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A gap persists between the proportion of students and teachers from minority ethnic groups in England. This is largely due to the higher leaving rates of these teachers. The attrition starts already during the training courses. Initial Teacher Education (ITE) completion rates among minority and non-minority ethnic trainees differ. UCAS data and school workforce figures suggest that only half of Black and Asian students accepted on ITE courses subsequently remain classroom teachers. This study contributes to the field of race and ITE by investigating the effects of teaching placement and PGCE university course factors on minority ethnic student teachers’ thoughts of staying in teaching, with a particular focus on their racialised experiences.

The study will adopt a sequential mixed-methods design. Firstly, it will survey minoritised PGCE students across two London providers to highlight student teachers’ racialised experiences.

The focus of the survey will be on experiences of racial microaggressions in school placements and on ITE courses (e.g., assumptions of lower intelligence, deviance; assumptions related to myths of meritocracy; statements that indicate colour-blindness/colour-evasiveness; observing a relative absence of people of colour from settings and other subtle messages of being less valued or welcome, etc.).

Secondly, to help us explain and exemplify the survey findings, we will conduct focus groups with up to six student teachers each. In this part of the research, we will aim to account for challenges experienced by trainees from different minority ethnic groups on certain PGCE programmes to highlight racialised experiences specific to ethnic groups across subjects and phases.

The recommendations based on the findings of this research will be of interest to ITE providers beyond participating universities (including providers such as Teach First), school partners and professional bodies (including Charted College of Teaching, Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, especially the latter’s Equality Commission), ASCL, BAMEed, and race-equality think tanks such as the Runnymead Trust.

Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Dr Antonina Tereshchenko - I am currently an Education MA Programme Leader. Prior to joining the MA Education team at Brunel in 2021, I was a Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer at the UCL Institute of Education. Over the last few years, I have worked on the teacher retention projects, both at UCL and Brunel, including as a Co-I on the ongoing ESRC Education Research Programme project (led by Durham University) on the recrutment and retention of minority ethnic teachers, and relationship to student outcomes (2022-2025). I am a Co-I on the ongoing Education Endowment Foundation funded study (led by UCL) investigating the effects of attainment grouping and mixed attainment teaching on student outcomes in secondary mathematics.  I had previously completed three postdoctoral projects on migrant students' identities and educational experiences at King's College London (with funding from the Newton International Fellowship and the British Academy Visiting Scholar Scheme) and at the University of Porto (with funding from the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology).  Prior to starting my PhD at the University of Cambridge, I worked at the Open Society Soros Foundation in Ukraine on the national reform to ensure equal and transparent access to higher education. 

Related Research Group(s)

Education, Identities and Society - Research at the intersection of Education, Sociology, Human Geography, Youth Studies and Digital Presence.

Project last modified 09/01/2024