Jeannette Alarcon - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Articles by Jeannette Alarcon
This paper explores enactments of critical pedagogy within an elementary social studies methods c... more This paper explores enactments of critical pedagogy within an elementary social studies methods course. Critical scholars urge teacher educators to commit to practices that promote equity and social justice for an ever-diversifying student population (see Cochran-Smith, 2004; Nieto, 2000). In a move to disrupt entrenched deficit attitudes, I propose we look beyond what we ask teacher candidates to do and instead engage in critical reflection and dialogues together with our students that push toward nuanced understanding of their future students. This project details the ways that changing the course procedures, struc-tured activities, and policies provided the opportunity for the students to experience the vibe and feel of an elementary pedagogy that strives for community building focused on learning and societal improvement. I enlist action research to explore a shift in my practices to more explicitly align with the critical pedagogical practices I encourage teacher candidates to enact in their future classrooms.
This article details the "journey box" project process enacted by two elementary preservice teach... more This article details the "journey box" project process enacted by two elementary preservice teacher cohorts. Engaging in activities and projects that promote a sense of investment in not only consuming but producing historical narratives, preservice teachers potentially become interested in sharing this type of learning with their students.
Papers by Jeannette Alarcon
The High School Journal, 2014
This study aims to understand ways in which Hungarian high school students describe and articulat... more This study aims to understand ways in which Hungarian high school students describe and articulate their civic identity, as members of varied civic communities. We conducted our study in Romania, an emerging democracy with an Hungarian national minority, as it provides a unique opportunity to examine the development of a democratic civic identity in increasingly transnational spaces. We situated our site school as a figured world where students and teachers constructed a place to cultivate and preserve Hungarian identity within an interdependent world. Findings suggest that the figured world of the school provided a space for students in which their Hungarian heritage is preserved and cultivated through language and tradition. Further, students expressed a sense of agency when describing their educational and professional opportunities, allowing them to envision a future built on their own terms. The implications for civic education in Romania, other emerging democracies, as well as the United States and other diverse nations, speak mainly to the notions of hybridity of ethnicity and heritage as youth begin to explore these identities in their own individual terms as well as in the official spaces of schooling.
This paper explores enactments of critical pedagogy within an elementary social studies methods c... more This paper explores enactments of critical pedagogy within an elementary social studies methods course. Critical scholars urge teacher educators to commit to practices that promote equity and social justice for an ever-diversifying student population (see Cochran-Smith, 2004; Nieto, 2000). In a move to disrupt entrenched deficit attitudes, I propose we look beyond what we ask teacher candidates to do and instead engage in critical reflection and dialogues together with our students that push toward nuanced understanding of their future students. This project details the ways that changing the course procedures, struc-tured activities, and policies provided the opportunity for the students to experience the vibe and feel of an elementary pedagogy that strives for community building focused on learning and societal improvement. I enlist action research to explore a shift in my practices to more explicitly align with the critical pedagogical practices I encourage teacher candidates to enact in their future classrooms.
This article details the "journey box" project process enacted by two elementary preservice teach... more This article details the "journey box" project process enacted by two elementary preservice teacher cohorts. Engaging in activities and projects that promote a sense of investment in not only consuming but producing historical narratives, preservice teachers potentially become interested in sharing this type of learning with their students.
The High School Journal, 2014
This study aims to understand ways in which Hungarian high school students describe and articulat... more This study aims to understand ways in which Hungarian high school students describe and articulate their civic identity, as members of varied civic communities. We conducted our study in Romania, an emerging democracy with an Hungarian national minority, as it provides a unique opportunity to examine the development of a democratic civic identity in increasingly transnational spaces. We situated our site school as a figured world where students and teachers constructed a place to cultivate and preserve Hungarian identity within an interdependent world. Findings suggest that the figured world of the school provided a space for students in which their Hungarian heritage is preserved and cultivated through language and tradition. Further, students expressed a sense of agency when describing their educational and professional opportunities, allowing them to envision a future built on their own terms. The implications for civic education in Romania, other emerging democracies, as well as the United States and other diverse nations, speak mainly to the notions of hybridity of ethnicity and heritage as youth begin to explore these identities in their own individual terms as well as in the official spaces of schooling.