The annotated bibliography

From your perspective: Black preservice early childhood education students share their stories

Teresa Harris Miemsie Steyn University of Pretoria, South Africa

AT A TIME WHEN TEACHER demand is high, especially in urban and rural areas of South Africa, the nunnbers of Black South African students entering teacher education remain low. This study examines the potential barriers and supports available in the University of Pretoria early childhood teacher education program from the perspectives of the black students themselves as a way to inform future efforts to recruit and retain future students. The Critical Race Theory serves as the theoretical framework for analysis of students' stories. ,

introduction

At a time when many teachers are exiting from the teaching force and more children are entering schools (UNESCO institute for Statistics, 2011) many nations face a challenge to recruit and retain a new generation of teachers. Who are the people needed to teach children during their early years of schooling? Students of colour, from diverse cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds whose home languages are not the language of instruction in the schools do not see teachers who look like them or sound like them or understand the contexts from which they come. If it is important for teachers to be able to connect with their students, employing pedagogies that are relevant so that all students can become successful in their academic pursuits, then we must carefully examine the factors that invite and exclude potential teachers of colour into the profession.

Research suggests that students of colour are more successful when taught by teachers who reflect their home cultures (NEA, 2002). Although there are white teachers who have adapted their educational approaches to become more inclusive and culturally sensitive (Ladson-Billings, 1994; 2001; Landsman & Lewis, 2006), to recruit adequate numbers of people into the profession to fill the growing need for teachers (Gorard, See, Smith & White, 2007; Miller, Ochs & Mulvaney,

2008; Pandey, 2009) we in South Africa must become proactive in reaching out to potential candidates from the diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds of all of our children.

Given the limited number of black South African students entering teacher education, this study attempted to answer the question, 'What is the current experience of black South African students who pursue a career in early childhood education (ECE) at the University of Pretoria?'. We use the term 'early childhood education' to refer to both the early childhood (birth to age five years) and foundation phase (Reception through Grade 3) programs that are housed in the University of Pretoria's Early Childhood Education Department (ECED) and taught by the same faculty members. We refer to 'people of colour' to speak inclusively about people from non-European origins. Although in South Africa people continue to self-identify by their cultural groups and racial labels, all the students who participated in this study identified themselves as black South Africans.

Literature review

Following 46 years under an Apartheid government. South Africa underwent political reform in 1994 to become a democratic state. Educational reform attempted to 'provide

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a system of education that builds democracy, human dignity, equality and social justice' (Department of Education, 2001, p. 4). Its primary aim was to broaden participation in higher education so as to reduce the highly stratified race and class structure of the country (Fraser & Killen, 2005). Subsequently higher education institutions in South Africa encountered remarkable changes in structuring, funding and student numbers 'as a result of government's policy to transform higher education in South Africa as well as globalisation and internationalisation' (Gbadamosi & De Jager, 2009, p. 871).

In teacher education and early childhood teacher education in particular, the challenge to recruit students and retain them remains daunting. For those students who now have access to university degrees and more prestigious careers, entering education is a degree of last resort for most (Crosser, 2009). Future earnings, esteem from family and home community, and the desire to move into more lucrative positions dissuade potential candidates from pursuing studies to be teachers. Held in the lowest esteem by students and their families, teaching young children is considered the work of grandmothers and young girls rather than a professional pursuit worthy of university study (Steyn, Harris & Hartell, 2012). However, the South African government has recognised the importance of well- trained teachers for addressing the nation's literacy rate (Shisana & Simbayi, 2005), particularly among black rural and township residents whose scores on national and international assessments reflect their low academic achievement (Mullis, Martin, Kennedy & Foy, 2007).

South Africa's challenge to recruit more students of colour into primary education is not unique. Recruitment is an international challenge (Santoro, 2007). In the United States, Hobson-Horton and Owens (2004) noted that African American, Latino(a), and Native American students remain under-represented in higher education with few efforts made to target minority students (Planty et al., 2009). In the United Kingdom, Basit and colleagues (2007) noted that 'the under-representation of some ethnic groups in the teaching profession continues to present a challenge both to policy-makers and schools' (p. 280). Santoro (2007) echoed the concerns of Basit et al. (2007), pointing out that the concern for under- represented groups is an issue in Australia where one in four Australians has a first language other than English.

