The construction and interpretation of gender and race in initial teacher education

To better understand the experiences of teacher educators who raise issues of gender and race in their preservice education courses and their students' reactions to the inclusions of such issues, I have conducted a study that examines how gender and race are included in a faculty of education. The major research questions are: How do teacher educators and their students construct and interpret the place of race and gender in initial teacher education? What are the impediments to the inclusion of gender and race issues in initial teacher education? How are issues of gender and race included in preservice education courses? What are the theoretical frameworks utilized by teacher educators to conceptualize gender and race in their education courses?;My study's data describes three impediments to the inclusion of equity issues in initial teacher education: the ideological debate between theory and practice in teacher training; the concentration of equity issues in the area of social foundations and the small amount of time allocated to these topics; and the problematic reactions of student teachers to the inclusion of equity issues. Specifically, I examine student teachers' overt resistance to and denial of equity issues, and their tendency to individualize the occurrence of gender and race inequity to singular isolated events. The overall findings of the study demonstrate that social justice issues continue to exist in educational institutions, and that there are some dedicated teacher educators who address social justice concerns in their education courses, despite the personal and professional obstacles that have arisen during this journey. These teacher educators have hope for a better future. They see themselves as agents for change.;This study draws on in-depth interviews and non-participant observations of 11 teacher educators (8 women and 3 men), 5 student teacher focus group interviews, and student teacher written in-class reflective tasks in one Canadian faculty of education. I utilize feminist poststructural theory, feminist pedagogical theory and resistance theory to describe how the concepts of difference, discourse, power and subjectivity have influenced feminist scholarship and my understanding of how race and gender are taken up by teacher educators and their students.