







































Education, Language and Sociology Research 
ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 2, No. 3, 2021 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

Original Paper 

Crossing Borders in Initial Teacher Education: Supporting 

Translations in the Inner-City Practicum 
Jeannie Kerr1 & Katya Adamov Ferguson2 

1 Faculty of Education, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Canada 
2 Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada 

 

Received: May 20, 2021         Accepted: June 5, 2021        Online Published: June 13, 2021 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v2n3p16            URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v2n3p16 

 

Abstract 

Research examining teacher candidates’ preparation to teach in high-poverty, urban contexts marked 

by diversities and inequalities, throughout North America and internationally, is predominantly focused 

on examining and changing problematic attitudes based in white normativity and privilege. While this 

is extremely important, there has been a noted absence of research that supports translations of critical 

ideas from coursework into the practicum experience. In this article we share a case-study of eight 

teacher candidates supported by a practicum team approach designed to support these translations 

into the inner-city teaching practicum. The study is designed and analyzed through decolonial, 

settler-colonial, critical, and Indigenous theories and philosophies. The authors found common deficit 

perspectives in the practicum site, but that a relational focus across university and school contexts 

supported the translation of critical ideas into practice. This study recommends a more explicit 

engagement with settler colonialism and white privilege within both the practicum and coursework. 

Keywords 

initial teacher education, urban education, settler colonialism, inner-city, whiteness 

 

1. Introduction 

Our research is focused on matters of inequalities in inner-city educational contexts and how this might 

be understood and addressed within programs of Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Inner-city 

neighborhoods in Canada are predominantly composed of Indigenous and newcomer individuals and 

communities, and racialized students in these neighborhoods continue to experience significant 

negative educational outcomes (Statistic Canada, 2016; Winnipeg School Division, 2019). In the 

United States, low-income urban communities are similarly marked by long-standing racialized 

patterns, as well as negative educational outcomes (Noguera, 2017). Despite these patterns, the 

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teaching force and students in teacher education working in these communities across North America 

remains predominantly composed of white females embodying a culture of white normativity (Han et 

al., 2015; Janzen & Cranston, 2016; Marom, 2019). ITE programs note the priority of diversifying the 

teaching force but are also cognizant of the need to prepare the currently predominantly white, settler 

teacher candidates to engage meaningfully with diversities in multicultural educational contexts 

marked by inequalities (Griffin et al., 2016; Marom, 2018). 

There is a significant amount of research that attends to the intersection of schooling in urban 

high-poverty contexts, racialized inequalities and ITE. A comprehensive two-part international 

literature review of research in teacher education by Cochran-Smith and Villegas (2015) and 

Cochran-Smith et al. (2015) positions the research on educational inequalities and diversities as one of 

three major research clusters in teacher education. While there has been concurrence within this 

research cluster on the significance and positive results of altering the predominantly white teacher 

educators’ deficit views about diversity to more affirming views, there has been “little evidence of the 

profound shift in perspective than many researchers consider fundamental to becoming 

equity-minded/socially just teachers” (p. 116). A large research study by Solomon et al. (2005) detailed 

the attitudinal patterns and discourses of teacher candidates and concluded that disrupting meritocracy 

narratives and white privilege that support these patterns is essential in ITE programming. While 

addressing the belief systems of teacher candidates is an important focus, Cochran-Smith et al. (2015) 

conclude that research in teacher education is needed “that goes beyond assuming that changing teacher 

candidates’ beliefs necessarily leads to different behaviors and actions in the classrooms” (p. 117). 

Since that review, a large study conducted by Kuriloff et al. (2019) on early-career teacher readiness to 

work in urban, high poverty school settings, concluded that 72% of beginning teachers felt unprepared 

by their ITE program for this complex context, suggesting that a focus on changing beliefs and 

attitudes within coursework does not translate to changed practices in urban teaching contexts. A study 

in a large teacher education program in Canada by Kerr and Andreotti (2019) sought to gain greater 

insight into the potential disconnect between dispositions of teacher candidates to diversities and 

inequalities, and their capacities to engage this in their teaching practices. This study found that there is 

a significant gap between teacher candidates’ abstract commitments and dispositions to addressing 

diversities and inequalities, and actual educational practices that would affirm those commitments 

(Kerr & Andreotti, 2019). These conclusions affirm previous findings revealed in a comprehensive 

study of ITE in Canada by Gambhir et al. (2008) where they note, there “is a disparity in how [teacher 

candidates] are supported to apply the theories they learn to their future practice in meaningful, critical 

and explicit ways” (p. 17). Recognizing the insufficiency of relying solely on course-based approaches 

with a focus on changing attitudes to address educational inequalities in practice, this study is focused 

on understanding how to support teacher candidates in translating critical theories on diversities and 

inequalities into the practicum component of their ITE program in an inner-city educational context. In 

this article, we share details of a case-study addressing these educational priorities. 
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We highlight at the outset that the choice of terminology for the project as inner-city was a specific 

theoretical and political choice. The term inner-city is used pervasively within Canadian research 

literatures; Federal and local data collection categories; K-12 district initiatives across Canada; and 

within programs of ITE and university coursework more generally. This terminology is meant to denote 

a core spatial area of concentrated poverty within an urban geography. Although, the term inner-city is 

also entangled in problematic deficit discourses. Khoo (2017) argues that inner-city is a term that has 

complex, shared socio-cultural meanings that implicate race, and exceed its specific linguistic 

definition focused on place. Referencing Haslanger (2013), he emphasizes that social meanings convey 

stereotypical beliefs and call in schemas or narratives which we use to “focus attention, coordinate 

expectations, sift evidence and rationalize behavioral and emotional dispositions” (as cited in Khoo, 

2017, p. 57). The term urban is often being used as a replacement for the term inner-city in educational 

contexts, yet the same problematics emerge where urban is used as a “euphemism for black and brown 

youth” (Tuck & Habtom, 2019). We believe that changing the term inner-city to something else will not 

change the problematic deficit attitudes that have become unfairly associated with the culturally and 

linguistically enriched communities in inner-city locations that defy significant economic and political 

marginalization. We therefore use the term inner-city to draw attention to the geo-spatial production of 

racialized poverty. 

