Perspectives on Color in Teacher Education Programs: Prominent Issues

Race continues to be a critical, complex, and pervasive issue in America. Teacher education is not immune to its influence. Schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs) are under increasing attack for failure to address issues of racial diversity (Parker & Hood, 1995). Criticisms have ranged from failure of programs to recruit and retain graduate students of color to courses in the teacher preparation curriculum largely devoid of content and knowledge about various racial groups in the United States (Holmes Group Forum, 1990). The Holmes Partnership and other reform initiatives (e.g., Project 30) have recognized the need to recruit university faculty and students of color as essential to achieving cultural diversity and developing more viable programs. Although Holmes acknowledges that several schools and universities have recruited and retained minorities, one Holmes position paper states these [steps] may not be sufficient as the current situation calls for radical action by universities, colleges of education, school systems, and Professional Development Schools (Holmes Group, 1990, p. 40). The presence and contributions of minorities in higher education have foci of interest for many researchers (Darling-Hammond, 1996; Fuller, 1992; Gollnick, 1992; Renner, 1998). Research findings reveal a problem of critical magnitude. The National Center for Education Statistics (1995) estimates that about 13% of full-time college and university faculty were minorities in 1992-1993; the majority were White males. The American Association for Employment in Education's (1998) Teacher Supply and Demand in the United States: 1997 Report reported that the opportunities for people of color in education are inviting. Almost all educators, employers, and policymakers recognize the disparity between the number of teachers of color and the number of minority students in schools. Major efforts are under way to attract minorities to teaching. This apparent disparity between the cultural representativeness of educators and students is at the heart of the supply-and-demand issue. Researchers predict that by 2000, the teaching workforce will be overwhelmingly composed of educators who are White and female (Hawkins, 1994). Smith and Tyler (1994), in a survey of members of the Higher Education Consortium in Special Education (HECSE), found that 268 (20%) of 1,341 students currently enrolled in doctoral programs were minorities. Among the minority students, 45% (120/268) reported that they might seek jobs in higher education, an average of only 24 per year for the next 5 years. Educators in all segments of the profession are generally focusing attention on the changing profile of the U.S. national population and specifically on the changing profile of students in preschool through secondary settings. By 2000, demographers estimate that a minimum of one third of the school population will be minority, special needs, and economically disadvantaged students (Hodgkinson, 1986). In contrast, the population of preservice and inservice P-12 educators remains primarily European American female. Additionally, the professoriate is overwhelmingly dominated by European American males, with varying but relatively small percentages of females and minority faculty represented (Fuller, 1992). There are, of course, exceptions. But the rule is one of underrepresentation of America's diverse groups (Fuller, 1992). As Ducharme and Kluender (1990) observe, the overwhelming `maleness' of the faculty is likely to decrease, but the `whiteness' factor will continue to grow (p. 46). According to the Hudson Institute, approximately 80% of the new entrants into the labor force over the next decade will be women and minorities. This has particular relevance for higher education, where the pool of minority faculty applicants is shrinking while the demand for new minority faculty grows. Demographic data indicate that the majority of women and minority faculty are concentrated at less prestigious 2- and 4-year colleges; even in those institutions, they are at the lower end of the faculty ranks or in non-tenure-track positions (Olsen, Maple, & Stage, 1995). …