Experiences of Science Education Graduate Students in the Critical Voices Classroom

Science teachers in the United States are not prepared to teach the students in their classrooms. Teachers are most often White females, while the children in their classrooms are from diverse backgrounds. Multicultural pedagogies exist, but teachers must be educated during their teacher preparation courses to understand their own relationship with race before they can enact such pedagogies in their classrooms. This qualitative study sought to examine the lived experiences of eight science education doctoral students in a course called Critical Voices in Teacher Education, through the qualitative method approach of transcendental phenomenology. The participants’ experiences were examined through three theoretical frameworks: transformative learning theory, White racial identity, and racial literacy. Interviews, field notes, and student reflections were used to collect data for this phenomenological study. The findings showed that through the process of critical reflection and group discussion, participants had a transformative experience in which their racial identities developed, and perceptions of students and curriculum shifted to include multicultural pedagogical approaches. The findings from this study supported the idea that teacher education programs must use racial identity development and multicultural curriculum as a foundation for all education programs.