Developing Preservice Teachers’ Positionalities in 140 Characters or Less: Examining Microblogging as Dialogic Space

Studies examining preservice teachers’ (PSTs) experiences with microblogging and activities that buttress and promote their social justice development have largely occurred in isolation from one another. To that end, this study examines in what ways pairing the popular social networking website Twitter with readings from a young adult literature course helped PSTs cultivate their awareness of and positionalities related to the social justice issues discussed in the course—and ones they will confront in their classrooms. Although students noted that engaging in this new dialogic space afforded certain benefits, the data suggest that PSTs encountered a variety of obstructions as they worked to develop and articulate their social-justice-oriented positionalities, including difficulty extending in-class conversations and trouble negotiating the social dimensions of Twitter. In examining the intersection between Twitter and its conduciveness to support PSTs’ social justice positionalities, the findings suggest that, despite its popularity, the forum did not prove to be an organic medium for students to engage social justice issues. Findings imply that teacher educators interested in utilizing microblogging to foster PSTs’ social awareness and growth should utilize Twitter as but one of many pedagogical tools to assist students in developing their social justice positionalities. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 16(2) 83 Given the diverse social milieu of the world in which teachers live and work, as well as the predominantly White, female, and middle class population of preservice teachers (PSTs; Boser, 2014), preparing PSTs to enter the profession equipped with the skills and tools to work toward a more equitable society is increasingly important. Privileged positionality, and the fact that teacher education programs frequently avoid promoting these critical conversations in favor of remaining firmly on the safer terrain of lesson planning (e.g, see Britzman, 2003), result in many PSTs lacking extensive experience engaging in discussion around oppressive phenomena such as racism, classism, regionalism, homophobia, and the many intersections therein (Ladson-Billings, 1999; McIntyre, 2002). Hooks (1994) asserted that engaging in a professional dialog “is one of the simplest ways we can begin as teachers, scholars, and critical thinkers to cross boundaries, the barriers that may or may not be erected by race, gender, class, professional standing, and a host of other differences” (p. 130). In order to engage these issues meaningfully, PSTs require spaces and opportunities to develop and articulate their own positionalities toward issues of social justice. Providing spaces to foster these conversations is essential in the effort to encourage PSTs’ growth as social justice practitioners. To that end, we designed a study to examine the extent to which pairing microblogging with the content of a young adult literature (YAL) course helped students develop their social consciousness as well as better understand, articulate, and expand their own positionalities toward the injustices about which they read (i.e., racism, sexuality, regionalism, etc.). As they tweeted, PSTs were asked to follow two guidelines: (a) strive to develop and articulate their own stances toward social inequities, and (b) consider ways in which they might engage these issues of (in)equity in their own classrooms. We found that while the practice of microblogging afforded students certain benefits, the platform was largely incompatible with authentically engaging issues of social justice. PSTs struggled to move away from the traditional roles and spaces of classroom dialog and to develop new voices and stances through a social media platform. Likewise, PSTs found extending their in-class conversations to Twitter to be difficult— that is, they struggled to navigate the spaces between their physical classroom and the online world of the microblogging platform. Finally, PSTs experienced difficulty negotiating Twitter’s social dimensions; they struggled to share their developing, intimate ideas of social justice using the online microblogging space. After hypothesizing the causes for the seeming dialogic mismatch between PSTs, microblogging, and their ability to question, articulate, and otherwise develop their positionalities in this paper, we suggest that teacher educators interested in using Twitter to promote the critical analysis of social justice issues should utilize microblogging as but one of many instructional tools in a comprehensive, guided approach.