The Overwhelming Levels of Whiteness in Educator Preparation Programs
Article 4 of Exploring Leadership Diversity in Educator Preparation Programs: An Asian/American Perspective
Most would agree, even if they have never been one, that being a dean is difficult work; the average tenure of an education dean is four (4) to six (6) years (Wepner & Henk, 2020). But we do not know if there are differentials based on the person’s race/ethnicity. One level of Whiteness in EPPs is the faculty and staff who work within them. EPPs are composed of mostly White teacher education faculty who teach their pre-service teacher education students using a White-framed curriculum. Another level of Whiteness is the epistemologies that White EPP leaders deploy (Scheurich & Young, 1997; Teo, 2022). The authors of this article have experienced this latter form of Whiteness when they interviewed for EPP leadership positions (see Hartlep, 2025).
As Asian/American scholars and leaders at educator preparation programs—one a department chair of education studies and the other a current dean, and former chair of teacher education, we are reminded of the overwhelmingness of Whiteness within EPPs. An example of the pervasiveness of Whiteness is in public recognition of influential leaders in the field. Mometrix’s (2015) list of the “The 30 Most Influential Deans of Education in the United States,” features not a single person of color. This pattern continues in other lists, such as Cliff’s (2023) Top 9 Deans in U.S. Colleges and Universities, and the very limited number of endowed Asian/American Education faculty (Freeman & Forthun, 2019; Hartlep et al., 2016; Hartlep et al., 2018; Hartlep et al., 2021). AACTE’s (2022) “Colleges of Education: A National Portrait” report also conveys the lack of diverse faculty in teacher education programs. The report posits that tenure-track assistant professors are generally White faculty who are retained, promoted, and assume leadership roles within EPPs (see Table 1).
Table 1. Position and Demographic Characteristics of Deans and Associate/Assistant Deans of Colleges of Education, 2020–2021
Education preparation programs (EPPs) have historically prepared most classroom teachers. Currently, there are approximately 1,500 EPPs in the United States. Of these 1,500 programs, many are located on the campuses of what we would label as predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Some minority-serving institutions (MSIs), such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AAPAPISIs), also have EPPs that focus on preparing teachers of color for the profession. However, at most EPPs at PWIs, the faculty is overwhelmingly White and female (AACTE, 2022; Gist & Bristol, 2022; Kohli et al., 2022). This is also true for the administrators in teacher education (AACTE, 2019; AACTE, 2022). According to research by the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity (BranchEd) that compiled the most recent data from IPEDs (2021, The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System), Title II (2021), and the CMSI MSI Directory (2022, the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions), there are 852 Federally Designated MSIs in the United States and territories. Of those 852 MSIs, 366 have EPPs. This means that MSIs proportionally have a larger percentage of EPPs (42.9%) than PWIs (25.7%). In the next article, the authors share a primer on Asian Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit), which was used in the authors’ yearlong study.
References
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). (2022).“Colleges of Education: A National Portrait” (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: AACTE. Retrieved from https://aacte.org/colleges-of-education-a-national-portrait/
Freeman, S., & Forthun, G, (2019). The paucity of Asian-American distinguished professors and endowed chairs: Toward a more racially integrated system of advancement in the professoriate. eJournal of Education Policy, 1–12.
Gist, C. D., & Bristol, T. J. (Eds.). (2022). Handbook of research on teachers of color and indigenous teachers. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
Hartlep, N. D. (2025). You are young, that’s why we hired you. In N. D. Hartlep, T. L. Strayhorn, & F. Bonner (Eds.), Belonging in higher education: Perspectives and lessons from diverse faculty (pp. 53–70). Routledge.
Hartlep, N. D., Kahlon, A. K., & Ball, D. (Eds.). (2018). Asian/American scholars of education: 21st century pedagogies, perspectives, and experiences. New York: Peter Lang.
Hartlep, N. D., Ball, D. B., & Wells, K. (Eds.). (2021). (Second Edition). Asian/American scholars of education: 21st century pedagogies, perspectives, and experiences. New York: Peter Lang.
Hartlep, N. D., Ball, D., Theodosopoulos, K., Wells, K., & Morgan, G. B. (2016). A national analysis of endowed chairs and distinguished professors in the field of education. Educational Studies, 52(2), 119–138.
Kohli, R., Dover, A. G., Jayakumar, U. M., Lee, D., Henning, N., Comeaux, E., Nevárez, A., Hipolito, E., Cortez, A. C., & Vizcarra, M. (2022). Toward a healthy racial climate: Systematically centering the well-being of teacher candidates of color. Journal of Teacher Education, 73(1), 52–65.
Scheurich, J. J., & Young, M. (1997). Coloring epistemologies: Are our research epistemologies racially biased? Educational Researcher, 26(4), 4–16. | Teo, T. (2022). What is a White epistemology in psychological science? A critical race-theoretical analysis. Hypothesis and Theory, 13, 1–10.
Teo, T. (2022). What is a White epistemology in psychological science? A critical race-theoretical analysis. Hypothesis and Theory, 13, 1–10.
Wepner, S. B., & Henk, W. A. (2020). Education deans’ perspectives on factors contributing to their longevity. Tertiary Education and Management, 26, 381–395. DOI: 10.1007/s11233-020-09059-9
Tags: diversity, equity, inclusion, research
