The culturally responsive beginning teacher: Reimagining onboarding through a lens of equity and social justice
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Robert Bales (Creator)
- Brian Tyson (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Darrius Stanley
Abstract: What if a district utilized its teacher onboarding program to prioritize the development of a culturally responsive lens to meet the needs of its diverse student population? Public school districts in the United States have long served as a platform that reproduces oppression and marginalization of people of color. These issues are observable by significant gaps in academic achievement and discipline data that remain racially identifiable. The lack of progress in addressing these disparities falls onto the laps of school districts that are experiencing teacher shortages and elevated turnover rates with an increased reliance on novice teachers to fill teaching vacancies. The district asks these unequipped novice teachers to address the disparities due to the lack of training to see intersections of student experiences that may differ from their own while they espouse colorblind ideologies both implicitly and explicitly. South-Eastern University City Schools, a district of 12,000 students from a southern college community in the southeast, has the second-largest academic achievement gap nationwide for a public school district. Each year, they hire 25-30 novice teachers from various educator preparatory programs and alternative licensure pathways that engage a state-required beginning teacher support program. We collaborated with the district’s office of equity and inclusion and their beginning teacher support mentors to design an improvement initiative grounded in the colorblindness tenant of Critical Race Theory that uses novice teacher onboarding as a platform to address disparities in student outcomes. Through this onboarding initiative, novice teachers have a deeper understanding of the impact of race on classroom outcomes, increased awareness of how their own biases impact decision making, and the capacity to execute culturally responsive teaching strategies to improve student outcomes. A deeper understanding of how social identity creates privilege and oppression fosters empathy that supports the cultivation of more authentic classroom relationships that will minimize social barriers between teachers and students. We employed qualitative and quantitative methodologies to track teachers' first 90 days in the profession and gave a fuller picture of the struggles and connections made when one explicitly looks within themselves to be the teacher that all students need, not the students that this teacher may have wanted. An over-arching theme from the participants was overconfidence in their abilities to execute culturally responsive teaching strategies from their preservice training, creating a sense of racial dys consciousness. We discuss the lessons learned and provide recommendations for other individuals or districts considering implementing a culturally responsive teacher onboarding process.
The culturally responsive beginning teacher: Reimagining onboarding through a lens of equity and social justice
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Created on 3/8/2022
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2022
- Subjects
- Educational leadership
- Culturally relevant pedagogy
- Teachers -- Training of
- Racial justice in education
- Teacher-student relationships