming sessions, the FToC collective organized outings to local Black- and Brown-owned coffee shops, a field trip to a museum that centered the histories of Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest, a group visit to a public talk by critical Black scholars in education, and a virtual panel of in-service teachers of Color. The events were informative but also served to foster deep relationships amongst justice-oriented peers of Color at the PNU.

One of the most impactful events FToC members participated in was the virtual panel session with four women teachers of Color who taught across different regions, subjects, and grade levels. The panelists included two Black women, one Southeast Asian woman, and one Latina whose teaching was rooted in justice oriented and culturally sustaining practices. FToC members were invited to come prepared with questions to ask the panelists, which included a discussion on how they navigated a predominantly white teaching field, how they dealt with teacher burnout, and how they found agency in pushing back against oppressive systems in their schools. In addition to addressing challenges of whiteness and how to teach in anti-racist ways, the panelists were also asked to share what originally motivated them to become teachers, what they found to be the joys of teaching, and what kept them motivated to continue teaching. In the end, the teachers offered their support and were open to sharing their contact information with students.

After the panel, FToC students were asked to fill out a survey to share their takeaways from their time learning alongside the four women of Color teachers. Bella, an Asian-American teacher candidate in the secondary TEP pathway, expressed,

I am taking away the importance of community as teachers of Color. Also navigating when your curriculum is challenged. I really appreciated getting to hear experiences from teachers as a future teacher of color!

Similarly, Camden, a Black student working toward their master's degree in teaching in special education, shared, “I am taking away the importance of self-care, finding allies, speaking your truth and being willing to confront situations authentically as yourself.”

A Latina graduate student with dreams of a future career as a university professor, described, “This was a reminder that while things aren't looking too great (it's tough out here!), there are badass educators doing the work!” Not only did the panel help students of Color feel motivated in their career decisions as future justice-oriented teachers, it also helped establish FToC as a racial affinity space where intergenerational knowledge and expertise could be shared. In seeking advice on how to navigate whiteness, teachers of Color with years of experience were able to share their experiences and journeys and provide critical hope for FToC members.

After that first year, FToC community at the PNU continued to grow. After focusing on one-time programmatic events in its first year, FToC members in their second year of organizing planned to host bi-weekly meetings for continual support of one another. The goal was to meet bi-weekly and have FToC members offer support with one another when challenges of racism or whiteness arise, as well as lead discussions on how to transform education through the practice of freedom dreaming. With the support of graduate students who work as TEP coaches and racial-affinity group leaders, the inclusion of experienced K-12 teachers as guest speakers, and group engagement with public community events, FToC at the PNU continues to be a homeplace for justice-oriented future teachers of Color.

FToC at the CU

CU is a minority-serving institution. All participants in FToC were enrolled in a fast paced, one-year TEP, where approximately 50% of the candidates identified as people of Color, yet instructors were primarily white. At completion, candidates earn a teaching credential and master's in education (M.Ed.). Like many other TEPs, candidates take coursework at CU while also completing hours as a student teacher in school-based placements throughout the year according to their intended grade level and subject area. Those who attended and participated in the six FToC meetings during the study were primarily Latiné, while a few identified as Asian American, and one candidate identified as Black biracial.

FToC at CU was designed as a student-driven space for future teachers of Color enrolled in the teacher credential program to build community and engage as needed. It was a place for them to share their joys and challenges as they navigated the program and new waters of teaching. Organically, it also served as a place for resistance, advocacy, and action. In most of the meetings, after the initial check in, candidates talked in an open forum format to discuss their experiences in classes and placements, and meetings often ended with some form of action planning or advocacy work to improve their experience as preservice teachers of color in their particular programs. Nineteen candidates regularly attended the monthly FToC meetings, and all self-selected to consent into the study.

A Homeplace amidst a dominating presence of whiteness

Although students of Color made up almost half of the students enrolled in the program, because the instructors were primarily white and the curriculum and pedagogy of the program centered whiteness, FToC members consistently expressed feeling marginalized. When given a racial affinity space to reflect on how their program was going, they shared that they did not feel heard, that white students took up most of the space in conversations that centered on race, and that their white instructors were not equipped to facilitate conversations about race.

FToC participants shared that they were particularly frustrated by how whiteness was centered in their classes. Sara is a Latina secondary teacher candidate. One day, as the group processed how they were experiencing their classes, she shared, “This was a class where we were talking about colorism and racism, and six white men, specifically, were leading the conversation, while a white man was teaching it. I was like, ‘oh my god!’ … it's like these white students are trying to be on the right [side]—on our side—but then they're the only ones talking … They're taking space, they're not making space. And the professors that are in charge let them.”

