“QUALIFYING” AS TEACHER: IMMIGRANT TEACHER CANDIDATES’ COUNTER-STORIES

Abstract

Teachers in Canadian schools are over-representative of the dominant group: white, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied, Christian and Canadian born (Bascia, 1996). Yet, Canada is a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-faith and multi- linguistic country. In the last 5-7 years faculties of education have been accepting increasing numbers of immigrant teacher candidates (Association of Universities and Colleges Canada, 2007) with little attention to the issues and challenges those candidates confront in the face of community expectations of who 'qualifies' as teacher. The experiences and perspectives of what it means to be a teacher are stories that are predominantly told by the dominant group. Drawing on the work of Solórzano and Yosso (2002) I use narratives and stories told by those who have been “othered” or “counter-storytelling” to bring complexity and richness to the prevailing concept of who can be a teacher. This research builds on Bourdieu‟s (1977) concept of cultural capital and draws from Yosso‟s (2005) model of “community cultural wealth” to explore the specific tension of linguistic capital in relation to immigrant teacher candidates. Findings from a qualitative study explore the challenges immigrant teacher candidates experience as they move through a pre-service teacher education program.