Justice-Informed Teacher Education Beyond Neoliberalism and Patriarchy: Early Career Teacher Educators Theorize Teacher Educator Preparation

• In Event: Who Is Teaching Our Teachers? Teacher Educators' Identity, Positionality, and Responsibility

Abstract

Early career teacher education researchers are key stakeholders in teacher education and research. Often responsible for teaching the lion’s share of teacher education coursework and supervision, we operate as adjuncts, doctoral students, and field supervisors, typically working side jobs to supplement teacher education’s anemic funding. Our work, given the volume of students and courses we teach, might position us as qualified to speak to theory and practice of teacher educator preparation; instead, our knowledge, theorized from our perspective, is largely neglected. In this paper, the four authors engage in Arts-based research to disrupt this troubling narrative in the field and highlight specific challenges to teaching for justice and social change given the neoliberal climate in which we prepare PK-12 teachers.

Authors

• Melissa Mitchem, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Gail Buffalo, City College of New York

• Aura Yarenis Perez, California State University - Channel Islands

• Elizabeth Rollins, Teachers College, Columbia University