Do You See Me? An Examination of Black Pre-Service Teacher Experiences in a Teacher Preparation Program

Within the United States, Elementary education has been a discursive space dominated by a White, English-monolingual, middle-class teaching force and perspectives. A look at teacher preparation programs across the nation highlights the growing disparities in the racial makeup of teacher preparation programs. By looking closely at the perspectives of six Black pre-service teachers in a predominantly White institution of higher education, their lived experiences are examined to illuminate how they negotiate becoming teachers in hegemonic spaces while battling socially imposed and self-internalized deficit conceptions of their own identities as developing teachers.