Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2022
Department
Faculty of Education
Department
Faculty of Education
Abstract
As faculties of education have undergone drastic changes to keep teacher education programs afloat while accommodating teacher candidates during a pandemic, much of these altercations are designed, much like the education system itself, to meet the needs of white, privileged students. Although many of the changes from classroom content, pedagogy, and assessment to alternative practicums are commendable in the face of a pandemic, BIPOC and teacher candidates from lower socioeconomic status, who are already underrepresented in the Ontario teacher workforce, are further disadvantaged due to existing inequities and opportunity gaps (Battiste, 2013; Colour of Poverty, 2019; Henry & Tator, 2012) exasperated by pandemic conditions. In this chapter we ground our experiences through a duo-ethnography as two racialized faculty members within teacher education programs at Canadian postsecondary institutions. It is argued that the implications of the pandemic in convergence with the axiology of whiteness and white privilege that define teacher education and the teaching profession in Ontario operate as a double barrier to entry into and diversification of the teacher workforce. Suggestions are made for how to disrupt and rupture the normalized structure of teacher education programs and its policies and practices to advance equitable outcomes.
Recommended Citation
Abawi, Z. & Eizadirad, A. (2022). Neutrality always benefits the oppressor: The need to rupture the normalized teacher education programs to diversify the teacher workforce. In Danyluk, P., Burns, A., Hill, L. S., & Crawford, K. (Eds.) Crisis and Opportunity: How Canadian Bachelor of Education Programs Responded to the Pandemic (pp. 321-333). [eBook]. Canadian Association for Teacher Education/Canadian Society for the Study of Education. http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39534