Grace, an Asian American secondary candidate, agreed and added that when white men were taking up classroom space, not only did professors condone this behavior, the only way it was addressed was through teacher candidates of Color having to take on the labor of addressing it, noting that,

Professors should take more accountability for enforcing a balanced conversation in class. I feel like there was a good couple of months earlier in the year where collectively folks, especially in humanities, were getting frustrated that like the imbalance of how you know, white men were talking more. And it took us calling the person in, you know, bringing that person in and having a long talk. But also why did it have to build up to that moment?

Questioning why it got to the place that teacher candidates of Color needed to have “a long talk” with white teacher candidates, Grace was frustrated that professors were not intervening on these behaviors as they happened.

In addition to professors being permissive to white men in the program dominating conversations about race and racism, FToC participants also shared about the culpability of professors in centering whiteness, which was disappointing to FToC members. They pointed out that coursework did not provide a lens of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies, but instead was steeped in deficit frames of students of Color.

For example, when Sara talked about needing more coursework focused on classroom management, Ray, a Latino secondary candidate, added, “[coursework] that actually talks about how to work with students of Color, and not just oppress them. [some group laughter] I don't know how else to say that.” And Sam, a Filipina elementary candidate, continued on, “[the professors] tell us this is a brave space, not a safe space; then they tell us to laugh. [brief pause, silence, shrieks and laughter] [crosstalk]” Although within FToC, laughing together about the oppressive ways whiteness lived in their program felt restorative, the students were reacting to how problematic it felt for their white professors who are ineffective at creating safety in racial dialogue, instructing teacher candidates to “laugh” when it came to having difficult conversations regarding race and racism.

Research has shown that it is not uncommon for students of Color to feel silenced and invisibilized by white students in TEPs, and that is attributed both to how white comfort is centered, as well as that many white teacher educators are sorely under equipped to facilitate effective conversations about race and racism (Borsheim-Black et al., 2019). In Amo'’s (2010) study about the dynamics of white professors and teacher candidates of Color, she observed that within classes, white students often took on the role of experts as it related to race relations in the United States; and because discussions of race relations and racism were less consequential to their wellbeing, they would engage in jokes and laughter that felt insensitive to students of Color. Insensitive jokes and laughter about racism can be itself a form of racism, and prioritizing being brave over feeling safe in race discussions is a frame that centers the comfort of white people, for whom the realities of race and racism are less consequential (Leonardo & Porter, 2010; Spencer & Ullucci, 2022). Thus, it is logical that teacher candidates of Color feel marginalized when white students’ knowledge and approach to discussions of race and racism are centered.

Despite that only one of the teacher candidates of Color in the program had come through a federally funded Ethnic Studies pathway program that offered them scholarships during their undergraduate education and teacher education, to fulfill the state's need for Ethnic Studies teachers, several candidates were interested in teaching Ethnic Studies. Ethnic Studies is an interdisciplinary field emphasizing U.S. based racialized people's historical and current struggles and resistance (Reyes McGovern & Buenavista, 2016), and while the program was accepting students to address this need, the program neglected to build out the curriculum or the support students needed.

Raya, a current teacher who was an alumna of the program, came to guest speak at one of the FToC meetings. She shared,

I became a teacher to teach Ethnic Studies. So that has always been my end goal. I remember in my interview panel for TEP; I was like, how are you supporting people who want to teach Ethnic Studies? How are you finding placements? Because that's what I want to be doing. And as far as support from TEP; it was pretty non existent. I feel like they didn't even really know how to help me, like find placements, or even people I could observe.

Ben, a Latino History candidate, confirmed Raya's experience. He shared, “Yeah, there isn't much, we're not really touching Ethnic Studies at all, we're just touching more like activities that include visual inquiry, stuff like that.”

Gabby, a Latina secondary teacher who did go through the Ethnic Studies pathway program, also agreed: “Yeah. Approaching how to teach content, but not how to teach ETHNIC STUDIES content [emphasis hers], because there’s a specific lens you have to use to teach this curriculum, and they don't know how to do that. So, they're not doing that!” The interest in teaching and learning about Ethnic Studies pedagogy was strong from FToC members; not just from the candidates who intended to teach Ethnic Studies, but also from teacher candidates of Color from other disciplines. Yet the instructors and curriculum were not centering these teacher candidates of Color's disciplinary needs.

In CU's TEP, FToC members felt disenfranchised within the program. FToC, though, gave them a space to collectively process the harm and analyze its roots. It became a space where they could share their individual experiences and recognize that these were systematic issues of a program ineffective at serving the needs of teacher candidates of Color. In a survey that FToC members took midyear, a candidate shared, “This space has been a safe and brave for me as a candidate pursuing a credential in a white-dominated field. It feels great to be around fellow educators of color and have a protected space to debrief and dialogue about our unique experiences and issues.” Similarly, another candidate answered, “This space means a lot to me because it means that there are people who care about me in this program and want me to succeed. It's also nice to have a safe space where I can share my thoughts and experiences as a teacher of color.” As these future teachers of color communicated, FToC served as a homeplace amidst a dominating presence of whiteness, where their voices and experiences felt centered and safe within their preservice teacher education.