Teachers of colour play a critical role in the lives of all learners, dispelling the 'myth of racial and ethnic inferiority in the minds of white students and students of colour' (Robinson, Paccione & Rodriguez, 2003, p. 202) and promoting positive cultural understandings in racially mixed schools by serving as 'cultural brokers' for the growing number of students of colour. Santoro (2007) noted teachers from backgrounds 'outside the Anglo-Australian "mainstream" culture' (p. 84) who

are grounded in their understanding of self regarding their ethnicity, indigeneity, and social class are able to utilise 'their knowledge of self to empathize with their minority students, contextualize their students' responses to schooling through an understanding of their lives beyond school and to "come to know" them from perspectives unavailable to White Anglo-Australian teachers' (p. 84). Within South Africa, this suggests that black teachers are able to identify with and understand the particular circumstances of black learners that fall outside the frame of reference of white teachers. As a result of the mediating role they play, when ethnic minority teachers are present there are greater gains for minority students, fewer minority students in special education, decreased absenteeism, greater student involvement in school activities, and increased parental involvement (NEA, 2002). It appears that students from marginalised populations benefit from having teachers who share similar cultural, ethnic or racial identities and who can act as mediators between home and school cultures in ways that lead to greater academic success.

Why do students of colour pursue studies in education, inclusive of ECE? Hobson-Horton and Owens (2004) found that the primary and recurring responses for becoming a teacher were: (a) need for teachers in society, (b) love of working with children, and (c) the influence of in-service teachers they had as students or knew personally (pp. 93-94). These same students went on to state that they remained in their teacher education programs as a result of the support that they received in terms of mentoring from cooperative teachers and university supervisors, financial assistance, and sharing of educational resources as well as courses that were personally meaningful and relevant to them. However, they also noted that they were challenged by financial concerns because 'either they had to work while attending school, spent excessive amounts of money for class projects and practicums, travelled away from the university to complete practicums, and incurred transportation costs relating to travel to practicum sites' (p. 95). In order to understand the experiences of students of colour, we use the Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a frame of reference.

Critical race theory (CRT)

Throughout the literature on students of colour in tertiary education and teacher education in particular, the impact of hegemonies which practised and enforced racial discrimination as a guiding state policy were cited as constraining access to resources and to experiences of students from non-white cultures. Critical Race Theory has as its premise that racism is 'enmeshed in the fabric of our social order' (Ladson-Billings, 1999, pp. 212-213), utilises storytelling as a way to understand experiences of others, critiques liberalism as ineffective in combating racism, and affirms that whites remain the primary

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beneficiaries of civil rigiits legisiation (Ladson-Billings, 1999). This theory is particuiarly appropriate for our study in a South African context, because most white staff members at higher education institutions believe that including black students in their academic interactions, involving them in class discussions and offering support with assignments, constitute sufficient accommodation of these students' needs. Although these practices are the result of a genuine intention to include students, white lecturers often don't realise that this 'liberalism' is totally ineffective to level the academic playing field for these students. On the other hand we recognised the structural barriers (e.g. language of instruction, institutional culture) that limited their access to the university and the program were overtly and implicitly racist. As white researchers in a department of predominantly white faculty members, we wondered if our positions or presence affected the decisions of black students to enrol in the ECE program and their subsequent academic performance. In our reading of CRT we began to see that our own liberal biases and limited understandings of our black students' lived experiences, ethnicities and cultures adversely affected their success. As a result we set out to record the voices of the students, as a first step towards understanding their experiences. We anticipated that in the descriptions of those experiences would be indicators of the barriers they felt precluded their access to academic success.

Methodology

To acquire an in-depth understanding of the experiences of black students, we utilised a qualitative research approach and an interpretive paradigm (Terre Blanche, Durrheim & Painter, 2006, pp. 275-276). We invited all black early childhood students to participate in small focus group interviews by class year. We listened as they shared their experiences of being black students in a predominantly white early childhood teacher education program, and allowed them to lead the interview as they shared stories among themselves in response to questions we asked. It was through the stories of these students that we attempted to understand their experiences as a step towards undoing 'the cultural, ethical, and epistemological logic (and racism) of the Eurocentric, Enlightenment paradigm' (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p. 159).

