Engaging With Critical Pedagogies While Navigating Student Teaching Placements

• In Event: Cultivating Critical Consciousness in Teacher Education

Abstract

This study examines how pre-service English teachers who are committed to utilizing critical pedagogies work within the space they’re offered within their mentor teachers’ classrooms. Utilizing an ethnographic approach, I follow pre-service teachers as they enter their mentor teachers’ classrooms, tracking how their critical goals compare with how they work within their student teaching placement, paying particular attention to how they navigate the structures they’re provided. I argue that pre-service teachers’ ability to practice critical pedagogies in their placement when they contrast pedagogically and ideologically with their mentor teachers depends on their ability to communicate clearly with their mentor teacher despite differences and their ability to creatively make space for criticality despite setbacks.

Author

• Meghan Dougherty Kuehnle, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author