2 - Finding Voice and Passion - Critical Race Theory Methodology in Science Teacher Education - (2019)

American Educational Research Journal
Month XXXX, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–45

DOI: 10.3102/0002831218818093
Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions
Ó 2019 AERA. http://aerj.aera.net
Finding Voice and Passion:

Critical Race Theory Methodology
in Science Teacher Education
Felicia Moore Mensah
Teachers College, Columbia University
This longitudinal case study utilizes critical race theory methodology to

chronicle the journey of an African American female in science teacher edu-
cation. The study looks at her educational history first as a young child and
then how she navigates a contested, racialized predominantly White teacher
education program, grows and develops in science education, and secures
her first full-time teaching appointment as an elementary teacher. The impli-
cations for practice in both teacher education and science education show
that educational and emotional support for teachers of color throughout
their educational and professional journey is imperative to increasing and
sustaining Black teachers. In addition, intersectionality foregrounds and
adds to the complexity of understanding race, racism, and science in
teacher education.
KEYWORDS: critical race theory, teacher education, teachers of color, science

education, intersectionality
Introduction
Issues of race and racism are important topics for discussion in educa-
tion. However, scholars argue that race is undertheorized in education
(Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), while other scholars argue that race is under-
theorized in teacher education (Milner, Pearman, & McGee, 2013). Critical
race theory (CRT) has been introduced and utilized in both fields of study,
and researchers who use CRT challenge others to conduct studies with racial
FELICIA MOORE MENSAH is an associate dean and professor of science education in the
Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at the Teachers College,
Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA; e-mail:
fm2140@tc.columbia.edu. As a qualitative researcher in science teacher education,
her research and teaching interests include issues of equity and diversity in teacher
education, science education, identity, and recently application of critical race theory
to address the preparation of preservice and doctoral candidates.
CRT in Science Education
implications in mind. Thus, CRT acknowledges as a basic premise that race
and racism are defining characteristics of American society. In a White-
dominated society, most of us have received little or no education and infor-
mation about racism and are thus unprepared to think or to talk about it
critically (Diangelo, 2006; Matias, 2013). Rather than avoidance, conversa-
tions on race in teacher education are needed to address educational ineq-
uity and social injustice.
A central principle of CRT in education is the importance and centrality
of narratives, counter-narratives, or counter-stories—particularly stories
‘‘told by people of color’’ (López, 2003, p. 84). The notion of counter-
narrative is not to treat the narratives of people of color as less than or sub-
ordinate to the dominant narrative but to empower the telling of stories from
the unique histories of people of color. From a CRT perspective, knowledge
can and should be generated through the narratives that emerge from and
with people of color. Counter-narratives are the enactment of a multiple con-
sciousness in which the roles of the narrator and the researcher can deliber-
ately see the world and its corresponding realities from the position of the
subjugated (Duncan, 2005). This allows the storytelling and sharing of nar-
ratives as uniquely positioned within time and context of the life experiences
of those telling them and those learning from them. In CRT, race and racism
are placed at the center of the counter-story.
For women of color, the telling of stories becomes the basis for a deeper
understanding of the multiple social factors that interact in their lives.
According to Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991), ‘‘The experiences of women of color
are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism.
Because of their intersectional identity as both women and of color, . . .
women of color are marginalized’’ (pp. 1243–1244) along the lines of gender
and race at the same time. In other words, race and racism do not exist outside
of gender, and gender does not exist outside of race and racism. Therefore, an
intersectionality analysis allows us to see sexism and racism within a symbiotic
relationship between the two, where often there are multiple factors that inter-
sect, making single-axis analysis insufficient (May, 2015). Because of the dif-
fering narratives of women of color, no two narratives are the same nor are
the collective experiences of women who share common racial and ethnic
backgrounds identical (Parsons & Mensah, 2010).
Offering examples in legal studies and the law, Crenshaw (2016) talks
about three ways in which race and gender intersect in shaping structural
(i.e., the location of women of color in society), political (i.e., women of
color situated within at least two subordinated groups), and representational
(i.e., the cultural construction of women of color) intersectionality. The mul-
tidimensionality of Black women’s experiences as ‘‘multiply burdened’’
(p. 23) suggests their experiences are distinct and that their experience of
discrimination and disadvantages are similar to and different from those of
White women and Black men. Furthermore, African American women
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Mensah
understood that addressing the oppression they face could not be solved by
race-only, or class-only, or gender-only, or sexuality-only frameworks
(Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 2016). Hence, CRT’s advancement of the
counter-narrative or counter-story centralizes race and other forms of
oppression, such as gender and class, that are revealed in the stories shared
of one’s life that are especially important to the person telling and sharing
aspects of her life. Intersectionality foregrounds how systemic oppressions
work in the lives of teachers of color, and it adds to the complexity of under-
standing race and other social markers for preservice teachers of color in
teacher education and science education. Moreover, the notion of disciplin-
ary intersectionality, such as a female teacher of color in science education,
broadens and adds to this complexity in understanding race, racism, and sci-
ence in teacher education.
In this longitudinal case study, CRT and counter-narratives are employed
to chronicle the journey of Michele (pseudonym), an African American
female preservice teacher candidate. The study looks at her educational his-
tory first as a young child then as she navigates a contested, racialized pre-
dominantly White teacher education program, grows and develops in
science teacher education, and secures her first full-time teaching appoint-
ment as an elementary teacher in New York City. The research questions
for this study are
Research Question 1: In what ways did Michele understand race and racism in
her educational narratives, and how did these experiences affect her prepara-
tion as a teacher of color?
Research Question 2: What were Michele’s experiences as a teacher of color in
a White teacher education program?
Research Question 3: What experiences shaped her development as a teacher of
color desiring to teach science?
Related Literature
To situate Michele’s experiences in teacher education, related literature
about Black teachers and preservice teachers of color is appropriate. The
historical work on Black teachers by Michèle Foster (1990, 1997),
Jacqueline Jordan Irvine (1988), Joyce E. King (1991), Sabrina Hope King
(1993), Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994), Vanessa Siddle Walker (2001), and
Linda Tillman (2004) represent a strong legacy of Black women scholars
and their work with Black teachers pre– and post–Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, KS. The significant decrease in the number of Black
teachers has been so drastic that scholars have referred to them as an
‘‘endangered species’’ (Irvine, 1988). The dwindling Black teacher workforce
can be attributed to a variety of political, economic, demographic, and
3
sociological factors. For example, Milner and Howard (2004) reported that
Black teacher demotion and Black teacher voicelessness were two signifi-
cant outcomes of the Brown decision for Black teachers, students, and
communities.
Tillman (2004) also discussed the historical impact the Brown decision
had on the Black community and the academic success of Black children.
We are still feeling the ‘‘(un)unintended and (un)anticipated consequences’’
due to the mass firing of Black teachers, principals, and superintendents with
children still suffering the effects’’ (p. 299). Consequently, the educational
landscape post-Brown has not yet rebounded from the mass exodus
(Fultz, 2004) of Black teachers. The effects are not only seen in student learn-
ing but also on who enters teaching as a profession. The decreased number
of college students declaring teacher education as a major, the decline in
Black college student enrolments, as well as retention of female teachers
of color in the profession are all outcomes of post Brown (Dickson, 2010;
Farinde, Allen, & Lewis, 2016; Ingersoll & May, 2011; Rogers-Ard, Knaus,
Epstein, & Mayfield, 2013). With decreasing numbers of available teachers
of color (Dickson, 2010), researchers are interested in increasing this valu-
able group. For example, Villegas, Strom, and Lucas (2012) give two major
reasons in the literature for increasing the representation of people of color
in teaching. First, teachers of color serve as critical role-models for all chil-
dren, especially for children of color. Second, teachers of color are particu-
larly suited to teaching students of color because of inherent understandings
of the backgrounds and experiences of students from diverse cultural back-
grounds. Other scholars have noted the important role teachers of color add
to teaching, such as bringing alternative or critical pedagogies to their prac-
tice (Goodwin, 2004; S. H. King, 1993; Mensah, 2009a; Milner, 2003, 2010).
Building a future pool of Black teachers comes from the preparation of pre-
service teachers of color. Therefore, their experiences in teacher education
represents an area of growing importance as well.
Preservice Teachers of Color

The research on Black teacher candidates of color is limited (Dilworth,
2012; Jackson & Kohli, 2016), and scholars have described the research base
concerning the preparation of teachers of color as ‘‘small and not compre-
hensive in scope’’ (Torres, Santos, Peck, & Cortes, 2004, p. 83). Though
efforts have been made to increase the number of teachers of color
(Achinstein, Ogawa, Sexton, & Freitas, 2010; Gist, 2017; Jackson & Kohli,
2016; Sleeter & Thao, 2009; Villagómez, Easton-Brooks, Gomez, Lubbes, &
Johnson, 2016), we also have to be concerned with their experiences in
teacher education programs. For example, Brown (2014) uses CRT in educa-
tion to review the extant literature on preservice teachers of color and
teacher education programs in the United States. Her review outlines three
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Mensah
predominant themes from the literature and considers three CRT constructs
that reveal the racial landscape surrounding teacher education and preser-
vice teachers of color. The three themes are the recruitment and retention
of more preservice teachers of color in teacher preparation programs and
in K–12 settings; the perspectives and voices of preservice teachers of color
about teaching; and the experiences teacher candidates of color encounter
in teacher preparation programs. Connecting these themes, Brown discusses
how at least three CRT constructs (i.e., counter-storytelling, Whiteness as
property, and interest convergence) work within teacher education pro-
grams and specifically on the experiences of preservice teachers of color.
Although teachers of color bring a great deal of insight into the field, very
little of their experiences and prior knowledge are used within teacher prep-
aration (Gist, 2017; Montecinos, 2004). In fact, numerous studies demon-
strate that the focus and design of teacher education are for White teacher
candidates, and the voices of teachers of color are either ignored or silenced
within teacher preparation programs and classes (Amos, 2010; Parker &
Hood, 1995; Sheets & Chew, 2002).
Teacher education programs also prepare content teachers. In content-
specific teacher education programs, such as science and mathematics, the
literature base is virtually nonexistent for discussions of race and racism
(Joseph, Haynes, & Cobb, 2016; Martin, 2009; Mensah & Jackson, 2018;
Parsons, Rhodes, & Brown, 2011). The literature ignores this important con-
tribution of content-specific preparation of teachers of color. Though
research speaks to the preparation of preservice teachers of color for multi-
culturalism or diversity courses (Montecinos, 2004; Sheets, 2001), very few
studies direct their attention to content-specific teacher preparation of teach-
ers of color (exceptions in science education, Mensah, 2016; Mensah &
Jackson, 2018; Rivera Maulucci, 2013). Moreover, low representation of
teachers of color in science teacher education suffers similar issues in teacher
education. Science education is a marginalized content area in elementary
school settings (Berg & Mensah, 2014; Gunning & Mensah, 2010; Mensah,
2010), and this is compounded by a limited number of science teachers of
color in the teaching pool (Mensah & Jackson, 2018); consequently, the
preparation of elementary science teachers of color is a topic needing atten-
tion as well. Therefore, this current study is equally concerned with the
preparation of teachers of color and their experiences in teacher education
programs but also with the preparation of elementary science teachers of
color for diverse school settings.
Critical Race Theory as a Theoretical