 

2. Method 

Our research is a case-study of eight teacher candidates over the course of one year in a two-year 

Bachelor of Education program at a university in Winnipeg, Manitoba (University) that were placed in 

a K-6 inner-city school in Winnipeg supported by an enhanced practicum team approach in the 

2017/2018 school year. The practicum hosted at the school consisted of one-day per week throughout 

the year and two five-week practicum blocks. A full course schedule was provided at the University in 

condensed format to accommodate practicum blocks. This enhanced approach drew together the 

teacher candidates, co-operating teachers, university instructors, and practicum advisor in regular 

dialogue with each other and the researchers. This approach was framed through relational and storied 

practices to support the complex learning of teacher candidates and to enhance the connections between 

the isolated contexts of the university and the practicum experiences (Ralph, Walker, & Wimmer, 2007). 

2.1 Preliminary Justifications and Clarifications of the Approach 

The location of Winnipeg for this study is particularly appropriate as statistical data continues to show 

that Winnipeg’s inner-city residents are composed of significant numbers of urban Indigenous and 

diverse newcomer immigrant individuals and communities, and that they continue to experience 

disproportionate inequitable economic opportunities and educational outcomes in comparison to 

non-inner-city residents (Statistics Canada, 2016; Winnipeg School Division, 2018). Further, Winnipeg 

has the highest numbers of Indigenous peoples in an urban setting in Canada. Winnipeg is considered by 

urban geographers to be one of the most dynamic cities in North America in relation to Indigenous 
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resurgence, yet is often commonly spoken of as a fairly banal prairie city (Dorries et al., 

2019)—previously labelled in McLean’s as Canada’s most racist city (MacDonald, 2015). While there 

are certainly limitations to characterizing the lived reality of a city, these more recent considerations by 

urban geographers point to the significance of undertaking research in prairie, urban locations—and 

notably Winnipeg. Winnipeg’s patterns of racialized segregation that emerge from policy, systemic 

racism, and unequal participation (Dorries et al., 2019) are similar to racialized segregation in major 

cities in the United States (Nodjimbadem, 2017).  

A case-study approach was chosen to enable greater understanding and more detailed insights into the 

lived-complexity of the relational dynamics under consideration in the support of teacher candidates in 

translations of knowledge across contexts. Flyvbjerg (2006) advocates that a case-study approach 

contributes to the creation of the systematic production of exemplars in an area of investigation through 

detailed observation and engagement, and argues that such work is generalizable to broader contexts. 

This case-study provides enhanced relational experiences, and then focuses into the dynamic relational 

processes that involve multiple people, with differing institutional responsibilities, that are collectively 

supporting the complex learning of teacher candidates. Phelan (2011) outlines an evolution in teacher 

education research and articulates a contemporary phase focused on achieving greater understanding of 

complexity. In this approach teacher education can be viewed as a cultural object that could be 

understood within and between fields of philosophy, history, sociology, and politics. Phelan 

characterizes this research as attending to subjectivities of people in contexts of responsibility in 

conditions that they have not made, and a related focus on the discursive productions of teaching 

identities, school practices and social values. From this perspective, the questions raised in this study 

do not lend themselves to answers and solutions within prescriptions for practice. Rather, we seek a 

greater understanding of complexity, uncertainty, and the significance of context and place, without a 

teleological view focused on universalized best practices. 

2.2 Participants 

The participants in the research were Teacher Candidates (TCs), the Practicum Advisor (PA), 

University-based Course Instructors (CIs), and Co-operating Teachers (CTs) at Heartfulness School 

(Note 1). There were eight TCs in total (6 females and 2 males), and all were enrolled in a two-year 

Bachelor of Education program at the University starting in September, 2017. All of these participants 

had previously completed undergraduate degrees and were assigned to Heartfulness as part of their 

program, and all had their courses scheduled together in a K-8 focused program. The PA assigned was 

also in the role as CI in a year-long foundations of education course. The PA has had a long-career in 

teaching and leadership, but was new to this practicum site. From the University, five CIs agreed to 

participate, and ultimately four were able to attend research activities. This represents about half of the 

credit hours of coursework in total. We engaged all of the course outlines within the data analysis. The 

CIs that participated all had experience teaching in contexts of racialized poverty or were from an 

inner-city community. From Heartfulness, eight CTs participated (all female), and both the Principal 
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(male) and Vice-Principal (female) supported all research activities. All people involved in the research 

process were white people of settler origins and could be considered middle-class. The majority of TCs 

revealed minimal personal interaction with ethnic, linguistic, and socio-economic differences from their 

own positionality in their social, familial and educational experiences. 

2.3 Methodological and Theoretical Framework 

There are multiple dimensions to the research, but the subject of this particular article is the mentorship 

and translation of critical ideas on equality and diversity by teacher candidates into the inner-city 

practicum experience. The methodology for this research was centred on three talking circles over the 

course of one year that drew together the participants from the university and school contexts. The 

theories underlying this approach drew on the work of Indigenous scholars Jo-ann Archibald and 

Dwayne Donald. Both Dr. Archibald an Dr. Donald are mentors of Jeannie, and have provided 

feedback on the analysis of their methodologies in this study, which has been incorporated into this 

article. The theoretical commitments within these scholars’ work centre on: the significance of stories 

to create deeper meaning; relationships as a key part of learning; and ethics as fundamental throughout 

all engagements. The research was enhanced by pre- and post-surveying to understand teacher 

candidates’ lived experiences, as well as dispositions towards inequalities and diversities and how this 

might be engaged in teaching practice. The research was also enhanced through an analysis of 

course-outlines from their teacher education program; and a workshop specific to diversities and 

inequalities for teacher candidates. 

The research started with the pre-survey for the TC participants and was followed by a workshop for 

TCs facilitated by Jeannie as part of regular programming. The workshop provided a meta-language to 

enable self-reflexive analysis of experiences in border crossing in educational contexts. Border crossing 

is theoretically framed as working with and through moments of personal awareness of feeling apart, 

and wherein we construct someone or something else as being other in ways that create or reinforce 

power inequalities (Giroux, 1991; Gorski, 2008). The workshop drew on Giroux’s (1991) development 

of border pedagogy wherein masked privilege and subordination, that supports institutional and 

ideological boundary making, is revealed and made available for analysis. In this way, this study is 

encouraging what Mignolo (2012) theorizes as border thinking, wherein TCs are encouraged to 

consider an epistemic orientation that eschews universality of knowing and being. Borders themselves 

were conceived as being geographic, cultural, ideological, emotional, linguistic and/or psychological, 

and invoking habitual dispositions that emerge from individual affiliations, histories and experiences. 

