scholarly journals Finding Courage in the Unknown: Transformative Inquiry as Indigenist Inquiry

in education ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Michele Tanaka
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
Holistic Health ◽  
Ecological Sustainability ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Decolonizing Research

Educators often wonder how to respond purposefully to vexing issues such as ecological sustainability, social justice and holistic health and wellness. The search for useful ways of proceeding can be addressed through engagement in the process of transformative inquiry, a mode of inquiry for educators that resonates with indigenous views and ways of being. At its heart, the approach seeks to support preservice  teachers in their personal journeys towards decolonizing and indigenizing. Ultimately, these efforts ripple out to affect their future students and the institutions in which they learn, teach and, hopefully, inquire. Weaving poetry written from my own experience on becoming indigenist, with the work of scholars such as Manulani Meyer, Lorna Williams, Marie Battise, Shawn Wilson, and Gregory Cajete, I highlight salient aspects of transformative inquiry that can be particularly useful in changing the trajectory of both education and educational research: welcoming spirit, deep and generous listening, connecting to place, and finding courage in the unknown.Keywords: Transformative inquiry; indigenizing education; decolonizing research; teacher education; educational research

From salvation to inquiry: Preservice teachers’ conceptions of race

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Future Teacher ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
The Impact

Race is a marker hiding more complex narratives. Children identify the social cues that continue to segregate based on race, yet too often teachers fail to provide support for making sense of these worlds. Current critical scholarship highlights the importance of addressing issues of race, culture, and social justice with future teachers. The timing of this work is urgent as health, social and civil unrest due to systemic racism in the U.S. raise critiques and also open possibilities to reimagine early childhood education. Classroom teachers feel pressure to standardize pedagogy and outcomes yet meet myriad student needs and talents in complex settings. This study builds on the current literature as it uses one case study to explore institutional messages and student perceptions in a future teacher education program that centers race, culture, identity, and social justice. Teaching as a caring profession is explored to illuminate the impact authentic, aesthetic, and rhetorical care may have in classrooms. Using key tenets of Critical Race Theory as an analytical tool enhanced the case study process by focusing the inquiry on identity within a racist society. Four themes are highlighted related to institutional values, rigorous coursework, white privilege, and connecting individual racial and cultural understanding with classroom practice. With consideration of ethical relationality, teacher education programs begin to address the impact of racist histories. This work calls for individualized critical inquiry regarding future teacher understanding of “self” in new contexts as well as an investigation of how teacher education programs fit into larger institutional philosophies.

scholarly journals Preservice Teachers’ Discursive Constructions of Cultural Practices in a Multicultural Telecollaboration

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baburhan Uzum ◽  
Bedrettin Yazan ◽  
Netta Avineri ◽  
Sedat Akayoglu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discursive Constructions

The study reports on a telecollaboration exchange between two teacher education classes in the United States and Turkey. In synchronous and asynchronous conversations, preservice teachers (PTs) engaged in social justice issues and made discourse choices that captured culture(s) and communities as diverse or essentialized. These choices were affected by PTs’ positionings and impacted how PTs connected to individuals only and/or to broader society.  PTs asked questions that created space for critical discussions and facilitated awareness of diversity, yet sometimes led to overgeneralizations. The study has implications for designing telecollaborations that promote language and practices to unpack the issues of social justice.

Teaching Diversity to Preservice Teachers: Encouraging Self-Reflection and Awareness to Develop Successful Teaching Practices

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marla S. Sanders ◽  
Kathryn Haselden ◽  
Randi M. Moss
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Diverse Schools

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to promote discussion of how teacher education programs can better prepare teacher candidates to teach for social justice in ethnically and culturally diverse schools. The authors suggest that teacher education programs must develop teacher candidates’ capacity to teach for social justice through preparation programs that encourage critical reflection and awareness of one’s beliefs, perceptions, and professional practice. The authors ask the following questions: How can teacher educators provide structures in professional preparation programs that will produce reflective practitioners? How might we prepare teacher candidates who are constantly thinking about how they perceive their students and their families and how those perceptions affect the way they relate to students? Through a discussion of five case scenarios, the authors discuss prior research on preparing teachers for culturally diverse schools and offer suggestions for improving professional education programs.

Incorporating Social Justice Into Science Teacher Education Courses

2020 ◽  
pp. 208-224
Author(s):  
Seema Rivera ◽  
Amal Ibourk
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Science Teacher ◽  
Instructional Strategies ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Science Teacher Education ◽  
Teaching For Social Justice ◽  
Education Courses

In this chapter, the authors cover the importance and challenges of incorporating teaching for social justice in science teacher education courses. The chapter starts by providing an overview of the literature on social justice, specifically in science education, and define the terms social justice, equity, and diversity. Then, the authors, who are teacher educators from under-represented groups, share their own experiences about what led them to do social justice work. In addition, the authors present examples from their courses with their preservice teachers and instructional strategies they used. The chapter concludes with recommendations of ways in which we might consider implementing social justice practices in teacher preparation courses.