and Methodological Approach
CRT was used as theory and methodology to understand Michele’s
experiences of race and racism as a student of color during her early
5
childhood experiences, her teacher education program, and teaching sci-
ence in urban elementary classrooms. CRT is a movement with initial begin-
nings in the early 1970s in critical legal studies where scholars (Derrick Bell,
James Calmore, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris,
Charles Lawrence, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia Williams) critiqued and ques-
tioned the relationship between race, racism, and power to transform soci-
ety. The central tenets of CRT are acknowledging the centrality of race
and racism in society, challenging the dominant perspective, having a com-
mitment to social justice, valuing experiential knowledge, and being inter-
disciplinary (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). Other scholars have articulated
key ideas and additional components of CRT (Zamudio, Russell, Rios, &
Bridgeman, 2011), presented new directions for expanding CRT across var-
ious fields in education (Dixson, Rousseau Anderson, & Donnor, 2017;
Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), including school policy and practice
(Howard & Navarro, 2016). One goal of CRT is to contest all forms of racial,
gender, and class subordination by linking theory to practice, scholarship to
teaching, and the academy to the community (Lynn & Parker, 2006;
Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Villalpando, 2003). In addition, critical race schol-
ars hold to the notion that race, racism, and power are major factors in
understanding and transforming the effects of racial educational inequality
for students of color. For example, Solórzano and Yosso (2001) assert that
CRT ‘‘challenges the dominant discourse on race and racism as it relates to
education by examining how educational theory and practice are used to
subordinate certain racial and ethnic groups’’ (p. 2). CRT brings to the fore-
front educational inequity and the experiences of students of color within
educational systems. Attention to educational inequity can be revealed
and discussed across the education spectrum, including the experiences of
teachers of color in teacher education programs (Jackson & Kohli, 2016;
Kohli, 2009; Sleeter, 2017).
Counter-Storytelling, Theoretical Sensitivity, and Positionality

CRT methodology in education contests traditional research paradigms
and theories that are deficit-oriented and instead illuminates the experiences
of people of color. This is accomplished by using counter-storytelling as
a prominent tool of CRT methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). The voi-
ces of people are heard, and their racialized, gendered, and classed experi-
ences are seen as assets and sources of strength. CRT methodology in
teacher education, for example, can emphasize the telling of stories by pre-
service teachers of color and their experiences in teacher education (Mensah
& Jackson, 2018). Counter-stories can be used as theoretical, methodologi-
cal, and pedagogical tools to challenge racism, sexism, and classism in
teacher education and to work toward educational equity (Solórzano &
Yosso, 2002).
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Mensah
As a science teacher educator using critical race methodology in this
study, I also employ ‘‘theoretical sensitivity.’’ This refers to ‘‘the attribute of
having insight, the ability to give meaning to data, the capacity to under-
stand, and capability to separate the pertinent from that which isn’t’’
(Strauss & Corbin, 1990, pp. 41–42). Particularly, my positionality is relevant.
I am an educated African American woman, from a working-class back-
ground, who grew up in the rural south. I am a professor of science educa-
tion, teaching at a predominantly White elite graduate institution, with
teacher education as a primary area of research. A critical race methodology
would view my positionality as a counter-narrative to dominant views and
images of science and education (Mensah & Jackson, 2018); accordingly,
my experiences are viewed as assets and sources of strength as a researcher
and theorist conducting this study. I use my positionality and theoretical sen-
sitivity not only to better understand Michele’s experiences as an African
American female in her teacher education program but also to better posi-
tion myself to tell and offer insights into the narratives Michele shares as
a woman teacher candidate of color from a rural working-class background.
While working with Michele as her teacher and eventual mentor, I had famil-
iar moments within my personal story as a student, teacher, and teacher edu-
cator. The familiarity of similar narratives heightened the level of theoretical
and methodological sensitivity during the research process and the authen-
ticity to remain true to the narrative by respectfully reporting her story and
mine to some degree. Not an essentializing effect of having common narra-
tives, there is a shared history with racism and discrimination in the educa-
tional experiences of people of color that allows for familiar and different
meanings on the narratives shared (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).
Science Methods Course

The context for this study was a graduate-level preservice elementary
science methods course at a large comprehensive university in New York
City, referred to as The College (pseudonym). Science in Childhood
Education is a required course for initial elementary certification of teachers
across multiple programs in The College. In previous work, the methods
course has been described as a multicultural science education course
with a focus on issues of diversity and equity in the preparation of elemen-
tary preservice science teachers (Gunning & Mensah, 2010; Mensah, 2009b).
Currently, three sections of the science methods course are offered during
the academic year—one Fall, one Spring, and one Summer. The summer ses-
sion science methods course was where I first met Michele. The course
lasted 5 weeks (Summer 2011) and sessions met twice per week for 3 hours
and 30 minutes. The summer course was designed around an interdisciplin-
ary focus of multicultural science education and literacy, with in-class sci-
ence laboratory activities, individual and small group assignments, field
7
experiences, critical reflections, and discussions of course readings. The cul-
minating project was the development and teaching of a hands-on, inquiry-
focused, integrated science and literacy lesson for Science Day at an East
Harlem K–5 elementary school.
I have taught the elementary science methods course for more than 12
years. During this time, I have had very few teachers of color, which reflects
teacher education programs nationally and institutionally (Sleeter, 2001;
Zumwalt & Craig, 2005). However, I developed a Teachers of Color Study
with preservice teachers from the Fall 2010 course through Spring 2012. I
have presented and published research on this group and their experiences
in science education (Mensah, 2016; Mensah & Jackson, 2018). Michele was
the only teacher candidate from the Teachers of Color Study who completed
the time commitment for this current research project. The commitment
entailed following teacher candidates into their first 2 years as teachers, par-
ticipating in semester interviews, and observing classroom teaching of
science.
Longitudinal Case Study

I conducted a longitudinal case study design with Michele. As a qualita-
tive approach, case study research allowed me as the investigator to explore
a bounded system, or a case over time, through detailed, in-depth data col-
lection. A case study differs from other types of qualitative research because
it is defined by the unit of analysis, or ‘‘the case’’ rather than a topic of study.
A case could be a single person who is an example of some phenomenon of
study, such as understanding race and racism in teacher education through
Michele’s experiences (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The case study approach
involves collecting multiple sources of data and reporting case-based themes
(Creswell, 2013). Moreover, longitudinal refers to research that involves the
recurring collection of at least one data source three or more points in time
(Van Ness, Fried, & Gill, 2011). This longitudinal case study design was
appropriate as a holistic account of one person, with data collected and ana-
lyzed multiple times over 3 years. In the sections below, I describe the data
sources and the process of analysis.
Data Sources
Consistent with a CRT methodology and case study, I strategically used
multiple methods of collecting data over the course of the study (Summer
2011–Fall 2014). Some were unconventional and creative to draw on the
knowledge and experiences of Michele. At the end of the summer course,
I collected pre-post questionnaires, semester journal entries with reflections
from class activities, course readings, field experiences, lesson plans from
Science Day, and a final reflective paper from the course. The primary
data source was interviews and conversations. In addition, artifacts from
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Mensah
Michele’s teacher education experiences and early teaching career were
gathered. Table 1 summarizes the multiple data sources and timeline for
data collection used in constructing the case of Michele.
Interviews
I conducted several digitally recorded interviews with Michele during
the duration of the study. Using a life history approach, these were exten-
sive, first-person narratives. Watson and Watson-Franke (1985) define life
history as ‘‘any retrospective account by the individual of [her] life in whole
or in part, in written or oral form, that has been elicited or prompted by
another person’’ (p. 2). Life history is an analysis of the social, historical,
political, and economic contexts of a person’s life (Hatch & Wisniewski,
1995). Life history interview also works in concert with CRT methodology
of counter-storytelling to capture detailed first-person narratives, collected
orally and in written form, of Michele’s life toward understanding her expe-
riences of race, racism, and power in her educational and teaching journey.
The first interview consisted of gaining a better sense of who Michele
was and the learning she gained from her teacher education program and
being a student in the science methods course. This was a face-to-face inter-
view that took place in my office on campus (January 2012). The interview
protocol was developed based on responses Michele gave on the postcourse
questionnaire. This questionnaire (October 2011) solicited responses about
the elementary science methods course and participation in the Summer
Science Institute, which was a week-long professional development pro-
gram for in-service elementary teachers. I invited Michele and the other
Teachers of Color Study participants to attend. While participating in the first
interview, Michele mentioned an autobiographical essay that was written in
one of her teacher education courses (Fall 2010). Since she discussed race
and other personal issues that affected learning in her teacher education pro-
gram in that assignment, I asked to have a copy as an artifact for this study.
A second interview took place via teleconference prior to the start of the
academic school year (August 2012). This second interview involved
member-checking and collection of information about Michele from her stu-
dent teaching placement and science curriculum planning. The interview
protocol was based on an analysis of her journal from the science methods
course and initial interpretations from our first interview. Over the fall
semester, Michele and I remained in contact via telephone and e-mail during
her student teaching semester. I was available to assist Michele with devel-
oping science lessons with her first-graders.
The third interview (January 2013) took place face-to-face in my office
on campus. For this interview, I had received updates on Michele during
her first semester teaching in a multilingual, elementary charter school in
the Bronx. We discussed her teaching and experiences in the charter school
9
Table 1
Timeline and Overview of Data Sources
10
Date Data Sources Summary of Question Asked During the Interviews
Responses collected first day and final day Pre-Post Survey Demographic data, experiences teaching and teaching science, and
of the science methods course (Summer questions about images of science and identity as a teacher and
2011) science teacher.
Entries written throughout the 5-week Semester Journal and Observations in urban elementary science classrooms, working with
course collected on the last day of the Teacher Education diverse students, observing student-student interactions in the
science methods course (Summer 2011) Essay school, and discussion of race as young student.
Paper written and submitted on the last Final Course Paper Reflections on learning and teaching science during the course,
day of the science methods course sharing overall professional growth as elementary science teacher.
(Summer 2011)
Questionnaire sent via e-mail and returned Postcourse Initial interpretations, with questions specifically addressing prior
(Spring 2012) Questionnaire science learning experiences, multicultural science teaching,
positionality of the professor, participating in the Summer Science
Institute, and science teaching goals.
Completion of student teaching semester Interview 1 Identity, learning about experiences from teacher preparation
(January 2012) program, learning from the science methods course, and student
teaching semester.
Summer entering first year of teaching Interview 2 Initial interpretation from first interview, her student teaching
(August 2012) placement, and science curriculum planning.
Mid-academic year as first year teacher Interview 3 Updates on first semester of teaching in a Bronx elementary school
(January 2013) and planning visitation as a guest speaker and to observe Michele
teach a science lesson.
Conclusion of her first year of teaching Interview 4 Teaching experiences over the first year, challenges, successes, and
(June 2013) hopes, as well as planning for first graders to come to campus.
Conclusion of the study (Fall 2013) Interview 5 Participation in this study, her learning and growth as a teacher, future
goals in education, and final member-checking session for the
study.
Mensah
and my upcoming visit as a guest speaker and to observe Michele teach a sci-
ence lesson. While there, I took notes of Michele teaching an integrated sci-
ence and literacy lesson with her students. I shared lunch with her and
a small group of students. As a guest speaker, I talked about my experiences
as a scientist and responded to students’ questions about science. I also had
the opportunity to meet with the principal, and I was introduced to two of
Michele’s colleagues, who spoke highly of Michele as a first-year teacher, the
work she was doing with her first-graders, and the encouragement she was
obtaining from our relationship. I spent the entire day with Michele at her
school.
After her first year of teaching, I conducted the fourth interview (July
2013). This interview took place on campus in my office. We discussed
her teaching experiences over the first year and completed final preparation
for her first-graders to visit The College for Science Day. This was an exciting
moment for Michele with her students attending her college alma mater,
learning from her science teacher and mentor, and participating in Science
Day, an assignment in the science methods course that sparked Michele’s ini-
tial interest and passion for science teaching.
The final or fifth interview (December 2013) was conducted on campus
in my office. Michele was now in her second year as a teacher and had
moved to a new elementary school in West Harlem. During this interview,
Michele and I discussed the entire process of participating in this study,
her learning and growth as a teacher, her work in the new school, and future
goals in education. This interview also served as our last formal member-
checking session on the stories and interpretations of stories collected during
the 3-year study period. Michele received a draft paper several months prior
to our meeting for commentary. She talked about ‘‘reading her life on paper’’
and what this meant to her as a teacher.
The stories Michele shared from childhood to the conclusion of her
teacher education program and the first 2 years of teaching were personal,
emotional, and substantive. All the interviews had a relaxed, conversational
style, indicating both our ease and trust in sharing with each other. Each
interview generally lasted 70 to 90 minutes. They were audio-recorded
and sent out within 1 week of conducting the interview for verbatim tran-
scription. On return of the transcripts, in less than a week, they were
reviewed for accuracy prior to in-depth data analysis.
Artifacts and Summer Science Institute

