"Our City as a Resource": Decolonizing Urban Teacher Education

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: Division B Section 5 Place and Praxis Posters

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the funds of knowledge that individuals who have gone through urban public school systems themselves bring to a place-conscious urban teacher education program. We draw upon critical pedagogy of place to argue that urban teacher education must decolonize dominant, deficit-based notions of cities, urban education and urban students. Urban teacher education must encourage pre-service teachers to reinhabit urban education, drawing upon the unique funds of knowledge that diverse, urban students bring to school and considering cities as places of pedagogical possibility. Teacher education programs can draw upon urban pre-service teachers’ funds of knowledge to facilitate all teachers’ understanding and use of the unique cultural and contextual resources available in an urban context.

Authors

• Laura Vernikoff, Teachers College, Columbia University

• A. Lin Goodwin, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Colleen Horn, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Sibel Akin, Middle East Technical University