Making better multicultural and social justice teacher educators: a qualitative analysis of the professional learning and support needs of multicultural teacher education faculty

Despite the growing body of scholarship on the multicultural dispositions and learning needs of teacher education students, little scholarly attention has been paid to those of multicultural teacher educators: the people responsible for cultivating multiculturally minded teachers. In order to begin filling that gap, using a grounded theory approach, I analyzed data from interviews with 22 people teaching multicultural teacher education courses in the USA. Three common learning and support needs emerged: (1) identity-specific content knowledge, (2) pedagogical strategies, and (3) support networks. I describe these findings and discuss ways identified needs might be addressed more sufficiently.