Learning Difficulty: Preservice Teachers and the Ideological Two-Worlds of Difficult Histories

• In Event: Social Studies and Ethnic Studies

Abstract

In this critical qualitative case study, we examined the challenges faced by preservice teachers in enacting difficult histories in their student teaching placements. We found that the two-worlds pitfall (Feiman-Nemser & Buchmann, 1985) created tensions wherein the participants felt pinched between the university’s pro-difficult history demands and the schools’ legislative reality, which preferred a sanitized, “objective” history. While the preservice teachers were ideologically aligned with the university, they felt unable to enact difficult histories at their sites due to the emphasis placed on standards and because they did not feel prepared to enact methods for teaching difficult histories.

Authors

• Mathew Baker, Georgia Southern University

• William Hanjin Bae, University of Texas at Austin

• Michael Joseph, Texas Tech University