The workshop and surveying drew on previous work from Kerr and Andreotti (2018; 2019) and 

extended into the specifics of inner-city educational contexts. 

The workshop and pre-survey took place in the Fall of 2017 and was followed by three talking circles 

at Heartfulness School over the course of the school year. In the circles, the practicum team shared 

personal experience stories that were themed on concerns of the study: anticipating educational 

inequalities (Fall); in-process mentorship (Winter); and post-practicum practice oriented (Spring). The 
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protocols for the talking circles were based on Jeannie’s oral teachings received from Dr. Archibald and 

then Dr. Amy Parent, and her experiences learning in talking circles with them in post-secondary 

education in the field of Indigenous Education. These talking circles were geared towards academic and 

educational contexts, and while drawing on Indigenous knowledges, did not engage in ceremony or 

work that should be led by an Elder. Each circle in this research project started with a rock (Note 2) that 

had been gifted to Jeannie from one of her mentors and was considered by her to have spiritual 

significance due to the gift and the connection to Mother Earth. The rock remained at the school under 

the care of one of the CTs throughout the year. Jeannie initiated each circle with a reminder of the 

protocols of the talking circle as well as ethics in research practices, and then a personal experience 

story related to the theme of the circle. The basics of the protocol are that the circle starts with her 

introductions and reminders of protocols, and the rock is held at the beginning of the circle and a story 

is shared. The rock is then passed clockwise, and each participant takes turns sharing related personal 

stories uninterrupted as the rock is passed. Each participant can decline and pass the rock without 

explanation. Jeannie shared her own stories of practice in the inner-city which were intended to draw 

out the politics of inequalities, and the tensions embedded with identity and place. See Appendix A for 

these stories. Advance notice of themes was provided before each of the subsequent circles. Each circle 

was audio-recorded and transcribed for analysis. 

In relation to facilitating and understanding potential insights from the talking circles, this study was 

framed on Dwayne Donald’s concept of ethical relationality (2016), and drew on Jo-ann Archibald’s 

(2008) Indigenous Storywork as theory and methodology, Gadamerian hermeneutic analysis (Gadamer, 

2004), and a walking analysis developed by the researchers. Donald (2012) has shared that “[e]thical 

relationality is an ecological understanding of human relationality that does not deny difference, but 

rather seeks to understand more deeply how our different histories and experiences position us in 

relation to each other” (p. 103). He points out that we cannot be ethical unless we appreciate that we 

are related, and that our future as peoples with all living beings on Mother Earth are already tied 

together (Donald, 2016). His approach draws attention to the significance of attending to the ethical 

responsibilities of being in relation, and is the overarching frame to consider the divided realities and 

inequalities that are the context of the research. 

To work towards the commitments within ethical relationality, this study engaged with Archibald’s 

(2008) conceptualization of Indigenous Storywork as theory and methodology. This approach is suited to 

the complex nature of the research, through engaging participants wholistically (Note 3) through story’s 

ability to engage the intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual dimensions of experience. Archibald’s 

approach is reliant on Indigenous principles of respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, 

interrelatedness, and synergy in making meaning from stories. Bringing stories together in shared ethical 

space enables greater insights through the synergy of the inter-related stories—offering emergent and 

generative conceptualizations. This methodology enables a focus on the complexity of orientations of the 

practicum team and insights from the synergy of sharing of ideas, inquiries, and experiences. This 
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approach moves away from purely rational explanations and instead facilitates an embodied, wholistic 

experience which draws upon emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual aspects. As Principal 

Investigator, Jeannie was aware that the use of a methodology based in Indigenous teachings, by a 

non-Indigenous person, both in research design and analysis, adds another layer of potential for 

problematic colonial engagements. We agree with Tuck and Yang (2012) in that non-Indigenous 

academics can engage with work in support of revealing settler colonialism and learning from 

Indigenous thought, yet “this joining cannot be too easy, too open, too settled” (p. 3). We are mindful of 

Celia Haig-Brown’s nuanced analysis that seeks to balance concerns of appropriation and “deep learning” 

in the engagement with Indigenous knowledges by non-Indigenous peoples (Haig-Brown, 2009, p. 225). 

We recognize we have been taught/learned within and from Dr. Archibald’s Indigenous Storywork, but 

that we are not claiming expertise. Jeannie maintains her mentorship from both Dr. Archibald and Dr. 

Donald to inform her interpretations in research. 

2.4 Analysis 

The talking circle sessions were recorded and then analyzed through Indigenous Storywork principles 

(Archibald, 2008) and Gadamerian hermeneutic analysis to acknowledge the impositions of our 

fore-structures in interpretation within a settler-colonial context (Gadamer, 2004; Kerr, 2020). We did 

not record any participants by pseudonyms, but instead participants remained anonymous and recorded 

by their particular role in the project. Our approach is not meant to analyze any one person or to 

individualize patterns. Instead, we consider the ways people with different roles and backgrounds 

participate in public educational spaces in particular places, and the mentorship of TCs. Our theoretical 

lens for design and interpretation of the circles recognizes the immersion of the circles in inequalities 

that are sourced to ongoing colonial encounters which are largely invisible to privileged positionalities 

(Grosfoguel, 2007; Mignolo, 2012), and a settler colonial context in the North End of Winnipeg that 

constructs exclusionary and divided realties based on perceptions of Indigeneity and processes of 

racialization (Donald, 2012; Hugill & Toews, 2017; Mackey, 2002; Thobani, 2007; Toews, 2018). 

We further developed our approach to analysis through undertaking walking discussions of our analyses 

in significant places. While there is some research literature on walking methodologies, this particular 

walking data analysis was inspired by the understanding that places have embodied impact and can be a 

teacher, and drew on the scholarship of Indigenous informed philosophies (Madden, 2016; Marker, 2018). 

