Chapter 10: Reshaping Perceptions Through Experiences: Recruiting, Promoting, and Retaining High Quality Educators for Urban Districts

This chapter addresses the state-funded University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Urban Education (UW-IUE) Program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that recruits teacher candidates to complete their capstone preservice experience within the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Students come to the UW-IUE from universities within Wisconsin located in mostly White cities (under 60,000 residents), suburban, or rural areas, and are mostly White themselves. As the majority of the UW-IUE participants come from racially, culturally, and linguistically homogeneous home environments and campuses, understanding their perceptions and beliefs toward the communities with whom they worked was central to our analysis. As such, the purpose of this outcomes analysis was to assess the UW-IUE’s programmatic impact on teacher candidates’ perceptions and beliefs, particularly as it relates to their cultural awareness, cultural understanding, and cultural/pedagogical self-efficacy (to be discussed at length in this chapter). These foci areas both respond to and echo the calls by scholars writing on urban teacher preparation to better and more holistically equip preservice teachers for urban classrooms and communities.