Whiteness and Raciolinguistic Ideologies in the Preparation of Content Teachers for Working with Language-Minoritized Youth A dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Miranda Lee Schornack IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENTS OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Martha Bigelow, PhD and Mistilina Sato, PhD May 2019 © Miranda Lee Schornack, 2019 Acknowledgements There are many people who have contributed to this dissertation. Here is my best effort to acknowledge them. To Tina Edstam, your mentorship before I applied for a doctoral program and during my first years as a graduate student, was profound. To my advisors, Mistilina Sato and Martha Bigelow, there aren’t enough or the right words to express my gratitude and joy in working with you. Thank you with all my heart. To my committee members, Diane Tedick and J.B. Mayo, thank you for staying with me on this wild ride. To members of the Minnesota Educator Dispositions System (MnEDS) Research Group including Jessica Tobin, Jehanne Beaton, Jenna Cushing-Leubner, Su Jung Kim, Justin Jiménez, Amanda Shopa, thank you for the camaraderie in research, implementation, and development. To staff in the Office of Teacher Education, particularly the Clinical Partnerships Team, thank you for the opportunity to work with and learn from you. To the talented faculty, staff, and students in Second Language Education—you are brilliant and your work is profound. I’m so lucky to have worked with you. To advocates in the Southeast-Metro Regional Center of Excellence, I have learned more than I could have imagined by joining you in advocating for Minnesota’s schools. To my sponsor, Deb A., thank you for sharing your experience, strength, and hope with me on this journey of recovery. To my parents, Marilee and Buck DeGroot, and my mother- and father-in-law, Joann and Henry Schornack, thank you for your encouragement and patience. To my children, Jack and James, you are my inspiration. To my husband, Shannon, your role has been larger in this dissertation than anyone. Thank you. I love you. i Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my family—Shannon, Jack, and James—without their love and encouragement, this project wouldn’t have been possible. I love you all. And to those who suffer from addiction—I hope you find recovery. ii Abstract We must attend to raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015) in the preparation of new teachers to work with language-minoritized students. Racism and linguicism are manifestations of Whiteness (Frankenberg, 1993) and White Cultural Hegemony and, left insufficiently examined or non-confronted, they will continue to be the building blocks on which new teachers enter the profession. In this study, I used interpretive case methodology (Merriam, 1998) to examine three critical incidents (Flanagan, 1954) of White, English-speaking, content teacher candidates learning to teach language-minoritized youth. My findings call for preservice teacher development to include languaging and infrastructuring strategies (Cushing- Leubner, Kim, Sato, Schornack, Tobin, 2017) to hold complicated conversations (Mason, 2016b) about race and language. I offer a metaphor for Whiteness as an addiction and look to principles based in spirituality that could provide a pathway to recovery. iii Table of Contents List of Tables v List of Figures vi List of Abbreviations vii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Review of the Literature 9 Chapter 3: Research Design 70 Chapter 4: Analysis 100 Chapter 5: Implications 140 References 179 Appendices Appendix A: Minnesota Education Dispositions System (MnEDS™) Dispositional Strands Appendix B: Content Teacher Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions for Teaching Language-minoritized Youth Appendix C: Minnesota State Statute 8710.2000 Standards of Effective Practice for Teachers Appendix D: “ESL Methods Course” syllabus summary Appendix E: Learner Profile assignment summary Appendix F: Participant recruitment letter Appendix G: Talking points for faculty conversation to identify prospective participants Appendix H: Semi-structured interview protocol Appendix I: Strand 1: Assets Appendix J: Strand 3: Collaboration and Communication Appendix K: Strand 6: Navigation: Flexibility and Adaptability Appendix L: Strand 8: Advocacy Appendix M: Strand 2: Role of Self iv List of Tables Table 1: Content Teacher Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions 198 for Teaching Language-minoritized Youth Table 2: Data sources 80 v List of Figures Figure 1: Factors that informed selection of critical incidents 87 vi List of Abbreviations CRP Culturally responsive/relevant pedagogy CT Cooperating teacher, mentor teacher EL English learner ELL English language learner ESL English as a second language L1 First