Critical Teacher Education Research Articles

Developing Translanguaging Repertoires in Critical Teacher Education

Developing Translanguaging Repertoires in Critical Teacher Education

Review of developing translanguaging repertoires in critical teacher education

Review of developing translanguaging repertoires in critical teacher education

Where we are: reflecting on our use of critical mapping practices for spatial justice in teacher education

PurposeThe purpose of this article is for three teacher educators to reflect on their use of mapping and mapping-adjacent activities in university courses vis-à-vis the development of their own critical praxis toward spatial justice. The authors focus on how the centering of geospatial literacies through spatial justice issues impacts the development of criticality for preservice teachers and their teacher educators.Design/methodology/approachThe paper opted for collaborative reflections about our teacher educator praxis through self-study and critical friends. Three teacher educators wrote vignettes about their experiences with place-based mapping approaches in teacher education coursework.FindingsThe paper suggests that mapping activities (broadly defined) create space(s) for courageous conversations on difficult topics (e.g. race and social-economic status). These spaces are not only between teacher and student but also can be extended to teacher educators by focusing on critical and collaborative self-study.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to use critical and collaborative reflection to inform their own praxis.Practical implicationsThe paper shares pedagogical approaches and reflections for highlighting geospatial literacies and critical place consciousness within teacher education.Originality/valueThis has significance as there is a relative dearth of literature detailing how critical teacher educators can learn with and from each other when working to focus place-based learning in the context of teacher preparation.

Critical teacher education for equitable learning in multilingual classrooms: a possible way forward

ABSTRACT Addressing the ongoing calls to reform teacher education to prepare future teachers to serve students from diverse backgrounds, this introduction reviews recent developments in teacher education to situate our thematic issue on critical teacher education for equitable learning in multilingual classrooms. The five empirical papers and two commentaries included in this issue focus on the connection between language, power, and critical consciousness to address equity concerns in teacher education as it pertains to supporting multilingual learners, asking: how do teacher education programs prepare teachers to work with diverse students in schools where there exists a long-standing history of marginalization and discrimination based on racial, economic, social backgrounds? In this introductory paper, we discuss the contributions of the papers included in the issue and share a vision for new ways for reimagining teacher education for multilingual learners.

Innovation and Accountability in Teacher Education: Setting Directions for New Cultures in Teacher Education. By Claire Wyatt Smith and Lenore Adie (Editors), 2018. 340 pp.

Wyatt-Smith and Adie’s book introduction makes a strong case that teacher quality is key to better results. Three major teacher education innovations are described in this book. Many international reviews of teacher education and reform attempts have been published in the last decade. This textbook encourages governments to evaluate schools and beginning teacher education applicants (in Australia, both at intake and in national assessment before completion). Thus, this book focuses on curriculum orientation consistency since teacher opinions on curriculum orientation affect curriculum decision-making, teaching methodologies, and strategies (Cheung & Ng, 2000). Teachers are crucial to encourage and help students through varied learning and teaching methods. In a fun learning environment, teachers can help kids acquire values like acceptance and respect (Mak et al., 2018). Wyatt-Smith and Adie emphasize ‘the complex ecologies of teacher education’ (p. 13) using chapter contributors from Scotland, Norway, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and Australia. Traditions and culture mediate global imperatives in teacher education. The book’s worldwide perspectives are motivated by the need to create a scholarly platform for critical teacher education concerns in the 21st century and stimulate fresh, evidence-based thinking.

Justice-Centered Reflective Practice in Teacher Education: Pedagogy as a Process of Imaginative and Hopeful Invention

This paper introduces justice-centered reflective practice, an approach that emerged out of our practitioner research in the Independent School Teaching Residency program. This ongoing and imperfect praxis is simultaneously a stance, a lens, a pedagogy, an orientation, and a way of understanding and mobilizing our individual and collective identities as teacher educators. Mediated by joy, imagination, vulnerability, and uncertainty, six foundational principles guide our work: justice-centered reflective practice is (1) purposeful and systematic, (2) iterative and cyclical, (3), critically reflective, (4) agentive, (5) done in community, and (6) loving and hopeful. Here we detail these principles and illustrate how they manifest in our work as teacher educators in how we structure the program and enact our pedagogy. We seek to continue a scholarly conversation among critical teacher educators about how we enact liberatory values and aspirations in the context of institutions and policy environments that often constrain our collective work.

