From Border-Crossing to Critical Consciousness: A Continuum of Culturally Responsive Dispositions in Preservice Teachers

• In Event: Creative Visions of Anti-Oppressive Classroom Strategies

Abstract

In this practitioner inquiry, we examine the extent to which participants in a state-mandated sheltered English instruction (SEI) course demonstrate dispositions associated with culturally responsive pedagogy. As such, we ask: In what ways do preservice teachers apply critical understandings of social inequalities to their analyses of multicultural border-crossing experiences and pedagogy? For this preliminary analysis, we examine the work of four exemplary students in the course and ask: What is the potential of the course to cultivate and/or reveal pluralist and critical dispositions in teacher candidates? The focal students demonstrate a variety of dispositions which we argue can be understood as a continuum encompassing different understandings of and approaches to culturally responsive education, from “border-crossing” to critical consciousness.

Authors

• Laura Schall-Leckrone, Lesley University

• Meg Burns, Lesley University