Jeannie’s long-term mentorship by Arapaho scholar Dr. Michael Marker informed this approach. We 

planned walks one month apart during the Spring of 2019. Prior to each walk, we took time to read and 

re-read the transcripts and make notes on our fore-structures, emergent themes, and findings as per 

Gadamerian methodological practices. We recorded our fore-structures (potential projections and 

expectations) based on our backgrounds as inner-city educators and our identities as white settlers who 

engage in ongoing learning from Indigenous mentors and Indigenous scholarship, and who explore 

issues of white normativity. We recorded repeated patterns we were seeing within the transcripts. We then 

met and walked and discussed our ideas orally in significant places, again drawing on the synergy of 
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ideas. We made particular note of the similarities and differences between our analyses, and found that 

our perceptions of the patterns in the talking circles were in agreement with each other. Our walking 

analyses were undertaken in specific locations: Analysis of Circle 1—walking around the neighborhood 

of Heartfulness School; Analysis of Circle 2— walking in and through the University campus; and 

Analysis of Circle 3—walking in and through the historic Forks as the confluence of the Red River and 

the Assiniboine River on Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2019. 

Both researchers were concerned about our impositions as white women who had experienced significant 

shifts in our understanding of privilege, oppression and positionality through learning through 

Indigenous mentors in personal and formal settings. We were considering the propensity for both of us to 

engage in settler moves to innocence (Tuck & Yang, 2012), in placing the issues of colonialism as 

something we have surmounted. As former classroom teachers, we also are aware of the ways that 

teachers’ work and knowledge become deprofessionalized, and teachers are unfairly held to account for 

both the problems of the school system and society (Ranson, 2010; Walker, 2013). We discussed this 

aspect in depth and worked to maintain ethical and respectful relations. We considered our own 

limitations as unsettled settlers in this work (Ferguson, 2017; Regan, 2010) as well as the immersion of 

the education system and our society in mostly invisibilized settler-colonial logics (Donald, 2012), white 

normativity, and denial of privilege (Marom, 2018; Mill, 2007). Through our process, three themes 

emerged that speak to the complications and barriers of translations of critical ideas from course work on 

systemic inequalities and diversities into the lived-experience of the teaching practicum. In this next 

section, we outline the themes and engage with the voices of the participants noted through their roles in 

the project. The selections were chosen as representatives of ideas/themes that we both recognized as 

being engaged repeatedly in our analyses. 

2.4.1 Emergent Theme 1—Excess of Responsibility and the Emotional Toll of Inner-City Teaching in 

Mentorship 

Firstly, in their role as mentors, the cooperating teachers (CTs) conveyed a sense of strong bonds and 

relationships with the students. 

… because that’s where those meaningful relationships come from, is those great, deep 

conversations that you have with the kids and that’s honestly the best part of the job, is 

getting close to them and learning from them. 

The CTs as mentors constructed inner-city teaching as an experience marked by overwhelming 

responsibility. It is evident that the responsibility involved in caring for and educating young children 

living in extremely difficult circumstances takes an emotional toll. 

I said “Yeah, and where were you yesterday?” and he said “Oh yeah, I went to the 

shelter … The rats were chewing through my bed.” And it was just – he wasn’t sad, he 

wasn’t pitying himself, it wasn’t like anything … you just have to learn how to react in the 

moment and not just stare at him dumbfounded.  

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… I’ve always struggled with this year is not bringing home the sort of sorrow I feel for 

some of my students. When they come to me and tell me the stories of their home life and 

how awful it is … I have really struggled when I know that something terrible is 

happening at home and they’re not getting saved … 

I was potentially going to take a leave…it was exhausting and mentally draining. 

The CTs spoke of the unexpected departures of students and the difficulty of dealing with their own sense 

of loss. 

Like every day, a student could be gone and then the next day you get three more and you 

just have to go with the flow every single day. 

… we work so hard to like connect with our kids and try and fill those needs and then 

sometimes just out of the blue they’re gone; they’ve moved, they’ve transferred, 

sometimes we know where, sometimes we don’t … 

The following quotes by the Teacher Candidates (TCs) reflect the ways they are being mentored within 

this context. The TCs reveal their awareness of the complexity in making judgements within the process 

of becoming a teacher. The emotional lives of kids living in poverty is a central aspect of learning for TCs 

as they observe CTs prioritizing the emotional needs of students over the academic concerns which they 

assumed would be the key focus in their practicum. The quotes also reveal that the University 

coursework is not viewed as being as significant as the practicum. 

… I don’t think these CT’s realise how much we see and how much it helps just to be able 

to see that and witness it. 

I feel that a lot of what we’re learning in the university context is politically correct, 

some of it is maybe being idealistic but at the same time, we need that stuff…but when I 

get into the practicum setting, it’s like okay, here’s the real world now and that’s why I 

really appreciate all of you classroom teachers and the fact that you’re so honest with us. 

I have learned so much, I definitely realize now that you’re not going to get through all 

the curriculum but those basic needs come first especially in the inner-city. 

The Course Instructors (CIs) supported the narratives of the emotionally-laden experience of teaching in 

the inner-city and used language that characterizes the experience as “surviving” on more than one 

occasion. These comments characterize the CIs engagement and mentorship in high-poverty contexts: 

… we’re just constantly being asked to carry the plate a little bit, make it a little bit 

bigger, a little bit bigger. And we don’t have like rich billionaires who are donating 

money to buy new schools and everything, like other industries. So, we’re loving, caring 

people who just—we do what we can. 

I’m facing like I have to go back [to teaching in a high-poverty context] and there’s 

preparation to survive you know, you—and to keep your standards high for it’s my 20th 

year next year and you do go in times where you’re just getting through the day. 

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Importantly, the course outlines for all courses did not take up these emotional aspects directly, nor was 

the inner-city mentioned as a consideration. This may relate to why the TCs saw less value in University 

coursework in helping them navigate their practicum. The exception would be the Practicum Advisor 

(PA), who was also a CI, and deeply involved in making connections in the school. His course outline 

considered the wholistic experience of the children and involved the significance of making relationships 

and knowing the children well in and beyond the school as members of communities. The TCs singled 

this out as very helpful.  

