Educating Black Children: Is there a role for Teacher Education?

Over the years I have researched the educational experiences and outcomes of Black school students. This culminated in 2014 in the publication of ‘Teacher Training and the Education of Black Children: Bringing Color into Difference’. In the interim little has changed: the dominant discourse regarding the education of Black students remains one of underachievement both in compulsory and higher education. Black students are three times more likely than white students to be excluded from school and political discourse uses such a statistic to reinforce their view that young Black people are more likely to be in prison than in higher education (May 2016). 

An issue that has yet to be resolved is the role of teacher education in educating the future teacher workforce to think differently about Black children and to challenge stereotyped views they hold about Black people as ‘uneducatable’. In this seminar I discuss some of the issues and strategies I identified in my book to address the gaps in the education of student teachers and teacher educators which are essential if Black students are to experience social justice in education and ultimately more equitable educational outcomes.