Walking into a Sea of Whiteness: On the (Im)possibilities of Being a Teacher Candidate of Colour

Abstract

Gripped by the mechanics of “walking into a sea of whiteness,” I frame this master’s thesis through the following research question: What are the live(d) experiences and stories of a teacher candidate of colour in relation to race and racism in Teacher Education? Responding to this question, I engage in a personal narrative inquiry to examine and interrogate my own live(d) experiences and stories as a teacher candidate of colour in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa from 2018 to 2020. I specifically dwell in the (im)possibilities of my travelogue in the two-year program, as I travel to the past to write in the present. A process that unfolds as I arrange that journey in the following: on arrival, on beginning, on collapsing, and on finding community. The writing of which is story(ed) in my live(d) experiences through narratives, as well as journal entries and poems, which are analyzed through a closed reading, complicating and troubling the notion of racism and “white spaces” in Teacher Education.