Abstract
This study examines the conceptual basis of how teachers learn, including, importantly, how they learn to relate to social concerns of equity in their teaching, and makes this understanding experientially accessible using a live case of the “practical” (Schwab, 1969). The conceptual understanding emerges from questioning the assumptions behind the valorization in teacher education of “theory” over “practice” that has led to the “theory into practice”/“input–output” model of teacher education. An examination of the constraints posed by this monolithic model of teacher education to teacher learning, development, and change has provided the impetus to work toward a more pluralistic view of knowledge and the new understanding of the nature of teacher learning which ensues. This alternative formation, which is informed by insights from the sociocultural perspectives of Lev Vygotsky and Mikhail Bakhtin among others, has helped in constructing a view of teacher learning as taking shape in authentic social interaction in a “third space” through hybridization of diverse voices. Most importantly, the paper considers its implications for teacher education by abstracting from experience the nature of mediation that facilitates hybridization.
Highlights
In the present era of large-scale migration and multiculturalism, the uneven playing fields that exist for the culturally diverse students are gaining increased attention globally
The example provided here of tangible cultural experiences associated with such equity-oriented pedagogy in a particular curricular context helps in gaining deeper insights into how opportunities are created in the third space for shifts in thinking about what counts as knowledge and participants’ role in it
Restructuring teacher education unaccompanied by reconceptualization (Wideen and Grimmett, 1995), which fails to foster teacher autonomy, makes it tilt toward status quo rather than change (e.g., Lo, 2019), fueling the “discourse of derision” about initial teacher education (ITE) (Furlong, 2019)
Summary
In the present era of large-scale migration and multiculturalism, the uneven playing fields that exist for the culturally diverse students are gaining increased attention globally. Reforms in teacher education emphasize the need to prepare teachers for diversity by sensitizing them to the differentiated forms of teaching that build on diverse students’ life experiences and languages while introducing them to the expectations of successful participation in school learning (e.g., Melnick and Zeichner, 1995; Darling-Hammond and Bransford, 2005; National Council for Teacher Education [NCTE], 2009; Ladson-Billings, 2014; Yuan, 2018) Such a culture-sensitive pedagogy has organic links to equity in education. It creates space for every student to produce meaning from his/her cultural and experiential location, and for the teacher, the scope to tailor the dialog to help students connect to and make sense of school concepts based on their emerging understanding These curricular expectations are not met in practice. This contradiction has posed an enduring challenge to teacher education in finding ways to help teachers make sense of and assimilate the theoretical insights from research on teaching and learning into their practice (Loughran, 2006, 2019; Zeichner, 2012; Delpit, 2013; Cochran-Smith et al, 2017; Korthagen, 2017; Zeichner and Conklin, 2017)
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