Collaborating with Urban Youth to Address Gaps in Teacher Education

Research shows that many of the predominantly White and middle-class teachers are unprepared to teach an urban public school population increasingly comprised of low-income children of color. Lack of cultural competencies, low expectations of and lack of caring for students, and racial/ethnic, linguistic, and class biases are all cited as barriers to the success of teachers in urban schools (Bollin, 2007; Brown & Rodríguez, 2009; Howard & Milner, 2014; Rodríguez, 2012; Williams, 2013), and as this and other studies suggest, these barriers are not limited to White teachers (Conchas, 2001; Lynn, Bacon, Totten, Bridges, & Jennings, 2010; Whitney, 2009). At the crux of the problem is the fact that many pre-service teachers have significant gaps in the critical knowledge they need to connect pedagogically and personally with children from backgrounds different from their own. Adding to these difficulties is the relative isolation of teacher education programs from the urban communities that many of their pre-service teachers will one day serve. This disconnection profoundly impedes understandings--among both university faculty and students--of the significance of the social, economic, and political contexts that profoundly impact what happens in urban schools. In this article the authors highlight two initiatives that sought to address these gaps in pre-service teachers' knowledge through participatory action research (PAR) with urban youth. Specifically, they examine how, within these projects, negative perceptions about low-income Black and Latino youth among some pre-service teachers were revealed through their direct engagement with these young people and how this helped the authors themselves, as teacher educators, to better understand and address their students' knowledge gaps. Included are recommendations for further implementing the direct involvement of urban youth as partners in teacher education to address some ways in which pre-service teachers are often unprepared for success in urban schools.