"We Are Students Who Value Teacher Research!" Youth Participatory Action Research in Teacher Education

• In Event: Crown Plaza Roundtable Session 15

Abstract

In this proposal, a teacher educator uses a youth participatory action research (YPAR) framework, to engage 23 preservice teachers in a semester long inquiry into their own teacher education curriculum guided by co-created inquiry questions. 1. How do hegemonic structures influence teacher preparation curriculum? 2. How does the teacher preparation curriculum shape students’ social justice perspectives? Engaging in YPAR highlighted for preservice teachers the importance of identifying and questioning standardized systems, in particular the system in their own context as certification seeking students. Through their own praxis and the imagining of their future students, the preservice teachers’ examination of teacher preparation curriculum led to a stance of resistance to neoliberal framing of education.

Author

• Lauren E Arend, University of Missouri - Columbia