Immediately following the course, Michele along with other Teachers of
Color Study participants were invited to attend and work alongside 15 in-
service elementary school teachers in the Summer Science Institute. The
Institute was conducted with in-service elementary school teachers from
a nearby urban school district that I had been working with for several years.
11
The Institute was held at The College and on the main campus in the chem-
istry department. It was the concluding event of the monthly professional
development sessions that took place during the academic year with the
in-service teachers. Michele completed a postcourse questionnaire sent via
e-mail several months after the conclusion of the Science Institute.
Data Analysis
Critical race methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), an intersectional-
ity analysis (Collins & Bilge, 2016), and methods of constructivist grounded
theory (Charmaz, 2014) were applied for data analysis. A CRT methodology
allowed me to focus analysis on race, racism, and power to guide central
understanding of Michele’s narratives. An intersectionality analysis permitted
me to focus on race, gender, and class from Michele’s narratives, as well as
her positioning as a female African American teacher candidate in science
education. For constructivist grounded theory, I used an inductive, iterative
approach to build meaning from the data. The analysis process was ongoing
over the 3 years as I read, reread, marked, memoed, coded, and reflected on
the initial interpretive themes generated from the data (Charmaz, 2014). For
example, the process of data collection and analysis was done in a three-part
cycle, consisting of one-phase data collection; the second phase for data
analysis; the third phase for creation of a new interview protocol and mem-
ber checking; then, followed by the next phase of data collection. I would
talk with Michele during the interviews by questioning and probing meaning
from her narratives. There was time between the cycles for Michele to reflect
and grow as a teacher of color, and for me to conduct data analysis and pre-
pare for the next cycle. At the end of a cycle, the process was repeated so
that more of Michele’s narratives could be collected, coded, and interpreted
for deeper engagement. The cycle was repeated four times over the course
of the study (Figure 1).
Engagement in this continuous cycle of data collection, analysis, and
sharing afforded us an opportunity for constant communication and cultiva-
tion of our relationship, and for me to provide support for Michele as an ele-
mentary science teacher of color. Michele considered me her ‘‘mentor,’’ and I
welcomed moments to discuss with Michele her learning and experiences.
As her mentor, I was also able to hear and witness her growth as a teacher
and young woman over the duration of this study (and beyond). There were
many times where Michele shared personal feelings, vented frustrations, and
questioned her career choice. She would drop in to talk before, during, or
after office hours. Here, Michele needed a mentor; therefore, I separated
my role as researcher-mentor in those moments. Though invested in the pro-
cess of conducting research, I was more committed to Michele as a person
and being a reassuring ally in her life and professional development as
a teacher.
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Mensah
Figure 1. Overview cycle of longitudinal data collection and data analysis

process.
Sharing and Analyzing Stories

In critical race methodology and life history narrative, getting to know
Michele personally and developing trust were more important than the pro-
ject itself. Being sensitive to her narratives, I too spoke personally, telling my
story. I shared advice, insights, and my practices as a science teacher of color
and a female faculty member of color navigating the institution where I
teach. Like humanizing research methods that ‘‘involve the building of rela-
tionships of care and dignity and dialogic consciousness raising for both
researchers and participants,’’ we were actively engaged in the research pro-
cess through ‘‘reciprocity and respect’’ (Paris & Winn, 2013, p. xvi). The prac-
tices of analysis were dependent on our collectively building a strong
relationship and learning from each other during this research study.
To maintain a certain level of theoretical and methodological sensitivity
to the project as the researcher who was reading, rereading, coding, and
analyzing the narratives, I went through the data in a systematic manner.
For example, I used Microsoft One Note and Microsoft Word features to
assist in organizing my notes and memos (as an example, see
Supplementary Appendix 1 in the online version of the journal). I used these
notes and memos to build on the data at each phase of collection and anal-
ysis. From initial coding (Charmaz, 2014), I noted reoccurring key phrases
13
and words. For example, notions of ‘‘fighting’’ and ‘‘struggling’’ and ‘‘voice’’
and ‘‘passion’’ were prominent descriptors from the data. Michele also dis-
cussed issues of race throughout her narratives, sometimes very explicitly
(such as in her teacher education essay) and in other narratives implicitly
(such as in her first student teaching placement). I followed the narratives
as they shifted in direction and were often discussed in part and then reap-
peared in later interviews. Because of the cycle of data collection and anal-
ysis, I could bring initial interpretations and questions back to Michele in the
next interview to allow the stories to come together.
For instance, prior to the next interview within the cycle, Michele was
given some of my initial interpretations, reflective memos, and questions
for further discussion (for sample excerpt, see Supplementary Appendix 2
in the online version of the journal), and she responded to these memos
and questions in oral form in subsequent interviews as a form of member
checking (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). This process aided in a continuous dia-
logue for clarifying stories and interpretations over the duration of the study.
This process also accounted for the length of the interviews as I reintroduced
stories for clarity and asked Michele for more input. Furthermore, we had
e-mail exchanges, text messages, and phone conversations as well as
impromptu campus visits which were on-going during the research period.
Much of this exchange was to support Michele as a teacher and person.
The meanings Michele ascribed to her stories during our conversations
were formally and informally shared. This approach to culturally sensitive
research methods (Tillman, 2002) added to the richness and participatory
nature of the research project. Having an active participant in the study
also ensured credibility and usefulness of the findings as a form of member
checking and confirmation of the themes generated from the analysis for the
duration of the study (Charmaz, 2014; Guba & Lincoln, 1989). Therefore,
while challenging traditional research paradigms and approaches
(Solórzano &Yosso, 2002), the research design and analyses were personal,
holistic, embedded, and thematic (Creswell, 2013).
In sum, from in-depth and careful attention to critical race methodology,
intersectionality analysis, grounded theory analysis, and theoretical sensitiv-
ity, four racial narrative themes were generated from the data analysis pro-
cess and are shared thematically and chronologically. The narrative
themes denote how race and racism were prevalent in many aspects of
Michele’s life, her teacher education program, and early teaching career.
These four racial narrative themes are (a) situating early childhood and
school experiences in a racial context, (b) loss of voice in teacher education
and finding voice in science education, (c) defending an approach to science
teaching as an educated Black woman scientist, and (d) planning and teach-
ing science as self.
14
Mensah
Findings
As a continuing theme in CRT, ‘‘the narrative and counter-narrative are
captured by the researcher, experienced by the research participants, and
told in a way that builds and extends research, theory, and practice’’
(Milner, 2007, p. 391). In the following sections, I present the four racial nar-
ratives as findings from the study. I narrate and theorize Michele’s experien-
ces, situate them in context, and connect them over the three years of the
study. This approach permits readers to gain some awareness in understand-
ing how race and racism can be theorized in teacher education, while bring-
ing into discussion salient CRT themes across Michele’s narratives.
Racial Narrative 1: Situating Early Childhood and

School Experiences in a Racial Context
Conceptualizing race as a social construct can have early implications for
young children who are treated differently because of their race. With race
and racism as defining factors in society (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), even the
youngest of children are socialized and influenced by its power (Winkler, 2009).
Dark Like Me
Michele was raised by her grandmother and lived with her uncle, aunt,
and cousins ‘‘in the south.’’ She learned early in her childhood that race
meant a difference in ‘‘skin tone’’ and that beauty was associated with dark-
ness or lightness. ‘‘For example, the lighter you are, the more attractive you
are; the darker your skin complexion is the less attractive you are.’’ For
example, Michele remembered playing with a female cousin and selecting
dolls. Michele pointed to the doll she wanted, but her cousin objected and
said, ‘‘You cannot play with this doll. You will play with the doll that looks
like you.’’ Michele said she had to pick a doll that was ‘‘dark like me.’’
Michele recalled how that moment changed her perception of self and the
world in which she lived: ‘‘This incident was something I struggled with
my entire life because it questioned my racial development and my under-
standing of racial differences but through skin tone.’’ Michele is a darker
complexion African American woman in her late 20s.
The Only One