Revisiting an Anti-Machiavellian model for teacher education: A critical perspective

This study examines a borrowed concept from politics, that is, Machiavellian, in second language teacher education (SLTE), develops an anti-model to it, and explores teacher educators’ viewpoints about the developed model with an eye on critical aspects of teacher education, that is, Anti-Machiavellian. To do so, the literature on Machiavellian thoughts was studied thoroughly based on which a model was proposed and interview questions were constructed. Then, five Iranian expert teacher educators were selected based on non-random convenient sampling to attend individual extensive semi-structured interviews in which they discussed their opinions about the principles of Anti-Machiavellian SLTE. Adopting a thematic analysis, the data revealed that Anti-Machiavellian SLTE associates closely with critical teacher education where teacher education is context-specific, responsive to learners, dialogically engaging, reflective, and practical. The results of the in-depth interviews also indicated that Anti-Machiavellian SLTE is compatible with critical teacher education which, albeit widely advertised, is hard to practice.

Envisioning Pre-service English teacher education in Colombia as political action

This reflective article explores the need to revise the education of pre-service English teachers to place critical and political dimensions as central components in the education of future teachers. The author presents a brief critical overview of some key historical events in Colombia that have taken place mainly during the last sixty years. Two national educational proposals that aim to promote peaceful human relations and knowledge of the country’s historically violent past (Cátedra para la Paz and Estándares de Competencias Ciudadanas) are also described. Two complementary approaches to English teacher education are discussed as possible alternatives to enacting teacher education from a political and critical stance (Teacher Education for Social Justice and Critical Teacher Education). Finally, three trends in English teaching and research in Colombia are described as a way to illustrate some of the ways in which different scholars have enacted English teaching as part of a political and critical endeavor. The author concludes that in order to contribute to a more just, equitable, and peaceful country, pre-service English teacher programs must prepare prospective teachers committed to a process of social, cultural, and political transformation of the local realities of Colombia.

Language Learning Autobiographies, Identity Texts, and Critical Teacher Education

This paper explores possibilities of using language learning autobiographies as a form of identity texts in order to produce suggestions for critical teacher education. Specifically, we examined what insights we might gain by reframing Korean pre-service teachers’ autobiographies as a form of identity texts to develop reflective teachers, who affirm their identities and language learning histories. We thematically analyzed autobiographical reflection papers on English learning experiences of 73 undergraduate students enrolled in a compulsory elementary English education course at a public university in South Korea. The analysis revealed the predominance of referral to English private education experiences and a sense of linguistic insecurity felt by these pre-service teachers, who would later teach in public schools. Based on these findings, we provide suggestions for critical teacher education to foster critical language awareness and identity investment for the students. We conclude that language learning autobiographies, while incorporating characteristics of identity texts, might be a useful tool for critical pedagogies.

“A nice white lady”: critical whiteness studies, teacher education, and city schools

Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) can be a significant tool to dismantle white supremacy in educational contexts. However, the authors argue that without attending to the forms of curriculum as they are entangled across systems of schooling, CWS can reinscribe the very forms of whiteness it seeks to disrupt. Identifying as a queer, Brown assistant professor of education and a Black undergraduate student who recently finished her studies, this paper uses a duo-ethnographic approach to examine what the authors call an “enacted curriculum of whiteness.” Through their respective narratives, the authors explore how students and faculty bracketed CWS, often identifying CWS as a part of the formal curriculum while using the enacted curriculum to defend and maintain normalized racism. The authors argue that alongside CWS in teacher preparation, an emphasis on curriculum studies is critical to resisting the “nice white lady” phenomenon that often infects teacher preparation and, eventually, K-12 schools.

DisCrit at the margins of teacher education: informing curriculum, visibilization, and disciplinary integration

ABSTRACT Teacher education is polarized. Traditionalists tend to center core practices, while justice-oriented scholars center ideologies embedded within our practices. Both, however, must consider how practices and ideologies can operate interdependently to disrupt inequity and cultivate agency among all students. Drawing on an intersectionally-aligned theory, DisCrit, we argue that practices and the ideologies they embody can be problematized vis-à-vis how racism and ableism operate to support hegemony bound in, and represented by, the normative center of schooling. In this paper, we unpack what DisCrit affords critical teacher education, how individuals with complex support needs are located within DisCrit’s tenets, if at all, and the application of DisCrit in the disciplinary case of science education. By considering possibilities not yet explored within the literature, we further critical conversations about the relationship between DisCrit, silenced perspectives of populations unaddressed in teacher education for equity, and new disciplinary possibilities of what we mean by justice-oriented applications of theory and practice.

