Incorporating Social Justice Into Science Teacher Education Courses

In this chapter, the authors cover the importance and challenges of incorporating teaching for social justice in science teacher education courses. The chapter starts by providing an overview of the literature on social justice, specifically in science education, and define the terms social justice, equity, and diversity. Then, the authors, who are teacher educators from under-represented groups, share their own experiences about what led them to do social justice work. In addition, the authors present examples from their courses with their preservice teachers and instructional strategies they used. The chapter concludes with recommendations of ways in which we might consider implementing social justice practices in teacher preparation courses.

Towards Social Justice Through Arts and Language-Based Learning

The Teacher Education Collaborative in Language Diversity and Arts Integration (TECLA) initiative prepares elementary teachers at a Southwest majority-minority university. TECLA emerged from a social justice commitment to prepare teachers to work in linguistically and culturally diverse schools. The program integrates interdisciplinary arts-based approaches and culturally sustaining language acquisition strategies throughout the teacher education experience. TECLA conceptualizes social justice through a sociohistorical lens. Social justice is experienced when all people have equitable access to meaningful opportunities to participate in and (re)shape the social structures in which they live and work. TECLA relies on an expanded definition of social justice that includes building on students' home cultures, languages, and experiences to design rigorous educational experiences.

Social Justice Education With and for Pre-Service Teachers in the Borderlands

Diversity in contemporary classrooms (across class, race, gender, and other social identity groups) is here to stay. Social justice education is a viable alternative to reach out to all participants with equity towards construction of democracy. In this chapter, the authors share about their co-teaching experience in a required Multicultural Education course for pre-service teachers where a social justice framework guided their work. They expand on the course objectives and their social justice aims. They describe how their praxis was conducive to building community in the classroom and being with each other. They expose and explore, however, a misalignment between theory and praxis surrounding social justice education when preservice teachers transition from teacher preparation programs to their own classrooms as practicing teachers. They describe through the concrete experience of one of the authors how practicing teachers are faced with different particular variables that may hinder the full realization of a social justice approach to education.

Teaching Diversity in the Utah Bubble

This chapter focuses on one teacher educator's experience teaching an undergraduate Social Foundations of Education course in Utah. The author chronicles life experiences that led her to be a social justice educator and how she structures her course to fit her definition of social justice education. She defines the ‘Utah Bubble' phenomenon seen within the state and the effect it has on pre-service teachers' knowledge of diversity and privilege. A discussion about the course curriculum showcases the way aspects of social justice education have been carefully constructed to examine identity, socialization, and privilege. Attention is paid to new understandings students created during the semester-long course and forms of resistance students exhibited during a study conducted by the author.

Using Critical Self-Study to Build Racial Literacy Pedagogy

This chapter describes a critical self-study conducted by teacher educators as they taught and learned with their students about race and its impact on education. Responding to calls for more research on social justice-focused pedagogy, the chapter seeks to help teacher educators consider how to build racial literacy in their teacher candidates. Despite the enduring significance of race and the disparities that exist between the experiences of white students and those of racially minoritized students, teacher candidates are often under-prepared for understanding the impact of race and racism or for knowing how to address it in their future classrooms. The responsibility for building skills and understanding related to race and education falls squarely on the shoulders of teacher educators, and this self-study shows one model for centering that work.

Bridging Social Justice-Oriented Theories to Practice in Teacher Education Utilizing Ethical Reasoning in Action and Case-Based Teaching

Teachers rarely have preparation to analyze and disrupt the social (in)justice ethical dilemmas that arise in their classrooms. Scans of newspaper headlines reveal teachers making unethical decisions. Yet, teacher education programs rarely include opportunities for students to systematical analyze social justice-oriented cases that illuminate the inequities rooted in our sociocultural context of teaching and learning. This chapter overviews the process for social justice-oriented case-based teaching with an ethical reasoning framework to bridge the theory-to-practice gap in social justice teacher preparation.

Social Justice Experiential Education in Rural Fiji

This chapter examines how an experiential education (EE) program in rural Fiji provided rich experiences for social justice teaching and learning in the context of a teacher preparation program. This chapter discusses the instructor's lived experiences, positionality, and commitment to social justice work that propel a desire to create classrooms that are sites of transformation. The primary aspects of social justice teaching and learning discussed include the creation of spaces for critical consciousness to emerge and an embracement of pedagogies of love in the context of the EE program. This chapter concludes with the instructor's continued commitment embodying a social justice agenda in classroom spaces and beyond through a lifetime commitment to this work through hopeful, patiently impatient praxis.

Utilizing Feminist Pedagogy to Foster Preservice Teachers' Critical Consciousness

This chapter describes a longitudinal case study investigating the use of feminist pedagogy to foster preservice teachers' critical consciousness in a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program. Courses in the program were revised to intentionally employ the feminist pedagogical elements of personal experience, power awareness, community-building, identity awareness, and intentional reflection. Coursework, focus groups, and interviews from three cohorts of teacher candidates were analyzed for dimensions of critical consciousness according to Freirean principles. Across cohorts, students demonstrated a deep awareness of racialized systems of power that affect educational processes. Most students were able to decode educational rhetoric and challenge the assumptions and biases embedded within. While all students expressed a deep commitment to inclusive teaching and could articulate multicultural teaching methods, most admitted to not yet having the depth of knowledge necessary and/or the emotional fortitude to combat systems of inequity beyond their classrooms.

From A to Zinn

Scholars have presented a number of challenges to elementary pre-service teachers gaining content mastery specifically in social studies methods courses. One of those challenges relates to the selection of what social studies content should be mastered by pre-service teachers. Scholars encouraged elementary social studies teacher educators to engage their students in new, challenging, critical, and complex topics, rather than redundant, simple, and general content the students already agree with. In response, this endeavor presents an instructional framework rooted in social justice teaching designed to inspire elementary pre-service teachers with the necessity of teaching social studies for social justice and the content knowledge and skills to do so. The chapter author shares how she supported students in conducting macro-to-micro content analyses of critical and challenging sociological issues of race, economic status, and gender in the development of the United States while sharing the methods for teaching elementary social studies that represented diverse ideas and perspectives.

Literacy Teacher Preparation for Educational Justice Through Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies

In this chapter, the authors describe their positions as social justice educators and provide concrete examples for engaging educators in reflection, discussion, and praxis in a required course for preservice teachers in literacy. They describe concrete steps they have taken to incorporate and model a culturally rich pedagogical practice. They both believe that a course that requires reading, writing, and thinking provides a rich backdrop for engaging with preservice teachers about cultural and linguistic diversity and for moving into spaces of working towards equity and justice in society by engaging in action. Given that they each require students to apply what they are learning in the creation of learning centers and final projects, the authors believe their models of practice and praxis along with conversations about the necessity of a social justice stance will manifest in quality work as students design reading and writing assignments of their own.