“My Hair has a Lot of Stories!”: Unpacking Culturally Sustaining Writing Pedagogies in an Elementary Mediated Field Experience for Teacher Candidates

This qualitative study examined what teacher candidates learned in a field-based mediated Language Arts methods course, intentionally designed to support teacher candidates in learning what is possible rather than typical, in an urban school setting where curriculum is often prescriptive rather than generative. Culturally sustaining pedagogies provided a powerful and important framework for curriculum and inquiry; these pedagogies guided this preservice teacher education course. Findings from this study indicate that this mediated experience served as an initial foray into recognizing and unpacking teacher candidates’ deficit perspectives related to race and class-based assumptions about children and their families, and about the community in which they lived. In addition, teacher candidates began to understand the nuanced and intentional moves teachers must make to affect student learning.