A recurrent idea in Michele’s understanding of self as it related to race
was in elementary and middle school. She had transferred to a suburban ele-
mentary school where she was ‘‘the only one.’’ For the first time in her edu-
cation, she was the only Black student in her classes. She began to feel she
‘‘did not belong’’ and ‘‘to see race as Black versus White.’’ Harper et al.
(2011) would describe Michele’s experience of ‘‘onlyness’’ as ‘‘the psychoe-
motional burden of having to strategically navigate a racially politicized
15
space occupied by few peers, role models, and guardians from one’s same
racial or ethnic group’’ (p. 190). Michele did not fit into the suburban school
environment because she did not look like the other children. Moving from
a predominantly Black school to a primarily White suburban elementary
school setting, Michele had a difficult time fitting in and learning from the
teaching style of her White teachers, which was ‘‘very didactic and not
engaging.’’ She was labeled as having a ‘‘learning disability,’’ and her teach-
ers wanted to hold her back a grade. At the intersectionality of blackness and
smartness, Michele felt marginalized:
One teacher, in particular, stated that because I was Black I could not
learn efficiently compared to my White counterparts. In other words,
my teacher was telling me that I did not fit in her classroom and I
must be removed. Instead of removing me, my teacher had margin-
alized my abilities based on my race and attempted to isolate me
from the classroom instead of helping me adapt to the school’s learn-
ing style and embracing me as a person. . . . There was an X being
brown-skinned and an X not being smart enough compared to the
White students.
Now, in middle school, feelings of isolation continued. Michele recalled

her school experiences were less about who she was as a student but more
about her racial identity:
I’ll never forget this day with the progress meeting that I had with the
middle school teacher who basically flat right out said she felt like I
needed to do remedial classes because I did not learn to apply myself
like my peers because of my skin. That has stayed with me from the
time she had said it until now. She was my English teacher.
The issues of power within Michele’s understandings and experiences of

race and racism were prevalent in her early experiences as a child during play-
time at home and early school experiences as the only Black girl in her White
suburban elementary and middle school classrooms. Both left an impact on
her perceptions of self as a young dark-skinned African American girl.
These early childhood and school experiences represented a much larger
view of race and racism and connections to the educational inequity that
Michele struggled to understand then and continually. She stated, ‘‘The issue
of power lied within my classroom, but my classroom was just a sum of the
bigger picture . . . my classroom was [an example of] how race can marginalize
your abilities.’’ Situating Michele’s early childhood and school experiences in
a racial context set the basis for her continuing ‘‘fit in and fight’’ mentality she
developed in academic settings. Michele talked about not having a ‘‘voice’’ as
an African American girl that also hindered her development as a learner and
woman throughout her education, including high school and undergraduate
college experiences. The following three racial narrative themes chronicle
16
Mensah
the shifting and emotional journey of how Michele navigated a contested,
racialized teacher education program and secured her first full-time teaching
appointment as an elementary teacher who wanted to teach science.
Racial Narrative 2: Loss of Voice in Teacher Education

and Finding Voice in Science Education
CRT gives legitimacy to the voice of the marginalized (Solórzano &
Yosso, 2002). Voice in CRT denotes not just a method of storytelling but
a stance for marginalized people to be heard. This second racial narrative
theme is divided into two segments that reflect Michele’s voice in her teacher
education program and her science methods course.
Teacher Education: Loss of Voice

Michele mentioned several times throughout the study how she was
‘‘struggling’’ to find her voice as a child in school. Even in her teacher educa-
tion program, she continued to struggle with issues of race, racism, and power
and finding her voice as a Black teacher. In fact, research has shown that rac-
ism is a factor that can affect the retention of teachers of color (Dingus, 2008),
and there were times Michele questioned her place in teacher education.
So Few but We Are Not All the Same

Michele was a sociology undergraduate major in college and switched to
education after volunteering in an elementary school prior to graduation.
That experience inspired her initial desire to go into teaching as a graduate
student; however, she remembered the first day in her teacher education
program:
I’ve always been the only Black person in everything. And, again, I
thought maybe here at [The College] I would not be the only one. I
am going into teaching, right, and in my program, I’m like one of
four [Black female teacher candidates]. And I was just like, ‘‘Jesus.’’
Like in a sense, it makes me feel proud to be here at [The College]
. . . [but] there were still so few Black students in my program.
Michele ‘‘struggled’’ a great deal at the beginning of her teacher educa-

tion program, admitting she was trying to be someone she was not. In clas-
ses, she attempted to articulate things she really did not understand, and she
felt her teacher education curriculum, ‘‘the course readings and writing
assignments didn’t resonate with [her].’’ At times ‘‘it was just kind of like
the same things that [she] already heard’’ as she took one teacher education
course after another where the conversations were similar across multiple
courses. Being critical and reflective of her teacher education program,
Michele questioned if her White, mostly female, peers were ‘‘just saying
things’’ they would not necessarily say, or if the examples and experiences
17
were their own experiences, or if they were simply creating experiences ‘‘to
make the professor or instructor feel good about the readings and their
teaching.’’ Michele did not think her peers were being completely honest
in the classroom discussions, and she felt her peers were giving the profes-
sors what they thought the professors wanted to hear regarding teaching in
multicultural classrooms. For example, an initial assignment in her teacher
education program was to write an autobiographical essay. In her essay,
Michele talked about the ‘‘struggles’’ she encountered as an African
American student, educated in both urban and suburban schools, and ‘‘not
having a voice.’’ She got points taken off the assignment, and Michele asked,
‘‘How can you grade someone’s personal experiences?’’ The professor
wanted Michele to talk about ‘‘the culture of power’’ because one of the
reading assignments was Lisa Delpit’s (2006), ‘‘Other People’s Children.’’
Michele questioned:
Because I’m Black, I need to write about my [Michele’s emphasis] role
in the culture of power? Again, we, as [Black] people, don’t always
have the same experiences. Like even though I’m African
American, somebody next door, who might also be African
American—it could be totally different from them. And, again, I think
professors have these stereotypes and these notions that all Black
people are the same.
In her teacher education courses, Michele felt there were discussions

about race and education, yet no discussions about ‘‘What does that look
like to you? What does that look like to your students?’’ Michele felt the con-
versations were ‘‘like this textbook model, but without a textbook.’’
Discussions of race, education, and identity did not seem real to Michele,
and she felt her comments were ‘‘not anything personal’’ and ‘‘superficial.’’
Michele wanted to talk about her experiences as a Black woman, contribute
personal understandings to conversations that revealed who she was, where
she came from, and what she wanted to do as a teacher. She regarded the
assignments in her teacher education program as meaningless and not con-
nected to her personal experiences. Sleeter (2017) speaks to this point in that
curricular content in teacher education programs tend to reflect ‘‘White sen-
sibilities’’ (p. 158), thus negating the needs of teacher candidates of color.
Michele was nearing the end of her teacher education program. Her experi-
ences were not validated or accepted, and the curriculum did not meet her
needs as a female teacher a color.
Fighting to Have a Place

Michele said she ‘‘suffered a lot during the fall [2010] semester’’ of her
teacher education program. She finished the fall semester questioning her
ability and desire to enter teaching. The reason for feeling this way was
18
Mensah
because she was placed with a White cooperating teacher whom Michele felt
had one way of teaching; that is, ‘‘teacher-centered and didactic.’’ The
teacher encouraged Michele ‘‘to script’’ her lessons or basically ‘‘memorize
them.’’ The teacher would mark up Michele’s lesson plans: ‘‘You shouldn’t
say it like this; you should say it like this. You shouldn’t say it like that;
you should say it like that.’’ Michele did not feel comfortable ‘‘teaching in
one way.’’ Though she had an African American female supervisor,
Michele felt the supervisor did not understand her desire to develop into
the kind of teacher she wanted to become. The supervisor’s reassuring
words, ‘‘Michele, you’re gonna have different experiences; all your experien-
ces are not gonna be like this,’’ did not offer much in consoling Michele, as
she retorted, ‘‘But does she really know me and understand me?’’ [Michele’s
emphasis]. Michele was rebelling because she wanted to be a culturally rel-
evant teacher (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Villegas et al., 2012). She did not want
to follow a script or teach in ways that were not engaging for students. Thus,
her cooperating teacher and supervisor did not understand Michele’s iden-
tity as a Black teacher.
Michele also shared it was ‘‘very interesting’’ that the four African
American women teacher candidates in her program were all placed at
the same school for their student teaching internships. It was ‘‘just the four
of us again.’’ Even with this critical mass of Black teacher candidates,
Michele described the overwhelming presence of Whiteness (Sleeter,
2001) in her teacher education program as ‘‘the sea of White.’’ This intimi-
dated her during her student teaching placement and courses:
It makes me anxious because I feel like I’ve always got to fight, fight-
ing to have a place, fighting to have a stance. It reminds me of The
Color Purple when Sofia was like, ‘‘I had to fight all my life.’’ And
even though I haven’t had to fight like that—but, again, just making
sure I have a place, that I have a stance, I felt like fighting in my
teacher ed program.
Thus, Michele was overwhelmed with being one of four female teachers of
color in her cohort. She was exasperated with having to ‘‘fight’’ for the right
to be who she was in her teacher education courses and the kind of teacher
she wanted to become in her student teaching placement. After completing
her second student teaching internship (Spring 2011), Michele felt ‘‘brain-
washed.’’ She was losing her identity as a Black teacher and desire for enter-
ing the profession.
Science Teacher Education: Finding Voice

In the final year of her teacher education program, Michele was discour-
aged and drained, and emotionally stressed. (Un)fortunately, this was her
state of mind on entering the Summer 2011 session of the elementary science
methods course. This was my first introduction to Michele.
19
Exceeding Expectations
Michele enrolled in a short intensive summer session elementary science
methods course. A comparatively large section from previous summer clas-
ses, there were 30 teacher candidates, with nine of them being teachers of
color. Included in this number were the four African American young
women in Michele’s cohort. This was quite unusual for me to have so
many preservice teachers of color in one class, particularly a summer ses-
sion. They admitted waiting to the end of their program to enroll in the
course due to their fear of science and their advisors recommending them
to take it at the end of their program or in the summer. Still, I was thrilled.
Michele shared with me her thoughts on day one of the methods course:
I was like, ‘‘Okay, all right, I’ve got to take science methods, right? It’s
one of my last credits for me to get my degree.’’ And I was thinking
like—‘‘All right, I’ll take it. I’ll be done with it, and I’ll move on.’’ And
then I remember sitting in the classroom, in the beginning, being like,
‘‘What the heck?’’ Yeah, yeah, yeah, heard it all before, multicultural
education, you know, with all these [White preservice] teachers who
are sitting here. [White] preservice teachers who don’t look like me,
who will say these same textbook things, and then just listening to
the different responses. I was just kind of like, ‘‘This is just gonna
be like every other class I’ve had in my teacher education program.’’
Michele revealed a tone of low expectations for me and the course, and
she thought science methods would not offer her anything new or different
from what she had received thus far in her teacher education program. In
fact, Michele was very skeptical of the course content on day one, which I
typically teach as an overview for the semester. Conversations and activities
serve as preassessments for me to gauge what and how the preservice teach-
ers think about science, teaching in multicultural ways, and serving students
of diverse cultural backgrounds. There was no assumption that preservice
teachers of color would be familiar with culturally relevant teaching or
multicultural education (Montecinos, 2004). Nonetheless, there was one
attention-grabbing dynamic—an African American female science professor
from the south. My positionality as the science teacher educator differed
from previous professors in Michele’s teacher education program (Mensah
& Jackson, 2018). My positionality caused Michele to rethink her initial
views. In our second interview, she revealed,
When I had you as my Black professor—this is gonna sound so

ignorant—I didn’t even know one existed. I called my father after
the first class and I was like, ‘‘Dad, guess what? I’m taking a class
with an African American professor! She’s a woman. I didn’t even
know [The College] had any!’ Maybe I should have taken a course
with an African American professor early on. That might have shaped
me differently, you know? But in undergrad, I didn’t have any either.
20
Mensah
In addition to revealing that she had not had an African American female
college professor in her educational career, Michele wrote on the initial
questionnaire not liking science because of her ‘‘lack of experience’’ teach-
ing science, but she added, ‘‘I like how the face of a science teacher is chang-
ing. Science is a field that I thought lacked diversity.’’ These early comments
speak to the necessity of having faculty of color in teacher education pro-
grams and in science education as role models (Atwater, Russell, & Butler,
2014; Mensah & Jackson, 2018). On the initial questionnaire, there was
one final, open-ended question where students could write whatever they
wanted to share with me. Michele wrote, ‘‘I am looking forward to working
with you this summer and having a better perception of the role science
plays in education.’’ She wrote this comment after the first class.
It’s All About Me