A Homeplace for liberatory struggle and reimagination

In addition to finding refuge from harm, FToC served as a place to sit in the joy of being a collective of future teachers of Color, as well as a place to facilitate change. Each FToC session formally began with a check in, where teacher candidates sat in a circle and reported “roses and thorns,” meaning what was going well at the moment and what was challenging. In those moments, teacher candidates often recounted the connections they had with young people, sharing in the validation of their presences, and affirming their belongingness in the profession.

For instance, Brian, a Vietnamese secondary candidate relayed,

When I left my first placement. I felt like my kids didn't really care. Like this one girl, I had never talked to her. I swear to God, we never had a conversation ever. She comes to me, she goes, “Mr., I'm gonna miss you. You were such a vibe!” [Group Laughter] But, I'd never talked to her. So it's kind of crazy … . Like your presence in a classroom does make a difference.

Doubting the impact of his presence, it was in FToC that Brian felt comfortable sharing his realization that his presence does make a difference.

Lucy, a Latina secondary candidate, added on, sharing pride in how her purpose in teaching, for students to see themselves in their educator, was realized. She commented,

There was this one student that I did connect with, and she wrote … in her note [on my last day student teaching], … "I really appreciate our chats. I feel like we could relate.” And that just meant a lot to me because that's like one of the main reasons why I want to be a teacher, so the students can connect with me and see themselves in me as well. [Ooohhhh!] [supportive chatter]

In a white dominated profession, it was demonstrated that students of Color benefit from having teachers who reflect their racial, cultural, and linguistic identity (Glock & Schuchart, 2020), that students of Color feel more challenged, respected, and seen (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017). However, in a majority white profession that is often shaped by standards of whiteness, teachers of Color often lose sight of their purpose and value in the field (Kohli, 2021). Being together in FToC, as a community of resistance, provided space for them to remember their place and worth in a TEP where they felt marginalized.

In addition to experiencing joy and community, the candidates found FToC to be a safe space to reclaim and reimagine their program, and that involved engaging in resistance. Meetings would often end organically with next steps on how to address their concerns in TEP. For example, about halfway through the year, FToC students decided to write a letter to TEP leadership to outline their experiences and provide recommendations that could mitigate the harm of future cohorts (as the previous cohort had done). The students articulated eight challenges they wanted address. We focus on three within this section: (1) the whiteness and white dominance in courses, (2) the neglect of Ethnic Studies, and the last, (3) the imposition of neutrality regarding the teacher's union.

During the year of the study, among other demands, there was mounting pressure from teachers toward the program's partnering school district to increase teacher salaries. Although at this point there had not been an official strike or walkout (as there had in Portland, OR, Clark County, NV, and Fresno, CA, to name a few). The negotiations were not yet over, and the teacher union was moving in the direction of a strike if they could not meet an agreement with the district leaders. However, after a holiday break, all the secondary candidates received a notice from TEP leadership urging teacher candidates to stay neutral regarding the negotiations.

This stance did not sit well with the FToC candidates and was brought up in one of the meetings. Ray asked, “TEP as a program … is claiming neutrality on the Teachers’ Union. Is there any possibility of the Future Teachers of Color cohort to have a position on the teachers’ union that could be different from TEP?” This caught the attention of everyone to where Grace responded,

I mean, just seriously like saying as like people who want to teach in this district, who want to build connections with students here, we see how there is a dominantly white like teacher force and who want the best for our students and also want to be able to afford where we live [laughter and agreement]. Right now it's like do I want to apply to this district, like knowing I will probably have to commute [from a more affordable city 40 minutes away]

Sara: If I may, Yes!! And in the best way possible, it would be so bold of us if we did that.

Brian: Let's do it! F*ck it!

To where someone chimed in, “Add it to the letter!”

Grace: Because since we're all speaking as a group, like, there's a lot more safety in

numbers, you know?

Gabby: That made me think of the meeting with [TEP coordinator] how they just kept pointing out that we're so vulnerable because of the position we're in right now. I'm like, “Yeah, we're vulnerable, because you're letting us be vulnerable. But if you were to take a stance and also let us declare our stance, there is strength in numbers. So like, we're vulnerable, because you're letting it happen.

FToC wrote in their letter disagreeing with this stance on neutrality. It read:

The program's imposition of neutrality onto candidates in the currently ongoing teacher contract negotiations between the Teachers Association (TA) and the School District (SD). Some forms in which this has presented itself are (but not limited to) the [social studies] cohort being explicitly told to remain neutral; and the remainder of the cohorts receiving little to no information about the ongoing contract negotiations.

