Impact of anti-racist pedagogies on secondary English trainee teachers' identity and classroom practice

Secondary English trainee teachers have experienced anti-racist pedagogies throughout their training year while completing a Post Graduate Certificate in Education, with Qualified Teacher Status. This study investigates the impact of our anti-racist curriculum on their teacher identity, confidence with diversifying the English curriculum and tackling racism in the English classroom. Our PGCE programmes have been designed with a focused anti-racist approach; this study explores the impact of this pedagogy with a mixed methods questionnaire offered to 35 English trainee teachers, with 24 completing it. The paper outlines the implemented strategies and shares findings on their impact, including the study of diverse young adult fiction, teaching a novel about the journey of an asylum seeker, and developing methods to challenge racism, alongside specific work on teacher identity. The findings indicate a positive influence of all activities on the trainees' identity as anti-racist educators and their practical confidence in the classroom. The most significant impact came from the contributions of Black colleagues, highlighting the need for greater diversity among teacher educators. Further implications of the study emphasise the importance of including BAGM (Black, Asian, and Global Majority) students throughout the teacher training year, ensuring that the anti-racist curriculum fulfils its aims and does not perpetuate dominant whiteness.