The Facilitation of Critical Consciousness Among Preservice Teachers

• In Event: 29.044 - Constructing Equitable Education That Is Critical and Culturally Relevant

Abstract

The comprehensive goals of critical pedagogy, namely facilitating critical consciousness, are clearly and frequently stated in the academic and educational research. However, research illustrating the levels of critical consciousness, attained by preservice teachers as a result of their course based, critical learning experiences, is limited. Using a critical theoretical framework and Charmaz' (2011) constructivist grounded theory for data collection and theory building, this research explored the levels of critical consciousness developed by preservice teachers. All of the 37 preservice teacher participants were taught by one or more self-identified critical pedagogues, while enrolled at a Faculty of Education. Overall, the lack of critical learning experiences shared by this group of preservice teachers suggest that most professors espoused theories of critical pedagogy.

Author

• Barb Anne Pollard, University of Windsor