The Long-Term Impact of Critical Narrative Ethnography on Teacher Commitment to Social Justice

• In Event: Sustaining Commitments: Identity and Social Justice in Teacher Education

Abstract

This study explores how critical narrative ethnography (CNE)—a capstone assignment requiring teacher candidates to integrate personal narrative with critical analysis—functions as a pedagogical tool for fostering commitments to social justice during teacher preparation. Anchored in the Justice as Praxis framework, the research examines how candidates articulate evolving understandings of equity, identity, and teaching practice across three semesters. Using document analysis of 20 archived CNEs, findings reveal how this structured narrative process enables candidates to interrogate personal histories, align theoretical concepts with practice, and envision future classrooms grounded in equity. While interviews will be added in a subsequent phase, this paper reports on the document analysis, offering implications for designing teacher education curricula that sustain justice-oriented commitments.

Author

• Megan Corinne Samaniego, Claremont Graduate University