One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Racism in the Patterns of Acting

This chapter starts with a brief discussion of Mezirow’s notion of patterns of acting, explaining how patterns of acting link to habits of mind. We then go into the data from our research, identifying a key contradiction in White preservice teachers’ classroom behavior between prepared performances of racial equity versus the unexpected appearance of racial inequities. Through a careful analysis of the White prospective teachers’ practices through multiple teaching observations and interviews, we have developed a deep understanding of their patterns of acting in the classroom. When there is an opportunity to carefully design a lesson, prospective teachers were able to integrate culturally responsive pedagogical strategies and differentiated teaching. However, in unscripted situations, when confronted with racism in the classroom, they backslid, returning to a pattern of dehumanizing and criminalizing minoritized students. Even in the context of a prepared lesson, racism in the form of subconscious institutional reinforcement could upend planned activities, breaking through to expose the race-based nature of the classroom experience.