2.4.2 Emergent Theme 2—Strained/Absent Relationships with Parents and Community & Deficit 

Discourses 

The significance of engaging with parents and communities was a theme present in the stories that led the 

circles. In the CT’s engagement with this aspect, the majority notably constructed the relationship with 

parents as strained and separate, and as a challenge that needed to be managed. Only one of the CTs 

mentioned their efforts to connect and build relationships with parents and learn from them as an 

important priority. Overall, the parents and community were seen as the source of problems for students, 

and not generative to their educational goals. These deficit perspectives of parents positioned the teacher 

in an integral role as assuming a parental role not being fulfilled. While the CTs are passionately 

committed to meeting the needs of students, their disconnection from parents and local community is a 

salient insight gathered from this study with far reaching implications.  

… you don’t even think about what’s going on sometimes in a kid’s home life, because 

they’re so good or coached at hiding it, so you just go on with your day. 

So, I think this unfairness is also rooted in family and stability, my presumption is that 

those kids are not surrounded by trustworthy people, adults. I’m shocked, because there 

are so many parents in jail or they don’t get enough food, sleep … but those kids, I don’t 

know who supports them otherwise than the school and the social workers, the teacher. 

Their stories revealed that many of the CTs did not see the potential of parents and community as 

partners. Social workers, Child and Family Services (CFS), and the school are seen as the locus of 

positive support in meeting students’ needs. The strong belief of CTs in CFS as a support to children 

provides insight into the appalling apprehension rates of Indigenous children in Manitoba, and has 

implications beyond this study. 

One thing that I didn’t do in my first year was call parents out … These conversations 

usually aren’t fun, I actually really don’t like being kind of harsh to parents, but it’s not a 

good conversation and so very dodgy about these things because for some, well a lot of 

the parents don’t trust me because I’m a teacher and they don’t want me to call any you 

know, CFS or anything like that. 

The CTs also note that they remain supported through their work through connecting with each other in 

the school community, and reinforce themselves together in this difficult work: 

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… when you have that group of teachers here who you can trust you know, who are going 

through exactly what you’re going through, you mentor each other and you’re a better 

teacher because of it … 

... so there’s getting familiar with the curriculum, is important, getting creative is 

important, but even more important is the ability to be collegial and professional and to 

work together because that’s the only way you survive. 

The Course Instructors (CIs) did not specifically discuss parent engagement that reflected deficit 

perspectives or comment about community and parents which is interesting as an omission. In review of 

course outlines, parents and community are mentioned briefly in one course outline. Within the talking 

circles, the CIs aligned more closely with the CTs, sharing views that reflected a lack of community 

connection. The comments revealed a focus on keeping academic standards high, most likely in response 

to many of the ideas in the circles about the secondary role of academics to social-emotional concerns. 

… but you really need to keep the depth and the quality of education there for these kids 

and not just because it’s hard, don’t just give into it and yes you will call social services 

50 times and they won’t call back … 

… in some of the places that I’ve seen as a parent or as a teacher leader kind of thing, 

there’s so many people out there in our community that don’t go that extra mile, don’t 

take that extra step and it gets exhausting after a while … 

The absence of community members in the talking circles could be considered an oversight in the 

research. The fact that Jeannie included community as a focus in her stories, but did not invite community 

members as part of the mentorship of TCs in the circles, is also reflective of ingrained habits of people 

immersed in school cultures—even when doing so from critical perspectives as an educational 

researcher.  

2.4.3 Emergent Theme 3—TCs Experiencing Positive Shifts in Addressing Inequalities Despite Deficit 

Framing in Practicum 

The deficit perspectives of parents and communities experiencing inequalities that are shared within 

mentorship by CTs has the capacity to either reinforce or promote negative biases with TCs. Despite the 

prominent discourses of disconnection from parents and communities, and the absence of positive 

connections with community from most of the CIs and the enhanced practicum design, TCs in this study 

were able to engage more generatively with diversities. Whiteness was a key aspect of the surveys, and 

the workshop with TCs. While whiteness was never discussed as a source of privilege in the circles, the 

TCs did consider the implications of their economic privilege and were more tentative on the 

authoritative dominance of Euro-Western knowledge systems. One TC mentioned the workshop as 

influencing their attempts to engage students in affirming ways. They also reflected a thoughtful 

consideration about honouring students’ belief systems from home, and maintaining complexity within 

their engagement with students. 

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… she said to me “Mr. [TC], where do people come from?” I wasn’t sure how to answer 

this question, because I wanted to be sensitive to her belief systems and other belief 

systems. I know where I think they came from, but I wasn’t sure what to tell her. 

… my dad grew up kind of in this area, like in and out of foster care and that kind of 

thing, and as a kid that was never a concern of mine. So, I never really related to him 

when he would say things like that … Now I think I’m kind of putting a face to it with all 

these little kids in the class and just kind of seeing it. So, I think talking to him, hearing 

everybody’s stories here, that’s helping a lot.  

I’m thinking how could I bring those [positive inner-city community] stories into the 

classroom, because I don’t need to teach these kids that story. I don’t need to teach them 

how to appreciate these sorts of people because these people are in their neighbourhoods, 

they’re their neighbours, their families. 

In response to the last comment, the PA encouraged the importance of positive community engagement, 

and also brought this idea forward in another circle: 

… what a wonderful opportunity to bring that book into the classroom to allow the 

students to begin to take a look at their own lives and give voice to their lives, similar to 

how this author gave voice to their life in that community. 

… within the school there are opportunities to develop programs either in the classroom 

or in the school where you can celebrate the cultures that exist. 

It may be that the combination of consistent mentorship of the PA, and his practice of having regular 

small group meetings as part of his foundations course, was a mediating factor that interrupted the deficit 

discourses that were being shared with TCs. Also, the critical workshop at the start of their journey may 

have invited the TCs to think more about their own experiences in relation to poverty, ways to build 

relationships, and consider their own privileges and self-understanding. 

Another part of this study are the pre- and post-surveys completed by the TCs. These surveys have been 

used in multiple studies and were developed by Vanessa Andreotti and engaged in collaborative 

research with Jeannie (Kerr & Andreotti, 2018, 2019). Discussion of the surveys will be part of another 

article, but we did note that TCs experienced a significant shift in both their understanding of economic 

inequalities as a systemic problem (50% pre-survey to 72% post-survey), as well as their ability to 

engage educational ideas in an inner-city context that addressed the historic and systemic issues of 

inequalities (25% pre-survey to 50% post-survey). Although, there was an increased tendency to ignore, 

deny, or avoid consideration of white privilege as an educator. TCs that showed a willingness to 

acknowledge and address white privilege stayed the same in pre- and post-surveys at about 30%. It is 

important for groups of predominantly white TCs immersed in educational contexts with all white 

mentors to have opportunities to critically address white privilege and develop awareness of white 

normativity as a source of educational inequalities. 