We chose a narrative approach to our research because 'narrative inquiry is a methodological approach of understanding people's representations of the world, their actions in it, through the stories they tell' (Gomez, 1997, p. 195). In our effort to understand why these students 'think and act as they do in the situated contexts in which they live and labor' (Gomez, 1997, p. 195), we brought students who were already enrolled in the same modules together to talk about

their experiences in the ECE program. We recognised the significant power difference between white faculty members and black students and realised that much of what they had to share might reflect what they thought we wanted to hear. We talked with the black faculty member of the department who had previously served as department head to compare what we heard with her own experiences and conversations with the students. We assume that the students shared information that they were willing to make public to white professors and have tried to remain sensitive to the differences in our perspectives and experiences as we attempt to understand their perspectives.

Participants

At the time of the interviews only 21 black students, all female, were enrolled in the ECED program. Twelve students, three from the first year, five from the second year, and four from the third year, volunteered to participate in this study. They came from rural township locations and from urban areas. Some of the students had attended all-black schools in their home communities while other students attended multiracial schools. Family socioeconomic status varied among the students who participated in the interviews; however, all the students received bursaries to pay for their educational costs.

Data collection

One author visited the ECED classes to talk about this research project and followed up with personal phone calls to the students to invite them to participate and arrange times that were convenient for them. All interviews were held on campus in the building where students met for their ECED classes at times they identified would accommodate their schedules. At the beginning of each interview session, students were reminded of the purpose of the interview and asked their consent for the interview to be audiotaped.

Semi-structured focus group interviews that ranged from 60 to 90 minutes each were conducted with the students by both authors. The authors interviewed three first-year students as one small group, the five second-year students as a second group, and the two third-year students as the third group. Questions addressed students' reasons for selecting the University of Pretoria and the ECE program, the supports and challenges they received from their families and home communities, the supports and barriers they experienced as university students in general and as students in the ECED program in particular. All interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis.

The University of Pretoria approved this study through its formal Institutional Review Board process. Neither of us taught the modules in which these students were enrolled, and we maintained an ethical stance in interviewing and maintaining confidentiality.

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Analysis

The interviews were transcribed and then coded line by line by each researcher. Codes were compared between the researchers and to the research literature, and then refined to identify emerging themes. Two broad categories of data emerged. The first theme, career choice, was discussed in terms of (a) becoming a teacher, (b) the financial costs, and (c) the personal costs. The second theme, ideal and reai, reflected the constant comparisons students made between their experiences within the early childhood program and their experiences with schools and centres in their home communities.

Findings Students enrolled in the early childhood department for a variety of reasons, but once there, they faced a number of challenges that reflected both financial and personal costs.

Career choice

The young women we interviewed were committed to continuing their educations beyond secondary school and selected the University of Pretoria for its reputation as 'the best', 'because it's the most weli-known university', and 'it has an international reputation'. A secondary factor was its geographic location 'close to home'. iHowever, the decision to become a teacher varied from student to student. Some entered teacher education as a fall- back option because other programs of study were full at the time of their enrolment or because the financial assistance in the form of bursaries was available. As one student said:

Yeah, I just think a lot of people, they just do education as a starting point. Most of them will tell you that, 'Ah! We had no choice. They have a lot of bursaries for education. Now let's just do education as a way out. At least we can afford to get a degree '.

But most of the students we interviewed did want to become teachers of young children. One student confided:

I've always wanted to do teaching, especially Foundation Phase. I'm very passionate about kids... / have this special place of just wanting to see children becoming adults with mature responsibilities.

Another student, initially unsure of her career path, reported:

It's really what I want to do ... it's not only because I'm good at it. I've rediscovered that I really love it. It's something [thatj allows you to be creative. It allows me to be interactive; it allows me to be myself, just to put on my own perspective.

