‘I felt like I was an alien’: Working together towards the success of British Asian student teachers

DIANE WARNER AND ZOE CROMPTON, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY, UK

Context

As senior lecturers organising school placements, we noticed that a disproportionate number of South Asian student teachers were failing or struggling while on placement. In this case study, we offer insights into the difficult experiences that these student teachers experienced during initial teacher education (ITE). The study focuses on Ikra (not her real name), who identifies as a Pakistani Muslim and who chooses to wear the abaya and hijab (dress and head covering). She undertook two school placements, where she reported that she experienced significant ethnic and cultural difficulties. After failing the final placement, she sought ways forward to succeed in the resit and gain her qualified teacher status. One of these ways was a conscious decision to change her attire from wearing traditional dress because of the treatment that she received at her previous school, where she said, ‘I felt like I was an alien, to be honest. That’s how they were looking at me.’ These comments are situated within an ITE framework where the current standards are silent on ethnicity and culture, despite one-third of school pupils coming from minority ethnic heritages. This article examines Ikra’s motivations, the surrounding factors and actions taken to address cultural barriers in knowledge, communication and needs in the ITE process.

Race and teacher training

Research has shown how sustained negative and racialising experiences can disproportionately impact on outcomes and retention rates for students of minority ethnic heritage (Warner, 2022; Marom, 2019). Ikra’s situation is set against a backdrop of worrying drop-out and attrition rates for Black, Asian and minority ethnic (ME) student and qualified teachers in the UK workforce (Morris et al., 2021). Department for EducationThe ministerial department responsible for children’s services and education in England statistics show a healthy figure of 13 per cent specifically for South Asian entrants into teacher training; however, only five per cent qualify as teachers. This is set against a background where there are just six per cent of minority ethnic primary and 10 per cent of secondary qualified teachers in the UK, who work with a school student ME population of around 36 per cent (DfEDepartment for Education - a ministerial department responsible for children’s services and education in England, 2023a; 2023b). Unconscious yet embedded issues of racism are highlighted as factors that undermine the confidence and vision of ME student teachers (Lander and Zaheerali, 2016; Tereshchenko et al., 2020). These hidden factors ironically occur in schools and universities whose organisational culture rightly promotes equality policies, suggesting a mismatch between intent and reality (Tattersfield, 2021). Ikra’s case draws attention to how recurring and unseen incidences of racism can conspire to create cultural barriers and impede the progress of British Asian students during teacher training (Warner and Crompton, unpublished).

Ikra is a practising Muslim, who chose to wear a hijab and abaya on her first two school placements as a sign of her religious devotion. However, she encountered pressures within school that suggested that she might not be able to carry out her duties fully. These ranged from practicalities, such as teaching PE, to less tangible areas, where she felt that her professional identity, ability to teach and presence within the schools’ culture were questioned. This reflects Bibi’s (2022) notions of ‘gendered Islamophobia’, which marginalise Muslim women as irrelevant or even a danger to modern life, and engenders feelings of what Farrell and Lander (2019) identify as being under greater surveillance and scrutiny. Ikra explained:

If I had my hair out, and if I was wearing my jeans, I’d be seen as, “Oh, I’m one of them”, you know, normal, but because I’m dressed in a hijab and abaya, then it makes all the difference in the world.

She described feeling ‘out of place, like a sore thumb’, which led her to make a radical move for her resit placement. She removed her hijab and abaya due to her previous experiences and reported feeling instantly welcomed, but observed, ‘I would never know how they would have treated me if I was dressed as a practising Muslim.’ Throughout, Ikra felt framed as the perpetrator of her problems because she had difficulties over two placements, with the training provider taking sides with the schools. She said that they did not take time to listen to her and silenced her from continuing communications about her issues, so that she could not articulate her problems. She said, ‘To be honest, the university is not going to listen… you just have to grit your teeth and pass it.’

Impact and reflections

Ikra’s case points to a complex picture that encompasses how training institutions and partnership schools can harbour disabling and hidden racisms. In response, various steps were taken to support Ikra to succeed. These included taking her concerns seriously about being racialised in ways that were not overt racism but were subtly present, through looks, oblique comments and feedback on performance in the classroom, and in social situations, such as the staffroom, where she was sidelined. Secondly, we noted how diminished Ikra felt on having to change her dress to achieve success. After Ikra decided to do this, we listened and supported her to cope with this decision during the placement and by providing pastoral support. With hindsight, as training provider, we could have been more proactive, by first discussing this with Ikra and then representing her case with the school. Thirdly, there was greater communication with the resit school before the placement and then considerate dialogue between student, university and school during the placement, to discuss possible conflict and unease. These actions worked alongside the setting up of support groups for students who identified as being minoritised and steps to embed equalities education into our teacher training programmes.

This combination of actions, tighter partnership and increased dialogue instigated deeper understanding of the racialising and dehumanising actions that can beset Asian and other minority ethnic student teachers. The nature of teacher education has the capacity to ignore student teachers of minority ethnic cultures, which can act to make them invisible and destabilise their future as teachers. School mentors need to listen to the needs of minority ethnic students, in relation to religion, language, dress and confidence, and provide culturally appropriate support. Sustained insight, consideration and determined partnership between schools, students and training providers are needed to recognise and value minority ethnic student teachers as assets and fully part of the teaching profession.

The final words respectfully belong to Ikra:

I personally believe there is much the university can directly do to provide a better experience for trainee teachers. I felt happy when I heard about this research; therefore, I decided to take part to share my experience in the hope that it may bring a positive change. I highly endorse support for a team to be created in all universities who will offer counselling/support for trainee teachers from ethnic/cultural backgrounds who may experience racism from their class mentors on placement and who will also investigate such incidents.