Making a RUCCAS: Community Change-Based Social Justice Teacher Education

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

Abstract

This qualitative case study of the Rustin Urban Community Change AxiS (RUCCAS) paints a robust portrait of a university urban community change minor program’s efforts to re-imagine teacher education in the spirit of Bayard Rustin’s notions of “troublemaking” activism and intersectional social justice. The paper highlights the pedagogical interventions that impacted five RUCCAS students’ knowledge, practices, and behaviors about teaching for social justice, as well as the institutional and cultural obstacles that impede Black males in the program from entering the teaching profession. Study findings are salient to the 2019 Annual Meeting’s theme as they provide evidence of the potential for community change-based teacher education to create a pipeline of “qualified” social justice teachers.

Authors

• H. Bernard Hall, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

• Hannah Ashley, West Chester University of Pennsylvania