Their commitment to pursue early childhood as a course of study was further challenged by expectations held by families and home communities. Family commitments and expectations weighed heavily on the students, some of whom left their own young children behind or who had family members who were ill or unemployed. With more career options that offer greater prestige and income to address the financial challenges that many families face, pursuing a university education is seen as a way to provide economic stability and support to families and communities. Those students who seek to teach because they are passionate about children and seek to give back something to the community face personal challenges related to acceptance by famiiies and peers. As these students reflected on the community's rejection of ECE as a worthy career choice, one student reflected on the historical context of being a teacher for black people in South Africa:

Well, from blacks being a teacher, it's like, I'd say not the lowest but one of the lowest occupations, careers that you could chose ... Obviously they hated teaching because it wasn't something they wanted to do. It was something they had to do; for most teachers see the Apartheid era as something that had an impact on that. For blacks it was a teacher, a policeman, or a nurse. Growing up, seeing that negative attitude, being forced into being a teacher, you're just not encouraged to want to be a teacher.

Financial costs

Like many university students, major concerns were related to finances. University studies are expensive, with costs for tuition, accommodation and meais, study materials, and transportation. Most of the black students in this program received financial aid through bursaries that are repaid through their service to rural and urban areas. None of the students interviewed in this study was without some kind of financial aid, although the degree of financial aid varied among the students. One student explained her financial challenges:

My mom ... she's a single parent and she didn't have money for me to go to school because she's a domestic worker... / was always saying to myself, 'You know what? My dream is to pass Grade 12, work maybe for a year and then apply for a bursary if I can get one'. And then that's what happened and then mom was so happy. And she's still happy for me because she's always praying, '/ wish you can pass matric and finish so that you can help us because you know you've got siblings and they're not working'.

in light of the challenges, the bursaries were critical in providing the financial support needed for students to pursue tertiary studies. A monthly allowance was provided for residence and tuition; however, the bursaries were not always adequate to cover textbooks,

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transportation and meal costs. Several students reported that the biggest lesson they learned was money management. Even when students shared textbooks and skipped meals to save additional funds, when asked if the financial assistance was sufficient for the most economically disadvantaged students, one third-year student replied:

Through the whole year? For this program? No... For someone who comes from that context if you don't have money, then yeah, it will be difficult.

The concerns raised by Foundation Phase students extended beyond room, board, and books to the costs associated with the ECED modules themselves.

Assignments within modules went beyond reading textbooks to include guidelines for the construction of learning resources. Students were encouraged to use 'found' materials that could be recycled so that purchases were minimal. However, the costs associated with making the materials and laminating them stretched budgets that were already tight. Furthermore, many of the raw materials such as paints, construction paper, scissors, and glue, were not part of what black students typically possessed or had used as young learners themselves. A first-year student related:

You have to know where to buy them, places to laminate, places to photocopy. You look at this project for maths and then just look at the materials they used. They're beautiful. You can tell that they spent a lot. And then you wonder, 'How am ¡going to do that? How am I going to make it look much more lively so children will be interested to play with, for It to be attractive, for it to be something you know can be used for a long time?'

Another component of the early childhood program was the 'prac' or field experience that accompanied each year of study. Most field sites were several kilometres from the UP campus and student housing, yet the costs for public transportation and taxis was an extra expense for limited student budgets. Most of the white students had their own cars or were able to ride with one another while the black students had to budget their funds to make sure they had enough money for public transport or they walked to their 'pracs'. Leaving early, often in the dark to arrive on time, walking through inclement weather, and travelling in groups for safety meant that they often arrived at their sites looking tired and untidy compared to their white peers, again pointing to their differences as limitations rather than as strengths.

And you go to school, you arrive there, tired, sweating. You come back, it's the same thing. And the assignments that they give, they give us most of the time it's practical work. Maybe I think it would be better if they can like, the lecturers provided learners for us and they came here and we teach them. I think

it would be fair like that because we don't have cars and we can't afford them anyway if we wanted to buy. So I don't think it's fair on us.

Personal costs

These students felt they were sef apart from the other students because they didn't have ready access to transport to go to the shops to purchase supplies, didn't know which shops carried the materials they needed, and didn't have the resources to purchase the materials that were available for their peers. As a consequence, they felt their assignment marks were also negatively affected.

The thing is, if you try to use your own creativity, there are people who are going to come up with their assignments looking extremely beautiful. You want to get 90 and you put effort into everything you can, you try to take this and this and mix, but if you didn 't have the money to buy those things to make your assignment look really good, then you're not going to get that good mark.