As they drafted this document they wrote in their notes that,

We are not removed from the situation. The teachers we spend the most time working with—our cooperating teachers, school support staff, etc.—are directly affected by these negotiations. TEP funnels strong candidates into [the district] every year—for many of us, our future livelihoods are directly affected by these negotiations. The students who suffer from the constant cycling in and out of teachers from the district are affected by these negotiations.

Lastly, they called out a contradiction that existed between the curriculum they were presented with and the actual actions of TEP leadership. They wrote that,

In our first day of courses in TEP, every single class discussed a reading from Paulo Freire and Myles Horton that had a central takeaway: To remain ‘neutral’ in our teaching is to take the side of the oppressor [emphasis theirs]. We disagree with how TEP is contradicting itself with this urgent matter that has to do with current and future teachers in [the local district] - and, of course, all the students and their families who deserve access to quality educators in the district.

As indicated through the organizing of this written letter and taking a political stance regarding the teacher union, FToC members were given the space and opportunity to discuss what was challenging and supported each other to do something actionable, which may have not occurred if FToC did not exist.

Overall, the FToC at CU became a homeplace for liberatory struggle, where they built community and felt “safety in numbers.” Ultimately if they were not being heard in their classes, they were heard in FToC gatherings. They could safely discuss their issues and take action on it. This was a critical space for them and their livelihood as future teachers of Color to build community, organize, and challenge dominant white power structures within their program and the larger educational landscape that they were invested in.

Implications and Discussion

We can make homeplace that space where we return for renewal and self-recovery, where we can heal our wounds and become whole. (hooks, 2015, p. 49)

The FToCs at the PNU and CU exemplify how teacher candidates and college students interested in pursuing teaching careers were sustained through communities of resistance. The FToCs served as sacred places for teacher candidates of Color to process racial harm, take refuge from whiteness to build community, enact joy, and reimagine an education where their dreams and goals are central.

Preparing to enter a profession dominated by whiteness, FToCs provide a space for preservice teachers of Color to build support networks rooted in social justice before stepping into classrooms and schools as full-time teachers, where they may encounter racial stress and hostility (Kohli, 2021). They function as early forms of racial affinity CPD that provide future teachers of Color affirmation and a secure place in the teaching profession. They help support activism in advocacy in reimagining education for students of Color and all students to thrive. Furthermore, they are spaces for preservice teachers of Color to navigate the inflamed political climate that exists currently, which is drenched in whiteness, such as the banning of books that feature protagonists of Color and erasure of racialized histories (Friedman & Farid Johnson, 2022; Hartocollis & Fawcett, 2023). Though FToCs may differ in structure depending on the institution and context, they universally respond to the challenges of future teachers of Color in navigating the whiteness of teacher education.

With that said, FToCs are not a checkbox on a university DEI checklist, and simply establishing an FToC within a TEP or larger university setting is not enough. This means that teacher candidates and students must have access to FToCs within their teacher preparation. For instance, as teacher candidates are inundated with coursework, workshops and hours of student teaching, their capacity to participate in an FToC is a challenge, and opportunities to participate should be built into their program.

Likewise, FToC must be supported by the institution, where the faculty of Color or students of Color who run them are materially supported, through course releases or financial compensation. As it stands currently, the few teacher educators of Color who run FTOCs engage in extra service that their white colleagues do not carry, and this exacerbates the already undue burdens of their visible and invisible workloads.

Relatedly, TEPs need to hire more critical professors of Color so that the labor does not fall on just one professor to hold space for teacher candidates of Color. As 91% of tenure track instructors in TEPs are white, programs must actively commit to diversifying, and Programs need to commit to a collective racial literacy, where all instructors and leaders have an understanding of how structural racism operates, can model and teach in culturally sustaining ways, and are versed in the unique needs of teachers of Color. Not until a healthy racial climate is achieved will teachers of Color find FToC unnecessary.

As K-12 schools are challenged with racialized problems such as disproportionality, tracking, suspension, and racial bias (Hernández et al., 2022), there have been attempts of recruiting teachers of Color (Najarro, 2023). Yet, there must be more intention to sustain teachers of Color in the profession, beginning with preservice teacher education. FToC is one space TEPs can learn from to create equitable and racially just teacher education that is needed to combat whiteness and enact change to better the experience for future teachers of Colors and their future students.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Hui-Ling S. Malone

Andrea Carreño Cortez

Rita Kohli

Notes

Author Biographies

Hui-Ling Malone is an Assistant Professor in Education. Her area of research is teaching and learning, with a focus on race and education justice.

Andrea Carreño Cortez is a doctoral candidate in Education. Her area of research is with educators of Color who engage in teaching and learning outside of K-12 classrooms.

Rita Kohli is a Professor in Education. Her area of research is racialization and racial justice initiatives within K-12 schools and teacher education.

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