Cultural Consciousness in Social Justice Teaching: Rethinking Action Research Curriculum in Preservice Teacher Education

• In Event: Preparing Social Justice Teachers: Rethinking Action Research Curriculum for Transformation

Abstract

This paper critically analyzes two decades of empirical literature in action research, with a view to understanding how scholars attend to the curriculum of action research within the context of pre-service teacher education programs. Using a framework of social justice and culturally responsive pedagogies, the paper argued that the dominance of “ideologically-neutral” versions of action research practices may unintentionally reproduce prevailing relations of knowledge of power, thereby leaving educational inequalities unchallenged. Drawing from the extensive literature review, the paper offers a curriculum proposal for action research that builds on frameworks of culturally responsive teaching and principles of social justice.

Integral to the action research process, and less evident in published accounts of action research, are the goals of social justice and equity and efforts to problematize and transform existing teaching and schooling practices (Anderson, Herr, & Nihlen, 2007; Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; 2009; Noffke & Stevenson, 1995; Zeichner & Gore, 1995). As Villegas and Lucas (2002) argue, a common vision for a multicultural society needs to be central in the learning experiences of prospective teachers in order for them to forge connections between theory and practice. Forefronting these goals in the work of teaching and action research generates possibilities for teachers and students to become active change agents in an era of heightened technical rationality and neo-liberal paradigms of education and schooling.

The questions that frame the review: (1) What counts as action research in pre-service teacher education? (2) What counts as curriculum in actions research; (3) What is the impact of action research on the burgeoning practice of novice teachers? (4) What conditions and in what contexts is action research effective? To answer these questions, I explore published literature between 1985-2010. An extensive ERIC search of empirical research was conducted using the key words ‘action research’ ‘teacher research’ ‘practitioner research’ and ‘educative research’ with ‘teacher preparation.' This search has yielded over 150 journal articles.

From my initial review the literature in action research, there is the abundance of scholarship that focus on either the written products of teachers' inquiries (for example, Beyer, 1996; Bissex & Bullock, 1987; Goswami & Stillman, 1987), or the data collection strategies, techniques, and procedures of action research (for example, Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995; Hopkins, 1985). Few studies have entered the realm of the curriculum of action research.

Using frameworks of social justice and culturally responsive teaching as lenses to analyze and understand dominating paradigms of action research, the paper offers new understandings of the possibilities and limitations of action research in pre-service teacher education. Hence, the analysis provides new ways of thinking about core experiences and practices in action research. The curriculum proposa focuses on the development of socio-cultural consciousness and teaching practices in the learning of pre-service teachers. Such lenses and visions offer ways to understand and re-think teaching, students, curriculum, and context. Translating these visions into the daily work of teachers offers possibilities for teachers and their students to become active agents in their educational lives and beyond.

Author

• Jeremy N. Price, Montclair State University