Science methods became the counter-narrative to previous teacher edu-
cation experiences and was transformative for Michele in many ways.
Michele, for example, talked about her new relationship with science, which
was not an easy undertaking. She had to rethink, reconceptualize, and
reimagine herself in science and as a female African American science
teacher. She had few opportunities to build on her personal experiences
and to examine issues of identity prior to the science methods course.
Amazingly, Michele began talking about ‘‘finding her voice’’ and having sci-
ence content, curriculum, and class discussions that made sense to her:
And so you have to have it make sense to you. Not the way that your
professor wants it to make sense. And so with your class, I was just
kind of like – it’s not about any of my professors. It’s about how I
see teaching. What is it that I want to do? How can I articulate it,
so it makes sense to me? How do I understand it? What am I doing
so that I can get there?
The differences Michele indicated between her previous teacher educa-

tion courses and the one science methods course revealed her voice and the
centrality of naming her own experience, which is a prominent tenet of CRT
(Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). Michele pushed her thinking by putting into con-
text her identity as a teacher of color and her purpose for teaching. We dis-
cussed throughout the science methods course the intersection of race,
ethnicity, gender, class, and geography in developing as multicultural sci-
ence teachers, not superficially but very prominently in classroom discourse
and assignments. We also talked about the Black female science teacher as
a role model for students of color and all students in the classroom. These
approaches were welcoming to Michele in that she could bring her multiple
identities into developing as a teacher. In her view, the science methods
course ‘‘wasn’t about those same things, the textbook, cookie-cutter model.’’
21
Michele felt the course gave her the chance to focus on herself: ‘‘It was more
about you as the individual. And that’s what made me change my outlook on
teaching.’’ The science methods course ‘‘was not about being politically cor-
rect’’ because she had spent much of her teacher education holding back
and not having a strong voice to speak about her experiences or to speak
against things she did not believe as a teacher desiring to teach in culturally
and linguistically diverse classrooms.
Self and Voice in Science Methods

The science methods course offered what Michele needed as a Black
teacher. The course became this ‘‘whole other side of things’’ where
Michele started to see herself in science and to see herself as a science teacher:
It wasn’t just about color. It was about your teaching experiences. It
was about your personal experiences—college, undergrad. It was just
everything. It was more than color, so I think that’s where I was able
to see myself. I was awakened to something totally different. Who
would have thought I’d ever want to be into science? Like never in
a million years, never. Never would have seen it.
Michele was ‘‘awakened’’ to a new relationship with science and her devel-
opment as a teacher. She admitted after completing the course, ‘‘You know
what? This is not a bad class. This is the best class I have taken in the elemen-
tary preservice program because I guess I’ve found myself.’’
As the instructor promoting identity and critical reflection, I required
Michele and her peers to critique, connect, and extend personal meaning
from the course readings to their classroom experiences and the students
they teach. We talked about specific aspects of the course that allowed
Michele to make personal connections in very meaningful ways and why
she felt science methods was ‘‘the best’’ course in her teacher education pro-
gram. She brought up the course readings, writing reflections, and whole
class discussions as extremely beneficial in her development as a teacher:
I would say the readings, and the way in which we reflected. See,
when we reflected in your class, you really wanted to know what it
was that we were thinking, our experiences and again, relating it
back to what we’re gonna do as teachers and then how this then
relates back to the readings. How do you make sense of these read-
ings, right? I felt like in my other classes, they didn’t really want to
know what you felt or what you were going through.
The science methods course for Michele was about ‘‘your personal view-
point,’’ and she could write freely about her experiences. For example, the
journal was a personal dialogue between Michele and me: ‘‘And if you can’t
reflect on it in your journal, where can you reflect it?’’ She felt assured I could
relate to her experiences and take her ideas seriously. Furthermore, Michele
22
Mensah
noted how she felt ‘‘challenged and pushed’’ as a teacher in the science
methods course:
Being in the [science methods] class was different on so many levels,

but you challenge and push. You demanded us to ‘‘back-it-up’’ and
you challenged us on many realms. And you emphasized for us as
teachers to think about the students we are teaching. You always
challenged, you always pushed . . . so I challenged myself. I wanted
to learn more. I wanted to have like this voice in science.
For Michele, finding voice came from challenging and pushing her to
develop as a critically reflective multicultural science teacher. It came from
having high expectations as an instructor, promoting critical consciousness,
and questioning the status quo, which are the key tenets of culturally rele-
vant teaching (Ladson-Billings, 1995). This was the kind of teacher
Michele wanted to be.
Racial Narrative 3: Defending an Approach to Science

Teaching as an Educated Black Woman Scientist
According to Lawrence (1995), ‘‘we must learn to trust our own senses,
feelings and experiences, to give them authority, even (or especially) in the
face of dominant accounts of social reality that claim universality’’ (p. 338).
In this third racial narrative, Michele had to overcome some final hurdles as
she completed her teacher education program and to develop her practice as
a teacher of color who wanted to teach science. This theme shows how
much Michele had grown in her development as a science teacher—one
who could speak up for herself and her students as a science teacher.
Pushing to Teach Science

After completing the methods course and participating in the Summer
Science Institute, Michele’s ‘‘passion for science’’ emerged. She stated, ‘‘I
feel more confident in teaching science and I feel like I have found my
place.’’ For her third student teaching placement as part of her program,
Michele talked with her cooperating teacher about teaching science. The
teacher’s response was because science was taught by the science specialist
and since she did not teach science herself, it was not necessary or expected
for Michele to teach science. Michele knew ‘‘like many of the articles we read
in the methods class, teachers do not set science as a high priority, making
excuses for not having time.’’ It is a marginalized subject in the elementary
school curriculum (Berg & Mensah, 2014; Mensah, 2010). However,
Michele stated, ‘‘I will make the time and have been pushing to teach science
in my student teaching placement.’’ She reached out to the science special-
ist/coach in the school to discuss collaborating with her in teaching a science
lesson. Michele told the science specialist, ‘‘My push for teaching science is
23
a college requirement’’ though this was not an assignment given to her by
her university supervisor.
Michele wanted to take charge of this final placement and teach science.
She had two previous student teaching experiences where she did not teach
science, and this time would be different. She also knew what it felt like to
set goals for science planning and teaching, such as Science Day and partici-
pating in the Science Institute; thus, she knew what it felt like for ‘‘students to
feel empowered and have a voice’’ in learning science. Her goal was
‘‘empowerment’’ and ‘‘every student has voice and a responsibility to their
learning.’’ She had ‘‘worked really hard over the summer to get here.’’ She
was going to teach science.
Defense of Sound Science Teaching

Michele wanted to develop an integrated science and social studies les-
son for her class. She created a mini-unit on Pangaea. Michele and I were in
e-mail communication in developing the mini-unit, with Michele first send-
ing me ideas and my sending websites to build her content knowledge on
the topic. We also talked through some activities via conference calls, and
I suggested ways to adapt the lessons to younger learners. She wanted to
do ‘‘an egg investigation where students look at a hard-boiled egg . . .
how the shell relates to the tectonic plates when the earth’s crust heats
up.’’ She knew this concept would be challenging for some students, since
this was a cooperative team teaching classroom, so she had a three-dimen-
sional model of the earth projected on the Smartboard to support visual
learners. Regardless of Michele’s preparation and confidence, her supervisor
did not want her to teach the lesson. Recalling the conversation with her
cooperating teacher and supervisor, Michele held the stereotypical image
of the ‘‘angry Black woman’’ in mind. She did not want this negative image
to detract from making a strong case for her approach to science teaching.
She was not going to raise her voice by arguing with them. Instead, she con-
structed an ‘‘informed e-mail’’ and sent it to the supervisor about the inte-
grated science and social studies lesson as ‘‘sound science’’ that connected
to her students’ learning and interests and her ‘‘passion’’ in teaching science:
And I said to [the supervisor], ‘‘This is something that I can do.’’ And
the difference between myself and my peers [other teachers of color
in her cohort] is instead of me reacting, I was like, ‘‘I need to articulate
this in a way, so that I don’t come off as an ‘angry Black woman.’’’
Even though I’m like, ‘‘What did you just say to me, lady?’’ But I
said to her, ‘‘This is something that I’m passionate about teaching.
This is something that my students have been doing in class for the
past week. It’s basically building on their previous knowledge that
we’ve been doing in the class, learning about Dr. Alfred Wegener
and tectonic plates, and how the Western Hemisphere has shaped
us. I’m gonna do this lesson. And even though I’m not manipulating
24
Mensah
variables—I’m thinking that’s why you’re saying it’s not sound
science—it’s still an experiment. We’re still hypothesizing. We’re still
describing. We are still observing.’’ And I expressed that to her in an
e-mail.
Michele argued for the instructional choices she made in developing the
mini-unit, including the content and the science practices students would
develop from the lesson. Afterward, Michele assessed her science teaching
of the mini-unit:
I blew myself out of the—I was like, ‘What?’’ I was like, ‘‘I am the
bomb! All right, I’m staying in teaching.’’ And I was like, ‘‘I’m not
about to let them have me quit. No. Uh-uh. I wasn’t.’’ And it would
be my strength and determination that kept me going.
The success of the lesson was based on science teaching that ‘‘made sense to
me and that made sense to my students.’’ The lesson covered both science and
social studies content standards, and the students were engaged in experi-
mentation, communication of ideas, sharing of results from their investiga-
tions, and modeling a complex process made accessible by using familiar
and inexpensive objects (hard-boiled eggs and a picture of the earth). The stu-
dents had ‘‘lots of fun.’’ Michele stated, ‘‘I found my voice in teaching. This
[teaching the mini-unit] is what caused me to stay [in teaching].’’
Defense in the Practicum Course

From teaching the mini-unit, Michele developed a strong sense of self-
efficacy as a science teacher (Gunning & Mensah, 2010). An important lesson
she learned ‘‘since taking science methods was speaking up, when I don’t
necessarily agree with others.’’ In the student teaching practicum course,
the student teaching coordinator asked Michele if she had anything to say
regarding her mini-unit. Michele shared with her fellow peers what the
White cooperating teacher and White supervisor had said regarding her inte-
grated science and social studies lesson. Michele stated she felt ‘‘kind of
offended’’ by the comment that her mini-unit ‘‘wasn’t sound science.’’
Michele recalled that ‘‘everybody was shocked’’ by her speaking up for her-
self against the cooperating teacher and supervisor. Likewise, the student
teaching coordinator reprimanded Michele in front of the class, ‘‘Would
you really say offended?’’ With confidence, Michele countered,
Hmm, maybe offended is not the right word. I was taken aback . . .
I’m having my students do science. Maybe not in the way you
[Michele’s emphasis] were taught science, but scientific skills. I got
that from Dr. Mensah. And so they [White peers and coordinator]
were quiet—because I knew what I was talking about. You can’t
tell me that my mini-unit was not science and that it was not effective
because my students were on the edge of their seats for every social
25
studies/science lesson I taught. They wanted to know what we were
doing, what was next. Kids were asking me, ‘‘Can I be your lab part-
ner, Miss Michele?’’
Michele was assured in her understanding of what science was, how to

teach science, and what skills, practices, and knowledge she wanted to
develop within her students. She defended her lesson approach because
she was confident in herself and her students’ abilities to engage and learn
from her integrated science and social studies unit. In all, Michele was able
to advocate for what she knew as an educated Black woman scientist and
teacher. She was poised and motivated about teaching science going into
the fall semester of her first teaching position.
Racial Theme 4: Planning and Teaching Science as Self

