Racism-Critical Perspectives for Teacher Education

Abstract

Racism as a social power relation is inscribed in, and affects, all areas of everyday life. Even educational institutions such as universities and schools function as powerful spheres in which racism-related inequities are (re-)produced. For (future) teachers to be able to critically counteract and prevent structural racism, cross-disciplinary and structurally anchored opportunities for sensitization need to be implemented during their professionalization. Although racism-critical perspectives have been increasingly considered in the social and educational sciences as well as didactics, racism-critique has not been implemented as a cross-sectional task in teacher education so far.
At the Leibniz University Hannover, researchers from various disciplines concretized different diversity dimensions with the aim of developing a reflective disposition of teacher performance (Reflexive Handlungsfähigkeit) to model a heterogeneity-sensitive teacher education as part of the “Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung” (QLB). In this article, we discuss the construction of “differences” relevant to racism in the context of exclusion and educational inequity and address racism-critical perspectives for teacher education. Following a brief contextualization of “Rasse” and race (chap. 2), we will outline the understanding of racism as a social power relation (chap. 3), discuss the relevance of racism (critique) in school contexts based on empirical findings (chap. 4), and consider general approaches, goals, and perspectives for racism-critical teacher education (chap. 5).