Poetic Inquiries of the 2016 Election: Teacher Candidates in Multicultural Education

Abstract

This article describes how an assistant professor addressed complicated, politically charged issues of social justice during the 2016 Presidential Election to primarily first-year teacher candidates (TCs) in a Multicultural Education course through Poetic Inquiry. The article presents Poetic Inquiry as a pedagogical tool to employ tackling controversial subjects through the use of voice from current events, legitimate news sources, interviews, and the TCs’ personal identities, which all articulate diverse concerns with issues on the 2016 campaign trail. Poems within the article include a range of current issues: Whiteness, homophobia, xenophobia, objectification of women, Black Lives Matter, immigration, women’s self-perceptions, electorate distrust, and bullying. Using poetry to make meaning from the election campaigns, TCs, as future educators and advocates for students, begin the process of deconstructing pluralistic voices heard in society and the classroom.