Pre-service teachers’ racial and teaching self-efficacy

This study examined associations among pre-service teachers’ early racial socialisation, adverse childhood experiences, self-esteem, racial self-efficacy in educational settings, and teaching self-efficacy while controlling for racial and ethnic minority status, disability status, academic year, and academic programme. Pre-service teachers at a university in the U.S. northwest were invited to participate in an online survey. The results showed that pre-service teachers with higher self-esteem had higher racial self-efficacy; however, early racial socialisation and adverse childhood experiences were not related to their racial self-efficacy in educational settings. Pre-service teachers who experienced positive racial socialisation during childhood tended to have higher teaching self-efficacy, whereas those who experienced more adverse childhood experiences reported lower teaching self-efficacy. However, self-esteem was not related to teaching self-efficacy. Our findings provide practical implications for pre-service teacher education programmes and suggest that further research is needed to explore other potential predictors of pre-service teachers’ racial and teaching self-efficacy.