language(s), home language, mother tongue, native language L2 Second language(s) LEP Limited English proficient MnEDS Minnesota Educator Dispositions System SLA Second language acquisition TC Teacher candidate, preservice teacher vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This dissertation examines White, English-speaking teacher candidates navigating the intersections of race and language as they learn to teach language-minoritized youth. The stories these teachers tell are the foundation of an argument for why those complexities should be attended to in teacher development, and why the field of education must cultivate spaces in teacher development for more work like this. Specifically, I draw from the rich and growing scholarship in the area of raciolinguistics (Alim, Rickford, & Ball, 2016; Flores & Rosa, 2015) and Whiteness scholarship (Frankenberg, 1993; Jupp, Berry, & Lensmire, 2016; Mason, 2016; Sleeter 2001, 2016) to analyze how Whiteness and White cultural hegemony shaped the experiences of the participants in my study. Background and Rationale There is a demographic imperative to address racial and linguistic ideologies in the preparation of new teachers to work with language-minoritized students. As the K-12 student population is increasingly multilingual and multicultural, the teaching force remains largely White, female, and monolingual English-speaking (de Jong & Harper, 2005; Hill-Jackson & Lewis, 2007; Laine, Bauer, Johnson, Kroeger, Troup, & Meyer, 2010; Lucas & Grinberg, 2008; Nieto, 2000). A primary concern is that many current teachers are not sufficiently prepared to work effectively with language-minoritized students, in part, because they lack an understanding of the lived experiences of language-minoritized youth (García & Kleifgen, 2010). Namely, “Most U.S. teachers are European Americans from middle-class backgrounds who speak only English. Many of 1 their students are racial and ethnic minorities, live in poverty, and speak a first language other than English” (Banks et al., 2005, p. 237) In other words, teachers must be made aware of how their lived experiences are similar to and different from their students because it impacts instruction which, in turn, affects student achievement. For example, in their survey of 257 schools across 145 districts in California, Williams, Kirst, and Haertel (2005) found “teachers at higher performing schools also more often report that their district addresses the instructional needs of English language learners at their school” (p. 18). Moll, Amanti, Neff, and González (2005) found Latino student- and family- engagement improved when teachers valued the variety of funds of knowledge they held, and incorporated them directly and explicitly into teaching and learning activities. Left unexamined, the difference between the lived experiences of students and teachers can result in educators holding negative perceptions of language-minoritized students, their families, and their communities (Terrill & Mike, 2000). As Steele (2010) explained, individuals with institutional power, such as teachers, send implicit and explicit messages to students about aspects of their identities (e.g., nationalities, ethnicities, languages) and it relates to student achievement. As Banks et al. (2005) articulated, “success in school is increasingly related to the ability to engage in any kind of productive employment” (p. 238). Similarly, Villegas (2007) described how success in school is necessary for ELs to “participate equitably in the economic and political life of the country” (p. 372). Content teachers must also be prepared to work with language-minoritized students because they have a responsibility for teaching the language of their content 2 (Freeman & Freeman, 2014) as well as the language of their instruction (Schleppegrell, 2001). In other words, this argument addresses the opinion held by some teachers that working with language-minoritized students is the job of the English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher. In order to challenge the misperception that can follow teachers well into their careers, content teachers must be prepared to work with language- minoritized students in their educator preparation program, so they can begin to see themselves as teachers of the language of their content area from day one. The result of this compilation is the unmistakable reality that learning about language and language-minoritized learners is essential in the development of today’s teachers because it affects student identity development, achievement, and socio- economic outcomes later in life. In addition, teacher preparation for working with language-minoritized youth should include an examination of Whiteness and the impacts of White cultural hegemony on teaching and learning practices. This is important