Politics of Hybridity: Lives of Graduates of Social Justice Preservice Program in an Era of Standards

• In Event: 47.053 - Working Toward Social Justice in a Post-Truth World: Innovative Practices in Teacher World

Abstract

In this narrative inquiry, I examined how two recent graduates of a social justice-oriented preservice program interpreted and constructed teaching experiences in their day-to-day contexts shaped by the standards-based education reform. Bhabha’s theory of cultural translation offered the theoretical framework for this study. I used in-depth interviews and document collections for data construction. I analyzed the data through Riessman’s (2008) thematic and dialogic/performance analysis methods. The results indicated that schools were sites of contradictions where competing discourses delineated meanings of education in drastically different ways. The teachers deployed the politics of hybridity to negotiate between what seemed contradictory. I explored implications from this study for teacher education and research.

Author

• Su Jung Um, Ewha Womans University