 
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3. Result 

We discuss our findings in relation to the land and its history. We are in the heart of Turtle Island (see 

Simpson, 2011 for a Nishnaabeg version of the creation story) at the confluence of the Assiniboine and 

Red Rivers, now also known as the city of Winnipeg. This general area is commonly referred to as “The 

Forks” and is the historic meeting place of Indigenous peoples and traditional territories of the 

Anishinaabeg, Nêhiyawak, Dakota, Oji-Cree, and Dene peoples and homeland of the Métis Nation 

(Huck, 2003). Since 1822, this has been the site of Fort Garry as the precursor to the city of Winnipeg, 

and another incarnation of Fort Garry further down river as the historic spot of signing Treaty 1 

(Manitoba Historical Society, n.d.). The remains of Fort Garry occupy a central spot in the city, 

particularly since the Fort site was reified in 2015 with a 440 ft long steel and public art/light installation, 

which we would argue positions itself through centrality, size and location as a place of public pedagogy 

(Ellsworth, 2005; Giroux, 2004) reinforcing the authority of contemporary settler colonialism (Kerr, 

2019). The idea that Winnipeg is founded on a fort down the river is significant to our findings. To share 

our findings in ways aligned with Indigenous Storywork methodology, we have woven our 

understanding of specific storied metaphors of relations based on inequalities and colonial encounters to 

provide more wholistic understandings of the findings directly connecting the research with place 

(Simpson, 2014). We will be drawing on our interpretation and memory of the story Up the River, Down 

the River (Note 4) and the Pedagogy of the Fort (Donald, 2012) to articulate our findings within a 

socio-cultural, political and historical context through story and metaphor. 

Up the River, Down the River 

A man is walking down the river and sees a child that seems to be in peril splashing in the 

water. Without hesitation, the man jumps in the river and saves the child, but then sees 

another child in similar circumstances. The man jumps back in the river and saves the next 

child, but then notices more and more children. The man is committed and exhausted, he 

implores passers-by to help him save the children in this down the river location. As such, 

more people help, and the cycle continues—more children struggling in peril, more people 

saving them, more people exhausted. One woman walks away. Another woman who is 

pulling a child out from the water yells to the woman who is leaving: “Where are you going? 

We have to save these children!” The woman responds “I’m going up the river to find out 

who is throwing these children in the water”.  

3.1 Inner-City Education: Down the River in the Fort 

In our place at the fork of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, we are located down two rivers both 

figuratively and geographically. This river story was a constant teacher for us and framed how we 

understood the framing of inner-city education and mentorship of becoming teachers by participants in 

this study in relation to our unique and dynamic context. The intense commitment of the participants was 

felt. Through tears, stories were shared of children with whom teachers are emotionally and physically 

invested, who then would regularly disappear—often without a trace—from the school community. 
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Working with children who are living in poverty and without basic necessities, and having high and 

unpredictable mobility in and out of the school community, clearly takes an emotional toll. Janzen and 

Phelan (2019) highlight the attrition and disengagement from the teaching profession due to the ethical 

sense of obligation to students that can be overwhelming for teachers. This was evident in this study. The 

teachers describe students who live without basic food and housing security, and through their stories 

shared the overwhelming obligation they feel towards students in circumstances that seem both 

impossible and ceaseless. Katya and Jeannie, who have both lived and worked in inner-city communities 

as teachers and researchers, understand and can relate to this experience. We see the CTs engagement in 

inner-city education and mentorship as being immersed down the river in saving children, and 

disconnected from up the river sources that are required for understanding and addressing these 

circumstances. More supports are needed for educators to understand the strengths of parents and 

community as potential collaborators, and to explore the sources of suffering in turbulent currents of 

settler colonialism, dispossession of land, and processes of racialization in which they are privileged.  

In this down the river context of exhaustion and saving, the CTs deny relations between themselves and 

the parents/community in a way that resonates deeply with Donald’s (2012) articulation of the Pedagogy 

of the Fort. As Donald argues, there are deeply learned habits arising from the colonial experience in 

Canada that reinforce a notion “that Aboriginal peoples and Canadians inhabit separate realities” 

(Donald, 2012, p. 91). Donald analyzes the fort as a mythic symbol that is part of the Canadian frontier 

imaginary that signifies the teleological dream of ‘civilization’, and that positions Indigenous peoples 

and knowledges as “outside accepted versions of nation and nationality” (p. 100). These narratives 

about Canadian nation building and civilization are deeply held in Euro-Western imaginations, and 

devalue Indigenous peoples and knowledges. Within the CT stories in this case study, the school 

manifests for the teachers as a Fort within these similar logics—becoming the guarded place of 

civilization and safety, in the midst of a community of danger. CTs call on each other, and other 

systems of colonial governance such as Child and Family Services, to aid in their difficult work of 

saving children. The emotional labour of the teachers in this study should not be discounted, but needs 

to be considered more deeply. Also, their stories of unpredictable student mobility emerged as a central 

narrative that require further research and attention.  

Our framing of inner-city mentorship by CTs as being down the river through Fort logics is also 

enacted by the CIs. From their collective viewpoint in the Fort, it is not possible to see up the river, and 

thus to engage and understand the systemic causes of the heart-wrenching experiences. Thus, these 

conditions are sourced as being located down the river and enacted by the parents and local communities 

outside the walls of the school. The context of settler colonialism, including the pivotal and 

intergenerational impact of education through the Indian Residential School System, is invisibilized 

within Fort logics. The role of other settler colonial mechanisms such as Child and Family Services in the 

ongoing apprehensions of Indigenous children, attempted erasure of culture and Indigenous governance, 

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and the dispossession of Indigenous lands in fostering economic poverty, are not within view from the 

fort (Kerr, 2019). 