In this fourth racial theme, two narratives from Michele’s early career as
a teacher are shared. She still maintained a desire to teach science and to use
her voice as an educated, confident African American science teacher.
Notwithstanding, issues of race, racism, and power were still part of her
narratives.
I Too Sing Science

After having very positive experiences in the science methods course,
attending the Summer Science Institute, and completing her third student
teaching internship, Michele explained her views of science and the tremen-
dous influence positionality of the professor had on her growth and develop-
ment as a science teacher of color (Mensah & Jackson, 2018). She wrote on the
postcourse questionnaire just before starting her first year as a teacher:
By having Dr. Mensah as my professor, I was able to find my voice
and place in science education because of her personal pedagogy
in the field. If a White professor [taught the course], I would not
have been able to find my voice. Science methods reminded me of
Langston Hughes poem, I too sing America. Anyone can be a scientist
regardless of your ethnicity and gender.
During Michele’s first year as a teacher, we shared numerous e-mail

exchanges, updates on our families, our lives, work, and for sure our science
teaching. Michele also sent me pictures of her daughter, now almost 2 years,
and her first-grade class. Just prior to the beginning of my spring semester
(January 2013), I visited Michele and her class for one full day. On entering
the classroom, the first-graders already knew who I was, and they cheered:
‘‘She’s here! That’s the scientist!’’ Michele welcomed me with a huge hug,
tears, and an introduction to the class, ‘‘This is Professor Mensah, my mentor,
my teacher’’ [her emphasis]. Students ran to greet me with big hugs. Since the
26
Mensah
lesson was about scientists, my picture, a picture of George Washington
Carver, and a clip art image of two young girls doing science were displayed
on a bulletin board in the front of the class.
I participated in a literacy lesson, followed by a question-answer session
where students asked me questions about my personal life, educational
background, science teaching, and specific science concepts; astronomy
was a common topic after I told the students my first remembrances of sci-
ence as a young girl their age was ‘‘looking up at the dark black sky to
observe the stars and moon. I grew up in the country, in rural North
Carolina,’’ I told the class, and ‘‘I enjoyed sitting on my front porch to watch
the stars. This was (is) one of my favorite things to do.’’ After the science les-
son, I had lunch with Michele and three of her students, where we talked
about teaching and learning. They wanted to know if their teacher, Miss
Michele, was a good student, which I assured them she was. Michele noted
that having lunch with the students was a regular routine to get to know
them and for them to get to know her. This was a multicultural strategy
she learned from the science methods course as a means to build rapport
with students and to learn about their interests and to incorporate this infor-
mation into her science instruction. I could see the students really adored
Miss Michele. We laughed and enjoyed our time together.
Teaching Students Who I Am

From the methods course, Michele took seriously the idea of incorporat-
ing self into the classroom, developing rapport and respect with students,
and transforming the curriculum (Mensah, Brown, Titu, Rozowa, Sivaraj, &
Heydari, 2018). For example, one practice Michele did to connect with her
students occurred during the first 6 weeks of school. To start their writing
unit, she had students to talk about literacy artifacts, or things that reminded
them of something special, whether it was with their family or a school pro-
ject. She used these artifacts to start their writing unit. Each day students
wrote about something special, and Michele would always start the lesson
with things that were special to her too. As an example, she showed the class
her daughter’s princess crown from her first birthday party. She admitted
sharing ‘‘a lot of stories’’ about her daughter. She also told a personal story
about her first pair of eyeglasses she got in the first grade. She joked with the
class about being blind, stating, ‘‘I’ve always worn glasses.’’
In another example, Michele shared her passion for big marching bands,
such as the performance style of bands at Historically Black Colleges and
Universities. ‘‘They knew nothing about marching bands, but I was like,
‘Oh, we’re gonna learn about marching bands.’’’ She showed them the
homecoming footage of Delaware State University’s marching band. With
some practice, the first-graders put on a marching band performance for
the entire school, and ‘‘everybody’s socks were blown off! We got a lot of
27
compliments.’’ Introducing her class to marching bands was Michele’s way
of ‘‘bringing [her] culture, [her] background into the classroom’’ and for stu-
dents to display their talents in other ways. Not just marching bands but
Michele also shared with the class her love of music, which she got from
her grandmother, by playing artists such as Aretha Franklin. The class
learned We Are Family, a song by Sister Sledge, to develop classroom com-
munity. During writing time, she would play that song, or other artists like
Coldplay, Esperanza Spaulding, and John Coltrane. When students were
supposed to be writing, ‘‘they’re humming the songs.’’ These multicultural
approaches to transform the curriculum allowed Michele to put herself
into the curriculum and to be part of the classroom community while setting
a learning environment to promote student engagement (Mensah et al.,
2018).
My Hopes and Dreams

During her first year, Michele had taken on a leadership role in her ele-
mentary school. Colleagues regarded her highly and welcomed her com-
ments and input in the decision-making processes in the school. From
Michele’s perspective, it had taken her a long time to get to the point of
advocating for herself, but now she could do the same for her students. In
many ways, Michele was a leader:
Me: So you’ve developed and matured into this leadership role in your school?
Michele: Yes.
Me: Without really trying to be.
Michele: Without even trying to be. I’m a first-year teacher and I must say I’m
doing pretty good mentally, and I am able to speak up for myself, for my stu-
dents, and question and challenge, right. The interesting thing is . . . how long it
took me to do that. I’m now what, 29? I was in your class 2 years ago, so all
those years, and it’s not like you, said, ‘‘Oh, Michele, do this.’’ It was just the
things that we talked about. I really miss science methods.
Me: So, you need a booster-methods, another science methods course?
Michele: I do! I do! I need a booster science methods course really. It really—it
definitely changed me. We’re all about science, so I’m excited.
Michele and I updated our plans for her first-graders to visit The College
in April to take science classes for Science Day. This was a spin-off to the
Science Day Michele did during her summer science methods course.
Now, Michele would bring her students to The College. She expressed
how empowering this experience would be for her first-graders, who
were mostly students of color, Latinx and African American, whose families
were in extreme poverty:
A lot of my students have family members who have never been to
college, so college is so beyond their hands, and a lot of them live
28
Mensah
in the South Bronx, which is poor. I think eight or nine percent of the
kids [in the school district] graduate from high school.
To bring the students to The College would be a great field trip not just for
science learning but to introduce them to a college campus, starting the col-
lege-going mind-set early (Knight-Manuel et al., 2016). Michele expressed,
‘‘I’m excited and hoping to bring the kids—now, look at me, my hopes
and dreams, to bring them to [The College] for a [science] lab as a field
trip.’’ Michele mentioned to one White colleague about her class and the
other first-grade class (taught by another Teachers of Color Study partici-
pant) going to The College to take science classes:
‘‘You have such a good asset. The College is so much money, but
she’s like, but look at what comes out of it.’’ . . . Had I went some-
where else, I might not have fully gained all these different experien-
ces and continued relationships with you and [The College]. It almost
brought tears to my eyes. I was like, ‘‘Wow. This is me.’’ I’ve evolved
so much from wanting to quit teaching.
The first-graders took two science classes, ate in the college cafeteria, and
toured the main campus. At the end of the day, they received a ‘‘college tran-
script’’ of their courses with As and a booklet of science activities to share
with their siblings and parents. The parental chaperones enjoyed the field
trip and appreciated the opportunity to have the students on campus.
(Dis)respecting Me as a Teacher of Color

The beginning of the school year was good, but this was not the case at
the end of the academic year. In the last month of the school year, Michele
was feeling some pressure from the principal, and she presumed it to be
racial. For example, the school, students, and staff were predominantly peo-
ple of color; however, Michele had noticed differences in how the staff, the
majority being Latina women, was treating her and the other African
American female first-grade teacher in the school. Though a school of color,
Michele felt disrespected and not a full member of the school community.
She compared her current placement with a previous student teaching place-
ment in an Upper Westside elementary school, where she felt respected as
a teacher of color:
None of the students looked like me either [at Upper Westside], but
one of the things I liked about the school was the culture, and the
respect they had for me, because we, Dr. Mensah, had this talk
before, that when I’m the only person of color, how it really intimi-
dates me, and there I was the only person of color [at Upper
Westside], and I didn’t know if the staff and the parents would be
as receptive, especially when their nannies are the same skin tone
as me. Right, like who am I? But it wasn’t, and so again, I learned
29
my lesson there as well. Not looking like their child, they respected
me as an educator and they respected me as a person.
Michele was realizing that her role in the classroom was grounded in
a strong sense of self as a teacher of color, and she realized not every school
will respect this. She did not want to remain in a school, though culturally
and linguistically diverse, if the administration and teachers did not respect
her and what she brought to the school as an African American teacher. She
also did not want to experience being ‘‘one of two African American teachers
in the school that said they wanted diversity’’ but not to the detriment of los-
ing who she was and her voice, which had taken her a long time to find:
I do feel that race was a barrier because the school only wanted
a Hispanic/Spanish staff. In both spaces [student teaching and first-
year teaching] I could never fully be myself and when I was, I was
questioned. I feel like I should be able to ask questions [about teach-
ing, learning, and students].
Maintaining the status quo was not what Michele believed was the goal of
education as a Black teacher. She wanted the freedom to share who she was
as a woman, a teacher of color, and a science teacher, and to offer students
diverse perspectives and opportunities to teaching and learning. She had
learned to value who she was and what she brought to the classroom.
Michele completed her first year of teaching at the elementary school in the
South Bronx. (Un)fortunately, she was not asked to return the following year.
Empowered and Respected as a Science Teacher

Michele had completed her first year of teaching and during that time, I
had played a central role in supporting her growth and development as a sci-
ence teacher. (In fact, our relationship is still on-going.) At the end of her first
year, she was still searching for the right school and administration that
would allow her an opportunity to be herself. Michele had a voice, a passion
for science teaching, but no place to teach. In Michele’s view, there was
a purpose to the numerous challenging experiences she had endured in
her life—from the little dark-skinned girl playing with dolls to the teacher
leader in her school.
Michele was hired as a teacher in a public elementary school of color
located in West Harlem. In this new school, Michele worked as a liaison
in partnership with me and the science education program. As a partnership
school, we placed preservice teachers from the science methods courses to
work directly with students in teaching science. We held three summer
Science Days at the school, with parental participation to learn alongside
their children in doing science and engineering design lessons taught by pre-
service teachers. We also had masters and doctoral students to work with
30
Mensah
teachers and students to help the school’s emergent science program. In
addition, I worked with the teachers for classroom-embedded professional
development in science and served as a co-teacher in some classrooms. I
assisted Michele in setting up the annual fourth-grade state science assess-
ment, hosted, and accompanied students on field trips for science learning,
and participated with the principal on the school’s quality review. Michele
served on the school’s leadership team and earned tenure as a teacher.
She continued to support the development of future elementary teachers
of science in her classroom through modeling science teaching and working
with her colleagues in her school. Here, as one of three teachers of color in
the school, Michele was empowered and respected as a science teacher and
leader in her school. I imagine the broad impact of our collective work
would not have happened if a little dark-skinned girl had not found her
voice in science education and had given up on her desire to teach.
Discussion and Implications