Educating Teachers for High-Poverty Schools

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Burnett ◽  
Jo Lampert
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
High Poverty ◽  
High Poverty Schools ◽  
Educational Disadvantage ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
High Poverty Students

A great deal of scholarship informs the idea that specific teacher preparation is required for working in high-poverty schools. Many teacher-education programs do not focus exclusively on poverty. However, a growing body of research emphasizes how crucial it is that teachers understand the backgrounds and communities in which young people and their families live, especially if they are to teach equitably, without bias, and with a critical understanding of historical educational disadvantage. Research on teacher education for high-poverty schools is largely associated with social-justice education and premised on two key assumptions. The first is that teachers do make a difference and should be encouraged to see themselves as agents of change. The second is that without nuanced knowledge of poverty and disadvantage, and especially its intersection with race, teachers are prepared as though all students and all communities have equal social advantage. Through targeted teacher education, social justice teachers aquire the knowledge, skills and attributes to understand what they can and cannot do. Teachers with strong communities of practice and agency can resist the idea that they can eradicate poverty on their own, but can enact teaching in ways that are equitable and respectful, culturally responsive and safe. It is increasingly possible to observe how debates propose or challenge how preservice teachers should learn about high-poverty contexts. There are also numerous models, globally, of what works in preparing teachers for high-poverty schools; however, providing evidence or proving how specialized teacher preparation affects the educational outcomes of high-poverty students is difficult.

Early Childhood Open-Mindedness: An Investigation Into Preservice Teachers’ Capacity to Address Controversial Issues

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazan Bautista ◽  
Thomas Misco ◽  
Stephen John Quaye
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Thinking Dispositions ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
The Common

We investigated the characteristics of early childhood education (ECE) preservice teachers (PSTs) who were identified as closed minded and their capacity to deal with controversial issues. We define open-mindedness as the willingness to consider experiences, beliefs, values, and perspectives that differ from one’s own. First, we used quantitative surveys to identify PSTs with less open-minded thinking dispositions among those who responded ( n = 84). Then, we selected and ultimately interviewed five participants who indicated that their religious views played a significant role in the way they developed their epistemological and ontological views. Interviews suggested that concepts of social justice and the common good were seen as inimical to their core religious beliefs. As such, some respondents avoided these ideas without sufficiently entertaining the complexity involved with their religious beliefs and democratic ideals. This study has numerous implications for the macrocurriculum of teacher education.

scholarly journals Affective (An)Archive as Method

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 310-329
Author(s):  
Erica Eva Colmenares ◽  
Jenna Kamrass Morvay
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
Education Program ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Feed Forward

The purpose of this article is to explore affective (an)archives in educational research. Unlike archives, which act more like a repository, the (an)archive is a technique for research-creation; it is a process-making engine that triggers new, creative events. The affective (an)archives studied in this paper encompass the affective intensities that arise for teacher-activists participating in public political activism, as well as the affects that animate the moments of emotional crisis (or “stuck moments”) of student teachers in a social justice-oriented teacher education program. We ruminate on the possibilities, intensities, conversations, and materialities that our (an)archives might open. Specifically, we wonder what new events can these (an)archives feed-forward and what pedagogical and emotional thresholds might the traces from our (an)archives do for both our own studies and the field of educational research.

Beyond Damage-Centered Teacher Education: Humanizing Pedagogy for Teacher Educators and Preservice Teachers

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Dorinda J. Carter Andrews ◽  
Tashal Brown ◽  
Bernadette M. Castillo ◽  
Davena Jackson ◽  
Vivek Vellanki
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Teacher Preparation ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Preparation Programs ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Humanizing Pedagogy

Background/Context In our best efforts to increase preservice teachers’ critical consciousness regarding the historical and contemporary inequities in the P–12 educational system and equip them to embody pedagogies and practices that counter those inequities, teacher educators often provide curricular and field experiences that reinforce the deficit mindsets that students bring to the teacher education classroom. For many social justice-oriented teacher educators, our best intentions to create humanizing experiences for future teachers can have harmful results that negatively impact preservice teachers’ ability to successfully teach culturally diverse students in a multitude of learning contexts. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study In this article, we propose a humanizing pedagogy for teacher education that is informed by our experiences as K–12 teachers and teacher educators in a university-based teacher preparation program. We focus on the general questions, How can university-based teacher preparation programs embody and enact a humanizing pedagogy? and What role can curriculum play in advancing a humanizing pedagogy in university-based teacher preparation programs? Research Design In this conceptual article, we theorize a humanizing pedagogy for teacher education and propose a process of becoming asset-, equity-, and social justice-oriented teachers. This humanizing pedagogy represents a strengths-based approach to teaching and learning in the teacher preparation classroom. Conclusions/Recommendations We propose core tenets of a humanizing pedagogy for teacher education that represent an individual and collective effort toward critical consciousness for preservice teachers and also for teacher educators. If university-based teacher education programs are committed to cultivating the development of asset-, equity-, and social justice-oriented preservice teachers, the commitments to critical self-reflection, resisting binaries, and enacting ontological and epistemological plurality need to be foundational to program structure, curricula alignment, and instructional practice.

Humanizing Trayvon Martin: Racial Profiling, Implicit Biases, and Teacher Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (8) ◽  
pp. 1031-1057 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiv R. Desai
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
Classroom Interactions ◽  
Children Of Color ◽  
Teacher Activism ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Trayvon Martin

The purpose of this article is to describe a pedagogical inquiry the author conducted to engage preservice teachers in social justice praxis and teacher activism to address the impact of racial profiling on classroom interactions by utilizing the Trayvon Martin case. The Martin case provided the opportunity to have rich, meaningful discussions regarding race, equality, and justice with preservice teachers so that they would be better equipped to tackle such issues in the classroom. Most important, this inquiry reinforces the notion that children of color will never be treated equally until we change how they are perceived.

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