The enhanced practicum team approach as a form of relational mentorship was incomplete and complex, 

and similarly enacted fort logics. The talking circles themselves did seem to provide opportunity for 

more relational engagements between the school and university contexts, and provided a space to give 

voice to personal experience, but did not emerge as being as pivotal as the PA in supporting the work of 

translations across contexts. The disconnections between parents, community and mentorship of TCs that 

emerged in the talking circles were also replicated through the study design. The lack of engagement with 

community in the mentorship of TCs in the enhanced practicum experience served to replicate the 

divided dynamics. While the research design and workshops drew attention to the up the river sources of 

concern in inner-city education, the practicum team approach invisibilized the potential role of 

parents/community in practicum mentorship that might help TCs address these systemic problems. 

3.2 TCs Engaging Up the River Perspectives and Practices 

A significant finding in the research was that the TC’s stories revealed more strengths-based orientations 

to parents and community reflecting up the river understandings, despite the disconnections in their 

practicum experience. We believe that the PA proved to be influential in facilitating critical translations in 

his role as both CI/PA and working in and between the University and Heartfulness School. His explicit 

valuing of parents and community as educational partners worked to deemphasize the perspectives of 

deficit. Furthermore, the set-up of regular small meetings with this group within the PA’s course had a 

strong impact and built trusting relationships. Jeannie’s partnering with the PA in parts of his course 

likely reinforced key themes. Heartfulness School itself has amazing connections to community that 

were largely enacted by school administration, and the TCs were encouraged to attend to these 

connections by the PA. The implications of this finding are that translations by TCs of critical ideas from 

University experience would be enhanced if CTs were more directly engaged with up the river ideas, and 

school administration could provide more opportunity to make connections between community and CTs. 

This study also suggests that PAs for inner-city practicum sites be very carefully chosen for their 

orientation towards translations of non-deficit perspectives into course work. 

The early experience of the workshop and surveying with TCs also likely destabilized deficit discourses 

taking hold, but the impact of the talking circles was more complex. The workshop highlighted systemic 

causes of oppression related to settler colonialism and Eurocentricity—clearly providing an up the river 

view to the dramatic situations they later encountered down the river. Starting TCs with this critical view, 

and having that supported by the PA, likely provided the biggest impact in the study through providing a 

critical lens on narratives of deficit they would encounter. This study also suggests that the talking circles 

may have provided much needed collegial support, but did not have a significant impact on the TCs 

translation of critical ideas under the circumstances presented. The emphasis on the surveying, workshop, 

role of the PA, and professional learning meetings provided systemic appreciation and positive 

orientations to influence critical translations of ideas into practice, but it was likely the relational 
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attention of the talking circles that supported the work. The talking circles surfaced problematic deficit 

discourses within the school concerning parents and communities, and thus could be seen as working 

counter to the purposes of translation of critical ideas. At the same time, the opportunities for connection 

and relation of the talking circles seemed to create a supportive atmosphere amongst the team where the 

TCs felt supported to engage in their critical understandings. Although, this would suggest that more 

should be done within the school community to address deficit discourses. 

 

4. Discussion 

This study was working from an assumption that coursework would be a key source of up the river 

considerations for TCs, but this was not entirely the case. Critical issues were not found to be prominent 

within the coursework, nor was there a specific focus on the inner-city as a complex context beyond one 

course. Our findings suggest that ITE Programs should sincerely consider the degree to which critical 

perspectives on systemic inequalities, and non-Eurocentric perspectives, occupy within their overall 

programming. There are a few major findings that emerge from the narratives in this study regarding the 

University experience to meet the priorities of inner-city mentorship in ITE: 1) Explicit attention should 

be given within courses to meeting the needs of children in differing contexts—emphasizing the 

particular needs in learning contexts that are under undue socio-economic pressures and processes of 

racialization—as well as the emotional toll of teaching in these contexts, and the significance of white 

privilege. Coursework that attends to accommodating difference through individualized processes serves 

to ignore the historic and socio-cultural factors that construct difference, oppression and privilege—thus 

invisibilizing up the river causes; 2) Relationships with inner-city community organizations that 

emphasize the strength, resilience and resurgence of communities should be fostered, and the 

organizations positioned as mentors for TCs. A recent study notes the intense and positive effect in 

professional learning of centring members of communities as teachers within University programming 

(Asadian, 2019). We believe that there should be attention by ITE Programs to partner with community 

members as teachers within University programming to break down pre-conceived notions of deficit, and 

connect with the expertise that could inform promising and generative practices. A weakness of this 

study was the research design did not include community members in the talking circles as mentors. 

Attention to dismantling the Fort walls should be a priority and would start by acknowledging and 

engaging the expertise of community and parents by educational researchers. 

In conclusion, this research and the findings suggest the need for overt consideration and articulation of 

settler colonialism and white privilege within programs of ITE and educational research. The continual 

negative academic outcomes for Indigenous and racialized students in inner-city schools reflect the 

inequalities of the society in which the schools exist. Schools, school systems, and ITE programs, 

configured in relations of white normativity, become positioned to reconstitute inequalities when 

ignoring the settler colonial structures and hierarchies in which they exist. Our educational systems 

remain down the river when we ignore settler colonialism and put ourselves in the endless position of 
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trying to save students without acknowledging and addressing the sources of the problems. Following the 

work of Mignolo (2011), we see colonial encounters as global, contemporary and responsible for 

wide-spread oppression of both human and more-than-human beings. The particular context of urban 

settler-colonial encounter, that is being robustly studied in urban geography, should inform educational 

work in inner-city contexts. 

The findings of this study reaffirm and extend the research in teacher education on diversities and 

inequalities in urban high-poverty contexts. The predominant focus in the research in ITE on addressing 

attitudes of teacher candidates and disrupting white normativity is reaffirmed through this study. Deficit 

perspectives and unquestioned white normativity were found to be very present within the teacher 

candidates’ attitudes as well as the practicum site, and a significant barrier for teacher candidates in 

learning to address inequalities in inner-city teaching practice. The study found that relational support 

structures had a positive influence in disrupting these perspectives, and provides a contribution to the 

existing literature. This study also extends the research in this area through moving the analysis of 

teacher education programming from being solely in the university into the context of the schools. 

