PRESERVICE TEACHERS AND THEIR STUDENTS - EARLY VIEWS OF RACE, GENDER AND CLASS

Whereas much teacher education continues to engage in a limited and mechanized version of the learning to teach process, many teacher educators view their work as critically important to fostering societal equality and justice, conditions that remain uncommon in many US schools. By helping pre-service teachers to view race, class, and gender as issues central to their concern as educators, teacher educators typically and systematically introduce their students to these issues with little regard for their students' initial thoughts on these dimensions. This study examined 235 pre-service teachers' early views on students' race, class, and gender by asking them to rate their respect for students who varied on the dimensions of race (black/white), gender, and class (lower/upper middle). The results of this investigation suggest that pre-service teachers show patterns of greater respect for black, female students of low social-economic status, independent of the type of student described (a leader, an athlete, quiet and studious). This finding, among others, suggests that pre-service teachers may enter their teacher education experience with a humanistic drive to view marginalized students positively. This finding stands in contrast to an educational system that accords very little respect to lower class students of color.