“We Are All the Same Inside”: Resistance to Critical Pedagogy in Teacher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Making Bias Visible: Deconstructing Discriminatory Thinking and Practice in Education

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was documentation of resistance to critical pedagogy in undergraduate teacher education. The method of discourse analysis was applied to lesson plans on diversity completed as part of a larger project by 53 white female undergraduate students in an eastern state university. Results identified four major themes of resistance including absence of specific reference to bias in terms of power, privilege, and oppression. Also identified were problematic approaches to critical pedagogy such as trite activities and focus on non-controversial physical differences. Significance is found in documentation of problematic resistances to critical pedagogy in the future teachers and the importance of utilizing qualitative local context studies to inform teacher education policy and practice.

Author

• Beatrice S. Fennimore, Indiana University of Pennsylvania