One student pointed out the personal cost to her esteem as she reflected on what other students were able to do because they had greater financial resources:

/ can't have money to buy the cookie monster Ipuppetl and then the finger puppets. They're expensive. And then like the Whites and the Indians, they came with their nice stuff which they bought and then they (the lecturers) display them in the library and we feel like why did they make this thing because they said that we should do it ourselves— so you feel small. They say that we should do it ourselves not buy things because we can 'f afford them actually It's not because maybe we don't want to buy them, but if we had money we would also. But because we do not have it we can't. So I think it's not fair on us.

The ideal and the real

Despite the high financial and personal costs associated with becoming an early childhood teacher, the students spoke positively about the foundation phase program. One student said. They're teaching us a lot of things [that are] so interesting and creative ways of teaching. It's different than the old ways of doing things'. According to the students, lecturers tried to provide models that were new to the students, but also encouraged them to think about ways they could adapt those models to their local teaching settings. They showed them multiple ways to approach the same ideas and frequently encouraged students 'to think creatively, to think out of the box' and recycle objects they found rather than spend money on new things. Students appreciated lecturers' attitudes in this regard:

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One thing that I like about the way that the lecturers rate is through creativity, whether the material is good enough, it's just how much effort you put into doing the project, they recognize the effort and your own creativity. Initiative. They do give you marks for presentation, but they also focus much more on your creativity.

Beyond the classroom, students saw their 'practicáis' (field experiences) as highly valued for both the experience and the support they received:

/ didn 't know what to do with the learners. I was a little confused, not prepared, just shy. And like the teachers at the school were motivating me and then they were saying I'm good and then I became interested and I did it and it was fun, making me enjoy it.

The modules and field experiences provided new insights for the students and served as stark comparisons to their previous experiences as learners in their home communities and the realities of their future teaching situations. Since all of the students we interviewed would be placed in high-need areas for a five-year period to repay their bursaries, they knew that the resources in their new contexts would be significantly different. They expressed concerns related to the differences in the number of learners they would have in their future classes, the available materials to use for teaching, and their ability to use the strategies they had been taught in contexts that had significantly fewer resources. With that in mind, they frequently saw their experiences in the ECED as the ideal and their home contexts as the real world. One student articulately captured their concerns:

And even the schools, they teach here. They teach young children and at home It's totally different. They've got materials, they've got equipments and then If we can only get all those things in rural areas. If the government can provide some of those things, it's going to be fun. And then we 'II just teach and It will be fun. Here, it's fun because they do have medias, and then OK, I know I can make my own, but it's not as creative as like having computers at school and having those things, learners getting engaged and then teaching them those skills, how to use a computer and stuff. So at home we don't have those things. Some of the things we can make, but some of them we can't afford to buy them because if I want to teach them the computer, I have to buy a computer. And then at home, we've got like 42 or 50 or 60 learners In one class. And then here you will have like 30, 40 children and then you can go to different groups and then help those learners who can't do or who are struggling. But there, I think I can't actually make a difference because I won't know that this one is now does understand because there are more learners inside the classroom. So yeah, few learners in the classrooms and they know how to teach.

Discussion Choosing to become an early childhood teacher may begin with a love of children or emerge as an interest once enrolled in education modules, but it involves both financial and personal costs. Students were unanimous in their claims that the bursaries were inadequate to fund all the costs of tuition, room, board, and books. Additional expenses related to transport to field experiences and preparing learning resources stretched limited budgets. While pursuing a career in education was often supported financially and emotionally by parents, peers and community members, former teachers were less encouraging. Most disconcerting however, was the difference in marks accorded to projects that were 'bought' and therefore 'more beautiful' than those that were created from recycled materials. This became even more concerning when the students in this study reminded us that in their own experiences, they had not been exposed to having similar materials as young children or similar expectations for their work as students in primary and secondary school.

In reflecting on the stories of these pre-service teachers, it appears that as the teacher educators, we don't realise that although we intend to be kind and caring, we might be racist. However, when we create assignments and evaluate them in ways that privilege both the access to 'beautiful materials' and prior experiences in obtaining those materials; when we fail to go to students to learn from them, assuming instead that everyone has had similar educational experiences, aren't we racist? Using Pollock's definition of racism, 'any act that, even unwittingly, tolerates, accepts or reinforces racially unequal opportunities for children to learn and thrive; allows racial inequalities in opportunity as if they are normal and acceptable; or treats people of colour as less worthy or less complex than "white" people' (2008, p. xvii), suggests that we are guilty.

