Thinking with Theory in an Era of Trump (Intro to Special Issue on Thinking With Theory in Teacher Education) (original) (raw)

Abstract

Our introduction to this special issue on “Thinking with Theory in Teacher Education” dedicates considerable space to broadly discussing the current U.S. political context to emphasize why, at this precise moment in history, we—educators, teacher educators, and educational researchers—are in dire need of different ways to understand the world and our connections and interactions with/in it. We argue for the need to use these emergent understandings to become and live differently—as well as to shape systems of schooling and educate differently. To frame this issue, we first summarize the U.S. federal government's transition to extreme right wing and ultra-conservative political ideologies. We present an argument that " good and common sense " —that is, rational ways of knowing—is woefully inadequate to build the needed justice movement to resist the implications of a far-right nationalist agenda for public education. We emphasize the need to shift from rational humanist ways of thinking to posthuman, materialist theories of difference that can help members of the education community to engage in new modes of thought and action to counter the growing movement of neofascism in some political circles in the U.S. and, ultimately, pursue the interests of equity and social justice. As St. Pierre (2001) points out, " Living and theorizing produce each other; they structure each other. Not only do people produce theories, but theories produce people " (p. 142). In thinking with different theories (as illustrated throughout this volume), we can produce ourselves differently—and in turn, produce different ways of living, of teaching, and of learning to resist the encroaching influence of ultra-conservatism in U.S. public education policy and practice.

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