(Be)coming Critical Teacher Educators: Collaborative Self-Study across Contexts

ABSTRACT This collaborative self-study looks at how eight white literacy teacher educators worked together to re-center critical literacy and teaching for equity in methods courses. We used self-study methodology to interrogate not only our pedagogy, but also our own internalization of white supremacy culture and complicity in perpetuating the status quo. Our group met virtually on a monthly basis, discussed common readings, shared resources, and wrote journal reflections. Findings show that our collaboration helped us explore and evolve how we framed the work of critical literacy, delve into the discomfort of initiating and facilitating difficult conversations with students and colleagues, and develop concrete actions for re-centering and enacting critical literacy practices. Building upon the collaborative self-study work that guided our practice, we argue that our collaboration – across contexts and across time, attending to both our self-work and our pedagogy – provides a new way forward. As teacher educators, we found self-study to be a sustainable way to outgrow ourselves, and this research serves as a call to action for other teacher educators to take up this work, as well. Dismantling the status quo is a lifelong endeavor, our work is ongoing, and we find it is strengthened when approached both individually and collectively.

Towards a Critical Language Teacher Identity: Contributions of a Critical Teacher Education Course

The importance of language teacher identity has been widely recognized recently as teachers’ professional development is highly influenced by the ways teachers view themselves. Critical orientation towards identity has also received considerable attention recently. The present study, thus, investigated the effect of a Critical Teacher Education Course (CTEC) on EFL teachers’ identity (re)construction. The participants included thirteen teachers who were first interviewed using a 20-question interview checklist whose items enabled the researchers to elicit teachers’ professional identity with a focus on critical pedagogical orientation. The teachers then attended an in-service CTEC held for ten sessions. The course was primarily dialogue-based where different premises of transformative education and critical pedagogy were introduced and discussed. This was followed by the second interview session in which the teachers were asked the same questions as the first interview. In the meantime, the teachers were also required to critically reflect on their classroom practices through reflective journals. The data were subjected to content analysis (inductive category development). The findings revealed that prior to their participation, the teachers viewed teaching English as a neutral act unaffected by contextual factors, whereas after the CTEC, they became more aware of the social, cultural, economic and political factors that might affect the whole process. Secondly, compliance with the rules and regulations, policies, and the status quo marked teachers' identities. However, they changed to more integrative teachers with critical orientations after CTEC. The findings might imply that EFL teacher training/education programmes become more localized, dialogic, interaction-based, negotiation-oriented and integration-driven.

Hablando Pa’tras: Developing Critical Conscious Bilingual Teacher Education Programs in Mexican-American/Latinophobic Times

This introduction situates the focus of this special issue within the walls of a bilingual education program where the authors examine their pedagogical and curricular practices, trajectories, and ...

FORMAÇÃO INICIAL DE PROFESSORES DE INGLÊS

Em um contexto global cada vez mais marcado por recursos tecnológicos, temos evidenciado as complexidades e desafios da educação e da formação inicial de professores de línguas estrangeiras. O objetivo deste artigo é discutir perspectivas de futuros professores de língua inglesa sobre o uso das tecnologias digitais para o ensino e a aprendizagem de línguas. Este é um estudo de natureza qualitativa e interpretativista e compreende uma parte dos dados gerados para a realização de uma pesquisa de mestrado. Buscamos refletir sobre as relações entre formação crítica de professores de língua inglesa e o uso de tecnologias digitais para que seja possível discutir práticas (des)contextualizadas. Assim, encontramos subsídios teóricos nas discussões sobre educação linguística em línguas estrangeiras (FERRAZ; KAWACHI-FURLAN, 2018; SOUZA, 2018; DUBOC, 2014; MENEZES DE SOUZA, 2011; MONTE MÓR, 2009), bem como sobre a compreensão das tecnologias digitais e das práticas educacionais (VETROMILLE-CASTRO, 2019; SELWYN, 2017; MATTOS, 2011), dentre outros. Os resultados apontam para a importância no foco em formação crítica de professores para que o uso da tecnologia no ensino e na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras seja considerado de modo crítico e questionador, buscando ir além de técnicas de como usar recursos tecnológicos.

The Social Justice Teaching Collaborative: A Collective Turn Towards Critical Teacher Education

In this article, we share the collaborative curricular work of an interdisciplinary Social Justice Teaching Collaborative (SJTC) from a PWI university. Members of the SJTC worked strategically to center social justice across required courses pre-service teachers are required to take: Introduction to Education, Sociocultural Studies in Education, and Inclusive Education. We share our conceptualization of social justice and guiding theoretical frameworks that have shaped our pedagogy and curriculum. These frameworks include democratic education, critical pedagogy, critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, critical disability studies, and feminist and intersectionality theory. We then detail changes made across courses including examples of readings and assignments. Finally, we conclude by offering reflections, challenges, and lessons learned for collaborative work within teacher education and educational leadership.

