Navigating the In-Between: Preservice Teachers' Narratives of Disruption, Relationship, and Teaching for Justice

• In Event: Teaching for Justice

Abstract

Despite being situated within the neoliberal and ambiguous spaces of teacher education programs and public elementary schools, some preservice teachers enter their clinical classrooms with a dedication to justice and strive to find ways to center justice-oriented pedagogies. The following narrative inquiry study utilizes data from three preservice teachers’ interviews, reflective assignments, observations, and researcher field notes. We seek to fill an important research gap concerning preservice teacher enactments of justice in elementary classrooms. Drawing on frameworks of social justice pedagogy and Critical Whiteness Studies, this study presents two vignettes that focus on preservice teachers’ attempts to navigate the constraints of student teaching while attempting to disrupt perceived oppression and enact justice-oriented pedagogies.

Authors

• Charlene Cornwell, SUNY - College at Cortland
  Presenting Author

• Megan Deutschman, University of Minnesota
  Presenting Author