Responding to the Call to Care with Pre-service Teachers
Abstract
ABSTRACT This personal experience research project is a study of my literacy teaching with two groups of early childhood majors. It examines what these pre-service teachers and I came to understand about the call to do care work as we attempted to learn how to become culturally relevant teachers of literacy. The term `care work’ refers to teaching practices characterized by a deliberate attempt to infuse acts of care with understandings derived from an examination of the privileges that surround the life of the teacher. Five dimensions of care work‹ passion, dialogue, relationships, multiple subjectivities, and culturally critical awareness‹ structure the telling of my stories, my perceptions of my students’ stories, and our communal stories. These stories are analyzed within a theoretical framework provided by Mikhail Bakhtin, whose notion of an excess of sight emphasizes the role of dialogic interaction in forming understandings of the self in relation to others. Multiple layers of data were gathered in various written and spoken dialogic texts, including papers, journals, interviews, daily class evaluations, and my own personal journal. My students and I demonstrated that privileged perspectives often cause care work and instructional designs to be biased toward children most like the designers. Even in the midst of attempting to work against a privileged view of teaching and learning, my own position as a privileged teacher interfered with my ability to do effective care work consistently. This study illustrates that an examination of care work can provide insight into the ways we treat, as well as mistreat, students with our caring.
Reference
Lindsey, T. P. (2000). Responding to the call to care with pre-service teachers. Reflective Practice, 1(2), 269-282.
Journal
Reflective Practice
Analysis
Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?
no
Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?
no
Research Approach
Geographic Setting
Institutional Context
Certification Level
Programatic Focus
- early childhood education
Research Location Context
- Literacy methods course
- Practicum experience
Preservice Participants
- undergraduate preservice teachers
Preservice Sample Size
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- class assignment reflections
- Classroom Discussion
- Interviews
- journal entries
- projects with final reflections
- Researcher journals
- Written reflections
Data Analysis Tools
Researcher Positionality
- inside (staying their own students)
- Inside (studying their own practices)
Research Questions
I wanted to understand what it meant to have relationships with pre-service teachers that would serve as models for their relationships with children.
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes
I also wanted to understand how my multiple subjectivities were enacted through my teaching life and to help my students do the same.
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? Yes