Informed by the work of CRT scholars who continue to expand the lit-
erature and scope of discussions of race in education and other fields, I
employ CRT as a theoretical and methodological framework to discuss the
educational experiences of one female teacher candidate of color in science
teacher education. As a theoretical framework, CRT challenges the dominant
discourse on race and racism in education and exposes how certain racial
and ethnic groups and women are marginalized in both educational theory
and practice (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). In this study, CRT in science
teacher education refutes dominant ideology and White privilege while val-
idating and centering the experiences of teachers of color. As a methodolog-
ical framework, using counter-storytelling as a prominent tool of critical race
methodology in education ‘‘focuses research on how students of color expe-
rience and respond to the U.S. educational system’’ (Solórzano & Yosso,
2002, pp. 36–37). Counter-storytelling critiques normalized dialogues that
perpetuate racial inequities and stereotypes, and challenges privileged dis-
courses in teacher education. Counter-storytelling as methodology helps
us understand what life is like for others and invites the reader into a new
and unfamiliar world of the storyteller and the person telling the stories
(Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). This attention to ‘‘voice’’ in a CRT framework
provides a counter-story to the dominant narrative so frequently heard
and told (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005).
Thus, the beauty of the theory and methodology of CRT used in this
study emphasizes the emotional journey that Michele experiences in her
teacher education program and early career which is revealed through the
narratives she shares. Though stories told of one teacher of color does not
declare stories as shared by all teachers of color, the theory and methodol-
ogy of CRT, however, centers the ever-present nature of race, racism, and
31
power in education as experiences common to people of color. For exam-
ple, critical race theorists deploy stories and narratives as a means of build-
ing cohesion within minority groups and shattering the mindset created by
the stories of the dominant group (Delgado, 2001). Learning about
Michele’s experiences offers insights in understanding the experiences of
other teachers of color in teacher education. Without sharing the authentic
voices of teachers of color, we are blind to the educational inequities in
teacher education programs and unaware how we might improve programs
that will benefit more of them.
Moreover, an intersectionality analysis uses the stories of women of
color to highlight how women are represented in society (Crenshaw,
2003, 2016). In this study, Michele’s stories are representational in teacher
education and in science teacher education as counter-narratives. Most stud-
ies in teacher education focus on White teacher candidates, and the voices of
teachers of color are either ignored or silenced (Amos, 2010; Brown, 2014;
Sheets & Chew, 2002), and some voices are virtually nonexistent when con-
sidering the education of preservice teachers of color in science teacher edu-
cation (exceptions, Mensah, 2016; Mensah & Jackson, 2018; Rivera Maulucci,
2013). Therefore, this current study is not only concerned with educating
teachers of color for increasingly diverse school settings and their experien-
ces in teacher education programs; the study is equally concerned with
increasing the number of female science teachers of color.
Early Experiences With Race

One of the key unifying themes of CRT is the recognition that racism is
endemic to American life. This means that racism is such an ordinary and
commonplace notion that it is embedded in American life, operates as
a larger systematic, structural and cultural practice, and is deeply psycholog-
ically and socially ingrained (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw,
1993). This is realized in Michele’s early childhood experiences of playing
with dolls, being identified as a Black student with a learning disability,
struggling through her teacher education program, and developing as a sci-
ence teacher. A dark-skinned complexion has made Michele distinct in her
family and different academically from her White peers. Consequently,
Michele experiences isolation and loneliness at home and in school.
Because of Michele’s darker complexion and the isolation she feels,
Monroe (2013) calls this color-based discrimination or colorism. These early
experiences of race, racism, and colorism are important to consider for
teachers of color entering predominantly White teacher education programs
because issues of race are already prevalent in early life experiences and
have an impact on their education. Michele carries the emotional stress
from early childhood views of race and racism into her teacher education
program and beyond. Therefore, I agree with researchers who highlight
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Mensah
that race and colorism should be discussed in teacher education (McGee,
Alvarez, & Milner, 2016). There should be multiple opportunities for teachers
of color to write and talk about their educational experiences, and even
home and early school experiences regarding race and racism. The racial
narrative cannot start at the moment of teacher education coursework.
The early experiences of race and racism certainly sway how teachers of
color come into, engage, and leave teacher education programs.
Racial Issues and Voice in Teacher Education

The initial focus of this study is increasing the research base on the expe-
riences of teacher candidates of color in teacher education, and science
teacher education specifically, and contributing to the emergent body of
work in these areas (Brown, 2014; Gorski, 2009; Jackson & Kohli, 2016;
Mensah & Jackson, 2018; Rivera Maulucci, 2013). In four major ways, we
learn of Michele’s experiences in teacher education. First, in her teacher edu-
cation program, the emotional impact of race and racism is that Michele
‘‘struggles and fights’’ to have a voice and to shape her identity as a female
teacher of color at an elite, predominantly White institution. Her ways of
making sense of teaching and her desire to connect the curriculum to her
personal experiences are not given a chance to develop, particularly in
the overwhelming presence of whiteness of her teacher education program
(Sleeter, 2001). This is noted in coursework and assignments that do not
reflect her personal biography or give an opportunity for Michele to express
herself authentically. She feels her professors, cooperating teachers, supervi-
sors, and peers do not consider her views, experiences, and desires to learn
and teach as an African American woman with experiential knowledge and
a passion to teach science. Even under the guidance of an African American
female supervisor, words of consolation do not offer Michele any hope, and
she realizes those guiding her preparation do not know who she is. She can-
not find herself within the curriculum, conversations, and student teaching
experiences as a female teacher of color.
For Michele, her early teacher education experiences are discouraging
and frustrating, so much so that she considers leaving teaching. In the
‘‘sea of White’’ and not being able to find her voice or place and feeling dis-
respected, Michele considers quitting her teacher education program. These
findings are commensurate with Brown (2014) in that teachers of color in
teacher education programs feel ‘‘high levels of alienation, a disconnection
from the larger program community, and a sense of not ‘seeing themselves’
in their programs’’ (p. 334). This is colorblindness when teachers of color are
present but not seen, and when White professors treat all preservice teachers
the same (Bonilla-Silva, 2005). Sheets and Chew (2002) in their work with
bilingual Chinese American teachers report that teacher education programs
and courses are designed for the dominating group. Because diversity issues
33
are presented from a White perspective and White students dominate class
discussions, ‘‘silence’’ is a coping strategy for the Chinese American teachers.
Their voice and perspectives are not included, and they literally do not speak
in the class. In teacher education programs, instructing White teachers for
diverse populations is the common narrative; conversely, instructing teachers
of color for diversity and attending to their emotional and educational needs
are excluded or ignored (Matias & Grosland, 2016; Montecinos, 2004; Sheets,
2001; Sleeter, 2017). Hence, Michele’s feelings of alienation, frustration, and
onlyness contribute to her struggle and fight mentality in her teacher educa-
tion program and thoughts to quit the profession before she starts.
Curriculum in Teacher Education

Second, we learn of Michele’s experiences in teacher education through
her teacher education curriculum. Jay (2003) explains that the ways in which
schools are organized and structured as well as their curriculum (both formal
and hidden) actually aid in the ‘‘maintenance of hegemony by acculturating
students to the interest of the dominant group’’ where students of color are
‘‘encouraged and instructed, both explicitly and implicitly, to make those
interests their own’’ (p. 7). Similarly, Agee (2004) critiques the curriculum
in teacher education as using diverse texts or teaching diverse students
under the assumption that preservice teachers are White women. In this
case, Michele’s narratives remind me of Sojourner Truth’s deeply moving
question, but in the context of teacher education, ‘‘Ain’t I a teacher too?’’
Michele states that her teacher education curriculum does not address her
needs or identity as a Black woman teacher candidate. Hence, where is
the curriculum, assignments, conversations, and texts in teacher education
that focuses on educating and affirming Black women teachers of color?
Whiteness in teacher education is the predominant mechanism of maintain-
ing the dominant narrative (Sleeter, 2017) and leaves no room for teachers of
color to develop as culturally relevant teachers. Therefore, Whiteness in
teacher education needs a counter-narrative that supports teachers of color
in teacher education programs and curriculum.
It is very challenging for teacher education programs, namely White fac-
ulty, to disrupt long-held practices, change their approaches to instruction,
and develop curriculum to address the needs of students of color. One rea-
son is that many teacher educators may not be cognizant that their practices,
cultural biases, institutional structures, and policies are producing teachers
of color without a voice. Also, in terms of program demographics, faculty
in colleges of education share similar backgrounds to those of their teacher
candidates, with 80% of faculty identifying as White, and 63% admitting
growing up in communities where they have had ‘‘little or no contact with
people they would later identify as ethnically or racially ‘different’’’
(MacDonald, Colville-Hall, & Smolen, 2003, p. 11). This demographic gap
34
Mensah
in teacher education programs with high White faculty instructors and low
Black teacher candidates produces programs that may be hostile and dehu-
manizing for candidates of color who feel they have to struggle, fight, and
survive in a program environment that does not support them educationally,
emotionally, or professionally. Racially hostile teacher education programs
(Kohli, 2018) devalue and frustrate teachers of color, who then might ques-
tion if teaching is really for them.
Hence, the teacher education system—curriculum, course design,
assignments, field placements, models of supervision, cooperating teachers,
and supervisors—should be reexamined for oppressive and racist practices.
Similar to multicultural practices, White faculty have to get to know candi-
dates of color by spending time with them, creating assignments where
teachers of color can talk about their culture, backgrounds, and race and rac-
ism in the context of teacher education. When teacher education programs
fail to name, disrupt, and dismantle White supremacy in the many aspects of
the system, they inevitably create obstacles and maintain oppressive learning
conditions for candidates of color in their pursuit of teaching as their chosen
profession (Mensah & Jackson, 2018; Milner, 2008; Sleeter, 2017).
Similarly, Price-Dennis (2017) suggests that teacher education programs be
‘‘hacked’’ to move toward understanding the root cause of racist practices in
teacher education. This entails paying attention to how power and race con-
verge and how marginalization is developed in teacher education programs.
The implications of such a move is for teacher educators to address systemic
racism and offer the necessary support that teachers of color need; otherwise,
teacher education programs will continue to socialize and reproduce structures
that disempower teachers of color—leaving them without a voice and feeling
they have to fight and struggle through their programs. Accordingly, faculty
have to see how power operates continually within teacher education practices
through microaggressions and hostile learning environments (Kohli, 2018;
Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2014). If power dynamics are not addressed, we
delay social transformation at multiple levels—first, how power operates at
the individual level of one’s teaching and learning; second, at the structural
level of what happens in teacher education, even in the curriculum and expe-
riences offered; and third, at the institutional level to support the overall aca-
demic climate for teachers of color at White institutions. These three levels
reveal institutional racism at work in teacher education programs and estab-
lishes the need to initiate conversations for systemic change.
Counter-Narratives in Science Teacher Education