Exploring new teachers conceptualizations of critical simulations in world history, American history, and economics learning experiences

In this study we examine early career social studies teachers’ use and understanding of critical simulations. We began work with participants as teacher candidates in their pre-service programs and formally studied them as they began their in-service teaching. We were particularly interested in teacher efforts to use simulation to facilitate a more critical disciplinary consciousness. Data indicate that participant teachers utilized simulations to: enhance students’ ability to critically engage with social studies content, facilitate more democratic dialogue, and critique normalized systems of power. We do not suggest that simulations in and of themselves are “critical,” rather, we argue they can be an effective means of providing a safe environment for considering the complexities of certain issues in social studies. Furthermore, we argue critical social studies teachers and teacher educators can be purposeful in their use of simulation to avoid enshrining the status quo. Finally simulations can help critical teachers illuminate oppression and facilitate a more humanizing vision within the social studies if they possess critical consciousness, strong pedagogical content knowledge and a command of the method.

Practices of an English language classroom from a postmethod perspective

What is language? What is the best approach to teach a language? These questions have guided numerous studies in the field of applied linguistics (Donato, 1994; Ellis, 1985; Figueiredo, 2018; Hall, 2003; Pennycook, 1989). However, by considering that the difficulties and necessities of the language learning process are always influenced by its context, we perceive the temporary answers offered as localized possibilities. Thus, this qualitative study has no intention of providing universal and totalizing answers to these inquiries. Nonetheless, the practices of an English language classroom are investigated in this research to provide empirical material for the discussion of these matters. The classes observed were grounded on premises of critical applied linguistics and critical language teacher education. In the interactions analyzed, the seven students who participated in the study problematized essays and literary texts written by subaltern bodies, such as Wong’s (1980) and hooks’s (1994), who represent marginalized US groups. The specific objectives of this research are: a) to observe and discuss the elements that stand out during the learners’ interactions; and b) to investigate the students’ perceptions of this experience. The study shows that, more than following a method, adopting an approach that focuses on interactions as a means of promoting both linguistic improvement and questioning of naturalized assumptions is an effective way to learn and teach a foreign/second language. Furthermore, the practices discussed are in accordance with the ideas expressed by Kumaravadivelu (1994, 2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2005, 2006, 2012), for whom the postmethod perspective, connected with critical perspectives, seeks to equip student teachers with knowledge, attitudes and autonomy necessary to adopt a reflective posture towards their practices.

Critical Self-Reflection as Disruption: A Black Feminist Self-Study

As the PK-12 student population grows more diverse, the teaching population steadfastly continues to be white middle-class women (NCES, 2016). Critical teacher educators understand the importance of preparing pre-service teachers to become culturally responsive and sustaining (CR/S) practitioners by engaging in culturally relevant education (CRE). Critical teacher educators, particularly those of color from historically marginalized groups, can be important advocates in the struggle to strengthen the teaching candidate pool of CR/S practitioners. Building a cadre of teachers, who are poised to decolonize minds and spaces, sustains the work of many teacher educators of color. However, the acts of teaching and learning in most institutions of education are inundated with oppressive norms such as white privilege, xenophobia and anti-blackness. It is this reality in which I, a Black female junior teacher educator, attempt to disrupt normative teaching practices within a special education course. This self-study examined insight derived from a focus group as well as from my self-reflections conducted over the course of two semesters (Spring 2018 to Fall 2018). Using a qualitative methodological approach, the findings indicated tensions between my vulnerable position of being a junior faculty member and my desire to dismantle normative deficit practices through critical self-reflection.
 

Classroom discourse analysis as a tool for exploring ethical tensions in a critical teaching

ABSTRACT This article presents classroom discourse analysis as a tool for critical teacher education. It argues that such analysis can raise awareness of how teachers live out their ethical commitments in classroom–level interactions, but needs to be carefully situated. Drawing on the author’s research conducted while teaching junior secondary students in Hong Kong, the article weaves classroom discourse analysis into a critical incident reflection focusing on ethical tensions that emerge from a class activity exploring dehumanisation. The activity used a pedagogy of discomfort in order to unsettle students’ beliefs and practices, but in facilitating the activity, the teacher’s ethic of care was also challenged.