SENSE MAKING IN GRAY SPACES: AN EXAMINATION OF EVANGELICAL PRESERVICE TEACHERS NAVIGATING THE INTERSECTION OF FAITH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN EDUCATION

Abstract

This practitioner inquiry study examined how evangelical preservice teachers made sense of competing social justice discourses within a teacher education program housed at an evangelical institution. Social justice discourses in education (Cambron-McCabe & McCarthy, 2016) are guiding some states to ground teacher preparation standards in critical race theory (CRT) whereas a segment of American evangelicalism has taken a religious stance against CRT (Baucham, 2021). Thus, there is a need for preservice teachers attending an evangelical institution to consider the intersection between their teacher education curriculum and their religious beliefs. Using fundamentalist discourse as a framework, this inquiry asked evangelical preservice teachers to apply their faith lens to social-justice oriented, education-based scenarios. The issues included suspension-based disciplinary policies, Native American high school mascots, and diversification of classroom curricula. Within each scenario, two opposing viewpoints on the issue were presented, and preservice teachers were asked how they thought biblically about the situation. Data collected included written responses to all three scenarios. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic cycle was applied to locate themes across the responses that were then distilled into these three findings. First, placing a social justice issue into a specific scenario where the abstract becomes concrete appeals to evangelical preservice teacher values of individualism and personal relationship. Second, evangelical preservice teachers avoid talking about race if they are not asked directly to talk about race. Third, the gray space of the scenario empowers preservice teachers to work through tensions between theological and professional discourses surrounding social justice. As a result, an implication is to incorporate these kinds of scenarios into teacher education curriculum to provide religiously conservative preservice teachers a space to make sense of the intersection of their faith and social justice.