Context and Identity in the Making of Socially Just First-Year Teachers

• In Event: Antiracist, Equity-Based, and Social Justice Teacher Development

Abstract

Core to the work of teacher education writ large is the construct of “becoming a teacher.” Critical practitioner-scholars continue to recognize the multiple and overlapping systems of oppression and domination that dynamically shape the contours, pedagogies, and substance of teachers' work. Using intersectionality, we analyzed thirty-eight scholarly peer-reviewed articles that focus on social justice teaching in the first year of teaching. Themes emerging include: 1) the complexity of defining social justice teaching; (2) the disconnect between teacher preparation programs and first-year teaching; (3) the challenges and tensions in developing agency; and 4) the importance of support in the development of social justice pedagogies. Finally, we discuss the centrality of focusing on new teachers’ sociocultural lives and contexts as first-year teachers.

Authors

• Jeremy N. Price, Montclair State University

• Mehtap AKAY, Montclair State University