Anti-racism and pre-service teacher education: advocating for intersectional privilege studies

Abstract

A key aim for teacher education must be to bridge the divide between the backgrounds of pre-service teachers and the increasingly diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, gender and socio-economic backgrounds of the students they will one day teach. This paper discusses an anti-racism framework for teacher education that is underpinned by social justice principles and that aims to fulfil the dual goals of critical consciousness raising among pre-service teachers about issues of ‘race’, class and gender, and the development of socially just teachers in education settings. This paper reports on our experience, over eight years, of teaching a large pre-service teacher education course that advocates for social justice, anti-racism and intercultural awareness. We highlight pedagogical approaches and curriculum designs that have been productive. We make a case for foregrounding the interconnections between patterns of subordination and privilege across ethnic, cultural, social and gender divides and conclude by considering the benefits of adopting an intersectional approach to privilege studies.