(Re)constituting Teacher Identity for Inclusion in Urban Schools: A Process of Reification and Resistance

• In Event: 16.061 - Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: 16.061-20 - Multiple Spaces of Activism for Educators and Their Students

Abstract

Critical approaches to inclusive teacher education strive to prepare special educators who can challenge structural inequities in educational settings. However, scant attention has been paid to the process through which graduates of these programs (re)constitute their teacher identity as they work in schools that promote dominant ideologies that pathologize and marginalize difference. The purpose of this study was to understand the social processes through which four urban special educators and graduates of a critical inclusive teacher preparation program (re)negotiate their teacher identity within the power dynamics of their communities of practice. In doing so, I identified ways in which these teachers reify dominant ideologies but also how they demonstrate resistance by drawing on their teacher preparation experience and personal histories.

Author

• Molly Elizabeth Siuty, Portland State Univeristy