The Role of Anti-racist Pedagogy and Practices in Professional Development Schools

ABSTRACT

The recent events of the COVID-19 pandemic, the revision of the National Association for Professional Development Schools' Nine Essentials to be more explicit in their anti-racism/social justice efforts, and the continued racially motivated attacks on Black and Indigenous People of Color, led to questioning and challenging Professional Development Schools (PDS) work because elements of social justice and equity were not always explicit. Literature supports that PDSs can be a site for helping pre-and in-service teachers develop an anti-racist stance. Embedded professional development, coursework, and field experiences in PDSs that enact culturally relevant, culturally sustaining, and equity-based pedagogies can help teachers breach the disconnect between theory and praxis, understand their own biases, disrupt deficit ways of thinking, and design learning experiences to meet the needs of P-12 learners. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.