(Re)Imagining Student Teacher Supervision: Building Antiracist Practices in the Student Teaching Internship

In the United States, classroom teachers are overwhelmingly white females– a trend that has been constant across the teacher landscape for decades (McFarland et al., 2019; Schaeffer, 2021). Conversely, the racial backgrounds of the students in the classrooms taught by these teachers are not static; in fact, by 2027, it is estimated that historically minoritized students will make up the majority of public school students (McFarland et al., 2019). This critical mismatch between teachers and students has been the catalyst for a push within teacher preparation programs to authentically engage with race. Previous research has indicated that the majority of these efforts continue to come up short in preparing white teachers to be actively antiracist (Dixson & Anderson, 2018; McDonald & Zeichner, 2009; Ohito, 2019; Villegas & Lucas, 2002; Wiedeman, 2002). In particular there remains a gap in the literature regarding antiracist models of teacher supervision during the student teaching internship, despite many teachers pinpointing the student teaching internship as the site of their most influential, long-lasting learning (McIntyre & McIntyre, 2020). This study aims to explore the disconnect between the empirically-supported influence of the student teaching internship and the lack of antiracist models for interaction and supervision during that internship. This work invokes Self-Study of Teacher Education Practice (S-STEP) as methodology for examining the supervisor’s role in ARS. This study articulates that the core tenets of antiracist teacher supervision are: (1) building relationships within the supervisory partnership and (2) engaging authentically with race in and across supervisory contexts. In addition, this work explores the constraints that this work faces and proposes possibilities for (re)imaginations of antiracist student teacher supervision for the future.