Lecturers who developed assignments that encouraged students to 'think outside the box' to locate materials and repurpose them into new learning resources reflect the liberal bias that we accommodate our evaluations of products based on 'creativity' and 'effort' in ways that balance out the actual raw materials utilised by the black students. The question becomes, when the experiences of the students as learners in early childhood classrooms are so foreign to the dominant, privileged model, how do instructors and programs adapt to equalise the opportunities to be successful in terms of access to materials and experiences?

Black students frequently referred to lecturers advising them to 'think outside the box' in order to create resources for the under-resourced classrooms in which they would begin their teaching careers based on the models they saw and experienced as ECED students.

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One student noted:

It is a huge investment, especially since we're going to rural schools with limited resources. The resources that we have now, we'll be able to use in the future so It's not like we're wasting our time or our money.

Another student remarked:

It's very interesting because they teach you how to make things. It's like you don't have to buy other stuff, you learn to do it for your own and then / think that is something special. You can't waste money on everything. I have to be able to know how to recycle and all that, so I think it's wonderful that you can do your own puppets using your own hands. All you have to get is the material so I think it's outreaching, it's really teaching us.

CRT, as it began in Critical Legal Studies, examines issues of 'property' (Täte, 2007). In a tangible sense, the students in this study had limited prior experiences possessing the basic school supplies of paper, glue, markers and paints that were common for the other students. As one of the black students said, 'We are not used to having those. We don't even know where to get them', reflecting the cultural and economic divide between themselves and the white students. Searching through trash cans and saving up empty containers while other students bought new materials to complete class assignments reinforced the differences in property of the two groups of students in the program.

Who has the right to the simple materials of paper, glue, and paints or to instructional technologies of computers and laminating machines, or to reliable, safe transport so that you are on an equal footing? Students were enthusiastic about being advised 'to think out of the box' and encouraged to learn in new ways despite their lack of familiarity with the kinds of activities they were expected to create and the materials their white peers had used in arts and crafts as children. But the evidence when marks were allocated to projects showed that, although pre- service teachers of colour had been innovative, they were penalised for their lack of resources, when compared with the resources available to their white peers.

How do we change a system that seems to be resistant to the fundamental changes necessary to prepare teachers of colour? From the perspectives of the students we interviewed, making resources available for the learning modules and having greater access to textbooks are a starting point. In fact, faculty members themselves have sought out ways to secure materials for students at reasonable costs but come against institutional policies that prevent their actions. In setting up the criteria for learning resources and the scholarly work that students must also incorporate into their projects, we rarely critique the expectations that

we, as white teacher educators, hold and the level of intellectual challenge we create to promote learning. Not intentionally setting out to set up black learners to do poorly, we encourage students to think outside the box—all the while assuming we know the 'boxes' they bring with them. We encourage them 'to try' as though they just aren't trying hard enough to read our minds or guess what experiences we're thinking about ourselves, or convert 'found' and recycled materials into brand-new treasures. We don't mean to be racist, but we are.

So what do we as a faculty do to change a program that continues to fill ECED lecture halls with students, 99% of whom are white females? If we are ever to provide an adequate number of teachers, we have to show through our actions that we value students who understand first-hand what it means to live and learn in a rural, urban or township area. We must work with our institutions and our black students to actively recruit from across the country, provide adequate financial and academic support, and enlist students' assistance as we attempt to employ culturally relevant pedagogies for them and ourselves. It also means that we need all of our students, regardless of their race or culture, to develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions that enable them to teach learners who are unique individuals with diverse ways of learning and understanding their world.

We must begin to appreciate the funds of knowledge (Moll, 1992) that all our students bring into the early childhood teacher education program. As we listened to the stories the students shared, we began to appreciate the strengths that they brought to the program in new ways. The insights we gained have led us to reconsider ways to build relationships with all students so that we can encourage and hear their voices and create spaces for their perspectives to be reflected in the courses that we teach.

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