“Close to my Heart”: Teacher Educators Building Racial Literacies

Although building preservice teachers’ racial literacy is a key goal to reducing racial inequity in K-12 settings, little attention has been paid to how literacy teacher educators are prepared to conduct this work. This is unsurprising given the neoliberal logic underpinning universities today. In this multiduo autoethnographic study, six literacy teacher educators utilized reflection on critical incidents to examine their own racial literacy development. By forming cross-racial pairs and utilizing a combination of writing and dialogue, these six participant/researchers interrogated their own views and experiences of race and racism. Findings suggest that the examination of critical incidents can support teacher educators’ racial literacy growth. Specifically, participants reflected on the vulnerability necessary to support preservice teachers’ racial literacy development and utilized ethnographic methods to build the practice of sharing about their own racial literacy learning. They also used critical incidents to come to a deeper understanding of the construct of racial literacy itself. These results imply that for professional organizations such as the Literacy Research Association to deliver on their espoused commitments to addressing ongoing institutional racism, they must intentionally create professional spaces for coreflection and dialog about racial literacy. Further, we consider the implications of this work for literacy doctoral programs and teacher educator preparation within contexts of college and university-based teacher education programs.