The third way we learn of Michele’s experiences in teacher education is
from a content-specific teacher education course she takes late in her pro-
gram. When Michele arrives at my science doorstep, she is ‘‘brainwashed’’
and drained, hurt and skeptical of what she can learn in another teacher
35
education course, no less science, a subject she previously disliked and his-
torically a subject of marginalization for students of color and women
(Mutegi, 2011; Parsons et al., 2011). Michele’s prior thinking is that ‘‘science
is not for people of color.’’ However, at the intersection of race, gender, and
content, the science methods course is ‘‘the best class’’ Michele takes in her
teacher education program. This is an important acknowledgment on several
levels for an intersectionality analysis (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 2003,
2016). First, the science methods course is taught by an African American
female science professor from the rural south (Mensah & Jackson, 2018).
Second, Michele’s first African American science teacher is a college profes-
sor, and a teacher educator of color. Third, having an African American
female science teacher educator is critical in Michele’s retelling of her expe-
riences in teacher education and science. She is provided the educational
and emotional support she needs as a Black female science teacher.
Hence, I am her counter-narrative to previous views of teacher education
faculty, and the science methods course becomes the counter-narrative to
previous views of science, teacher education courses, and who teaches these
courses in teacher education programs. Female science teachers of color in
K–12 classrooms are counter-images that students of color need to see and
learn from if we are to recruit them as future teachers and science teachers.
The significance of faculty of color in teacher education programs serves
as counter-images not only for teacher candidates of color but for all teacher
candidates (Mensah, 2016; Mensah & Jackson, 2018). Faculty of color act as
tremendous resources of encouragement and support for students of color,
particularly in overcoming ‘‘onlyness’’ at predominantly White institutions
(Harper et al., 2011) and navigating the ‘‘sea of White’’ of teacher education
programs. Over time, Michele finds her voice and passion in science teach-
ing, and she advocates for herself as an educated African American female
science teacher. This is made possible by a mentoring relationship that is
nurtured over time. On acceptance in a teacher education program, teacher
candidates of color would benefit from knowing who and where the faculty
of color are in teacher education and even across the institution (Mensah &
Jackson, 2018); recall Michele’s surprise of not knowing a female science
teacher educator of color exists on campus. In fact, I am the only tenured
female science faculty member of color in the college. Knowing who and
where the faculty of color are within institutions may prove to be essential
in developing relationships with and retaining energetic and compassionate
teacher candidates of color in our teacher education programs.
Intersectionality and Science Teacher Education

Finally, and connected to the previous point, the fourth way we learn of
Michele’s experiences in teacher education is an intersectionality analysis in
content-specific courses in teacher education programs, specifically her
36
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experiences in the elementary science methods course. Carbado (2011)
explains, ‘‘Because CRT can neither speak for itself nor do its own work,
CRT scholars should continue to frame CRT in terms of both the work the
theory is performing, and the work CRT might still need to do’’ (p. 1607).
Thus, I argue that the ongoing work of CRT in teacher education may focus
on counter-storytelling with an intersectionality lens. This means not only
how race and racism intersect with gender and class, and other social
markers but also with the content that is taught by teachers of color.
Mentioned in the introduction, the three ways that Crenshaw (2016)
talks about intersectionality is the structural, political, and representational,
and these ways show that Black women occupy multiple positions ‘‘both
physically and culturally marginalized within dominant society’’ (p. 226),
making their experiences different from White women and Black men.
This marginality for women of color is evident in science and experienced
by their location and their cultural construction as women of color in sci-
ence, or specifically who gets to be a science teacher. For instance, science
has a long-storied history with race and racism, such as science is used to
support deficit views of Black people (Skiba, 2012), or to make claims of
superior White intelligence (Vera, Feagin, & Gordon, 1995). Science has
also neglected to acknowledge women of color and their contributions to
science or STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) (i.e.,
Hidden Figures and Henrietta Lacks), the legacy of Black female scientists
(Jordan, 2006; Warren, 1991), and classroom practices of Black science
teachers (Mensah, 2009a). When race and racism intersect with gender
and science, and other social markers (Mensah, 2009b), achieving educa-
tional equity within content-specific domains of teacher education come
into play not only for who teachers are (their identity) but also for what
they teach (the content). The current study connects to the work of
Varelas, Martin, and Kane (2012) in mathematics and science that calls for
the integration of content learning and identity construction (CLIC) that
attends to three related identities—academic, disciplinary, and racial.
Though the CLIC framework is applied to their work with African
American and Latinx K–12 learners in urban classrooms, it offers insights
for teacher education in how female teachers of color must simultaneously
contend with multiple constructions of identity as well as the historical,
social, and cultural nature of teaching within a discipline that has historically
marginalized women and women from diverse racial and cultural groups.
Content-specific expertise, such as science, within a racial context not
only broadens the application of CRT but also reveals the degree to which
marginalization and educational inequity comes into view, like women of
color fighting to have a voice in their teacher education program or having
to defend their approach to sound science teaching. An intersectionality
analysis elevates the impact of race and racism in teacher education for
teachers of color and the additional ways race and racism are embedded
37
in science education. It also addresses who can do science, who can teach
science, who is a scientist, who is a science teacher, and what is considered
science knowledge to be taught and taught to whom. Feminist perspectives
in science have addressed some of these questions (Lather, 1992), albeit not
in a Black women’s racial context and the ‘‘multiply burdened’’ (Crenshaw,
2016, p. 23) experiences they must content with as women in science (Rosa
& Mensah, 2016).
In this study, I simultaneously tell and retell Michele’s narratives consider-
ing her multiple subjectivities and mine too. Though we are different people,
we share similarities as well as differences in our experiences as women of
color in science teacher education. Therefore, future research that utilizes
an intersectionality analysis might allow us to see the relationship and the
complexity of how multiple factors intersect, supporting the idea that
single-axis analysis is not enough (May, 2015) in the preparation of science
teachers of color and that science teachers of color are not all the same in their
experiences of science education (Mensah & Jackson, 2016; Parsons &
Mensah, 2010). Notwithstanding, the presence of faculty of color in teacher
education and science education may offer an additional direction for CRT
research to examine an intersectionality analysis of race, gender, class, and
content. This direction would also add to the literature on the experiences
of Black faculty in science education (Parsons, Bulls, Freeman, Butler, &
Atwater, 2018).
Limitations and Conclusion

CRT as methodology and theory particularly challenges our approaches
to hear and learn from silenced voices and to develop teacher education cur-
riculum and programs that meet the needs of all students. The four racial
narrative themes in this study address race, racism, power, and inequity at
the individual level (i.e., Michele) and the institutional or systemic level
(i.e., teacher education programs within institutions of higher education).
Thus, it is not enough to increase the number of teacher candidates of color
in teacher education programs (four African American female teacher candi-
dates in Michele’s cohort); there also must be a simultaneous commitment to
the practices and curriculum that will meet the individual and collective
needs of teachers of color once they are admitted to teacher education pro-
grams and institutions. The cohort model is suggested to provide same race
peer relationships for emotional and educational support (Mensah, 2016;
Mensah & Jackson, 2018), but this does not negate the responsibility of all
faculty in developing supportive academic environments and structures for
teachers of color to succeed and feel valued and respected in their teacher
education programs and institutions. The commitment must include ongoing
support from recruitment to graduation without marginalizing teachers of
38
Mensah
color and making them ‘‘fight and struggle’’ to be heard and seen in their
teacher education programs.
One African American female teacher candidate is one story and one
voice. One is fruitful because it allows us to extend our thinking in how
we construct agendas, policies, and strategies to ensure social justice to
a broader range of teachers and to evade oversimplifying human experience
or overlooking diverse experiences altogether. Counter-storytelling in edu-
cation can help us understand what life is like for others, particularly in tell-
ing stories that are told by students of color about their educational
experiences. Thus, to unsettle and provoke our teacher education programs
to address the needs of teachers of color raises our level of commitment to
educational equity for all students—a key tenet of CRT. Teachers of color
and their experiential knowledge and identities need to be acknowledged
in an intersectionality way. An intersectionality analysis in teacher education
captures the complexity of lived experiences and the power dynamics at
work for Black female teacher candidates in content courses like science
in teacher education programs.
Finally, CRT is conceived as a social justice project that works toward the
liberatory potential of schooling (Freire, 2018; hooks, 1994). At the same
time, CRT in teacher education acknowledges the contradictory nature of
education, wherein schools most often oppress and marginalize while
they also reserve the potential to emancipate and empower. A productive
next step is active transformation of teacher education policies based on
the counter-narrative: ‘‘CRT mandates that social activism be a part of any
CRT project’’ and that the stories shared by teachers of color ‘‘must move
us to action and the qualitative and material improvement of the educational
experiences of people of colour’’ (Dixson & Rousseau, 2005, p. 13).
Moreover, as a social justice project, all teacher educators must give more
watchful attention to the counter-narratives of teachers of color across their
educational trajectory and employ methods of collecting, listening, and uti-
lizing their stories. Teacher educators might see how race, racism, and
power intersect in the lives of teachers of color before they enter our teacher
education classrooms. With a critical race-based methodology and the gath-
ering of personally rich information, we can capture the ‘‘normal’’ and
‘‘every day’’ (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017, p. 8) occurrences of how race
and racism affect people of color in teacher education programs. Still, the
usefulness of CRT’s counter-narrative to foreground race and racism may
not go far enough if the counter-narrative only supports the telling and
not the theorizing of narratives shared within a broader context of teacher
education curriculum, practices, and content.
ORCID iD
Felicia Moore Mensah https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7843-3832
39
Notes
The author would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers who offered
valuable critique, positive feedback, and critical insights to improve the manuscript.
The entire process was an engaging and welcomed learning experience for me.
Supplemental material is available for this article in the online version of the journal.
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45

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American Educational Research Journal

Month XXXX, Vol. XX, No. X, pp. 1–45

Finding Voice and Passion:

This longitudinal case study utilizes critical race theory methodology to

KEYWORDS: critical race theory, teacher education, teachers of color, science

Preservice Teachers of Color

Critical Race Theory as a Theoretical

Counter-Storytelling, Theoretical Sensitivity, and Positionality

Science Methods Course

Longitudinal Case Study

Artifacts and Summer Science Institute

Figure 1. Overview cycle of longitudinal data collection and data analysis

Sharing and Analyzing Stories

Racial Narrative 1: Situating Early Childhood and

The Only One

Now, in middle school, feelings of isolation continued. Michele recalled

The issues of power within Michele’s understandings and experiences of

Racial Narrative 2: Loss of Voice in Teacher Education

Teacher Education: Loss of Voice

So Few but We Are Not All the Same

Michele ‘‘struggled’’ a great deal at the beginning of her teacher educa-

In her teacher education courses, Michele felt there were discussions

Fighting to Have a Place

Science Teacher Education: Finding Voice

When I had you as my Black professor—this is gonna sound so

It’s All About Me

The differences Michele indicated between her previous teacher educa-

Self and Voice in Science Methods

Being in the [science methods] class was different on so many levels,

Racial Narrative 3: Defending an Approach to Science

Pushing to Teach Science

Defense of Sound Science Teaching

Defense in the Practicum Course

Michele was assured in her understanding of what science was, how to

Racial Theme 4: Planning and Teaching Science as Self

I Too Sing Science

During Michele’s first year as a teacher, we shared numerous e-mail

Teaching Students Who I Am

My Hopes and Dreams

(Dis)respecting Me as a Teacher of Color

Empowered and Respected as a Science Teacher

Discussion and Implications

Early Experiences With Race

Racial Issues and Voice in Teacher Education

Curriculum in Teacher Education

Counter-Narratives in Science Teacher Education

Intersectionality and Science Teacher Education

Limitations and Conclusion

Manuscript received June 5, 2016

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