Research analysts have called for more explicit attention to supporting teacher candidates in translating 

critical coursework meant to disrupt deficit attitudes into the practicum. This study has engaged with the 

complications of these translations, and suggested that the difficulty of translations is exacerbated 

through white normativity, deficit perspectives, and disconnections from parents and community within 

the school settings. Thus, this research contributes to an emergent area of investigation in teacher 

education programming through more careful attention to dispositional factors within practicum sites, 

and ways to foster community connections. We hope this study contributes to the growing literature and 

possibility of interruption in the inequitable cycles that endure in our local inner-city educational context 

of Winnipeg, inner-city contexts throughout North America, and beyond. We also hope that our work 

contributes to teaching in ways that disrupt the problematic hierarchies of knowledge, ethnicity, and 

experiences that characterize the reproduction of inequalities through programs of ITE. 

 

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Appendix A: Abridged Versions of Jeannie’s Initiating Talking Circle Stories 

Story-Talking Circle 1: Anticipating Educational Inequalities 

I was sitting in front of my class as my students were coming in from lunch and assembling on the 

carpet, when one of my students asked me “Is it safe to drink the water yet?” I was just about to 

respond yes. There had been a highly unusual boil water advisory in Vancouver, but it had been 

resolved. I was just about to say “Yes – it’s safe” but then I thought: I’ve never actually drank the water 

in this 100-year-old building. I knew nobody was monitoring this. I’d never had to think about this 

access to water, because I always brought my own drinks to school. I had never thought about that 

difference in lack of choice that the kids had and I had, and it was a watershed moment. The kids were 

all staring at me, because I was still staring at him, and his question was hanging in the air. I hadn’t 

thought about my difference in experience from my students in our shared classroom, and really who I 

am as a teacher in the inner city. What are my responsibilities? How am I related to this inequality? So, 

I said “Actually, I think we all need to talk.” This moment changed the way I was teaching. I began to 

really think about the life experience of the kids in terms of what I'm teaching. So, we spent the year on 

water, literally a whole year and did all of the subjects in relation to that, but I think it also changed me 

and how I related to the community as well.  

 

Story-Talking Circle 2: In Process Mentorship in Complexity 

I had been working in the inner-city as a resource teacher for a number of years, and had switched to 

classroom teaching. There was a lot of things that I wasn’t sure about. I had a friend who was also 

teaching grade 7 across the city. She was a long-term classroom teacher, and had a lot more experience 

than I did in that classroom aspect of teaching. We became partner classes, and I looked to her as a 

mentor. We were having dinner one night and she said to me ‘I don’t like the way you talk about the 

kids’ and I just about hit the floor because I love my students and I thought what could I possibly have 

done to make her think this? 

I was also hurt because it was a friend. I felt very misunderstood, and she said ‘maybe that didn’t come 

out right, I just didn’t know how to tell you’. She felt the way I was talking about my students was that 

they were always needy, and that I was always fixing everything. She thought I should think more about 

what the kids had to offer, than what I was doing. I argued back: ‘that’s my job, their job isn’t to do that 

for me’. It was a very confusing moment for me and I felt that the way it was done, the mentorship part 

of it actually made me feel quite distanced from her for a while. It was about six months before I really 

started talking to her again in mentorship. I felt lacking in trust with her, and that she wasn’t 

understanding me and my intentions towards the kids very well. I did think about it over time, and I 

have been thinking about that ever since. Particularly regarding balancing the ways I support students, 

but I’m learning from students and their community at the same time. In inner-city work, how I really 

need to focus on what the gifts are and what the benefits are from parents and community, and what I 

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can learn from that. So, I don’t know if I’ve ever resolved that mentorship piece though—I looked at 

her differently after that, because I think we pick our mentors and mentorship is a very delicate thing. 

Story-Talking Circle 3: Post-practicum Practice Oriented 

I was teaching a grade four-five combined class, and Charlene [pseudonym] had been put into foster 

care and ended up in a housing project right near the school where I was teaching. She came into my 

class in February, and I was struggling with standardized assessments. Where I was working in BC, 

grades four and seven classrooms do these massive tests that take about a week to do. I was a little 

stressed already about how I was going to support the kids through this testing. 

Charlene had been through trauma as she was not in her home community or with her family. She was 

a young Indigenous girl, and she wasn’t sure of who we were as a classroom community. She was really 

bright and she wanted to do well, but I knew she had missed a lot of school, so I said: ‘You don’t have 

to take the test if you don’t want to’, but she said she wanted to take the tests. She wanted to show us 

how smart she is, because she really is. But the way the tests are framed, especially with math, you may 

not have covered the curriculum for some of the things that are being asked. So, she opened the test and 

she’s working at that, and I could see her tears actually hitting the page. She couldn’t do it, for 

whatever order being in and out of foster care, different schools, I couldn’t prepare her in the same way. 

Here’s this brilliant young girl just ready to show everybody, and this whole process reaffirmed all 

kinds of problematic things for her. I took her out of the classroom and told her that this test is not 

really fair, because it doesn’t cover what you were doing in your other school, and she was half 

believing me. So, we went to the Principal and I said to her in front of Charlene, we have a problem 

with this test and I need you to write a letter to somebody, because the test isn’t fair and I don’t want 

her to take this unfair test. Charlene brushed it away and we organised other things. But it really made 

me think long-term about standardised assessment. Who are they performing for? How are my students 

affected? 

 

Notes 

Note 1. Heartfulness School is a pseudonym chosen by the researchers. 

Note 2. Jeannie’s mentorship from Dr. Archibald focused on the rock as a sacred object and relative. 

For a broader discussion see Tinker (2004). 

Note 3. Spelling wholistic(ally) with a ‘w’ is intentional and reflects Archibald’s understanding of 

Indigenous wholism (Archibald, 1997). 

Note 4. Jeannie encountered the Up the River, Down the River story in Andreotti (2012) and this story 

has emerged in multiple conversations between Dr. Andreotti and Jeannie. This version is the way 

Jeannie constructed it, and shared it with Katya. 

 

 

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	Original Paper
	Crossing Borders in Initial Teacher Education: Supporting Translations in the Inner-City Practicum
	Jeannie Kerr1 & Katya Adamov Ferguson2
	1 Faculty of Education, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Canada
	Abstract
	Keywords
	References

