Within and beyond a grow-your-own-teacher program: Documenting the contextualized preparation and professional development experiences of critically conscious Latina teachers |
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| Authors: | Amanda R Morales |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USAamanda.morales@unl.edu |
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| Abstract: | ABSTRACTThis study provides an account of seven Latina teachers’ select educational, professional, and personal experiences over the past 10 years as they completed a grow-your-own-teacher program, became licensed teachers, and established themselves in Latinx minority–majority public schools within their rural, mid-western community. More specifically, as a Latina researcher and participant observer, I sought to better understand the culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) Latina teachers’ process-oriented engagement and conscientization over time. Far from being ‘ready-made’ conscientized teachers, in this work I discuss the ways CLD Latina teachers’ multiple and developing identities as bilingual learners, mothers, racialized minorities in schools, and educated professionals serve as both burdens and gifts in their engagement and processes of conscientization for teaching CLD students. Through the use of critical literatures, and life and professional story methodologies informed by Chicana feminist epistemologies, I sought to privilege Latina teachers’ narratives as well as uncover the mechanisms and experiences that proved most impactful for their development and sustainment within white normative educational spaces. Findings illustrate an emergence of racialized, identitarian resources among Latinas and implicate a nuanced, culturally contextualized, pedagogical approach to pre-/in-service CLD teacher professional development that engages participants in reflective storying, critical inquiry, and restorative community building. |
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| Keywords: | Teachers of color teacher preparation teacher professional development culturally and linguistically diverse students Latinx education |
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