Meaningful Intersections of Social Justice and Contemporary Cultural Competencies in a New Zealand Master’s level Initial Teacher Education Programme (original) (raw)
Related papers
FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education
In Aotearoa New Zealand, as in many pluralistic democracies, the continuing disparity in educational outcomes has resulted in a growing call for changes in teacher preparation to better support culturally diverse learners in ways that are responsive to the particular national and cultural contexts. This paper presents findings from a teacher education program specifically designed to address this need within the national context of ‘biculturalism’, a treaty-based socio-political partnership between M?ori and P?k?h? (non-M?ori). Grounded in socio-cultural theory, this practitioner-inquiry examined how the iterative use of a specific ‘cultural tool’, a synthesizing framework of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy, within the program supported 16 secondary teacher candidates to develop their professional identity as teachers. Findings indicate that all of the candidates came to view diversity as a strength, and developed key culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogical pr...
ProQuest, 2021
This critical qualitative study examines the experiences of undergraduate education students using narrative inquiry and biographical narrative analysis to understand more about being and becoming a social justice educator. Research questions include: how do prospective educators form a social justice disposition and how do they experience cognitive and affective disequilibrium along the way? Attempting to answer these questions builds upon the sprawling literature of social justice education (SJE) by providing some experiential insight into the complexity of its transformational intent. This study is conducted in light of what has been called a 'demographic imperative' for SJE practices and programming as well as a concern with institutional reproduction of domination. The author provides a conceptual and theoretical model of SJE which forwards the argument that knowledge relative to critical social theory (CST) can constitute an ethico-onto-epistemology necessary for social justice praxis in education, and that the pursuit of such a disposition inherently involves the experience of disequilibrium. In substantiating such an understanding, it is hoped that the investigative findings provide teacher educators with a deeper view of the dynamics of dispositional change and identity formation and offer some opportunity for reflection and pedagogical refinement. Additionally, it is hoped that this study contributes to ideologically driven debates over teacher preparation and the purpose of schooling. Finally, this study hopes to help facilitate the development of teacher education programs with explicit social justice outcomes.
Re)Examining identities: Working with diversity in the pre-service teaching experience
Teaching and Teacher Education, 2005
Australia, like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), continues to experience a mismatch between the cultural backgrounds and socio-economic class of teachers and those of the students they work with. This article reports on a study that explored how a group of Australian teacher-education students understand their own ethnic and socio-economic class identities and how they work with students of ethnic and class backgrounds different from their own. Analysis of data from interviews and focus groups with the student-teachers is presented to highlight how they make sense of difference and how they take up the challenges of teaching for diversity. The paper raises issues and concerns regarding how diversity and difference might be addressed in teacher education.
Providing a very different perspective on social justice, this narrative explores and discusses the inherent social justice tensions of being a Māori educator (indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand) within a mainstream non- indigenous higher education institution in New Zealand. Here the social justice tension is not so much about how to help others but how to correlate widely accepted professional standards and practices with competing personal cultural sensitivities and insights. Specifically, this article describes four of my inner tensions as associated with issues around the Treaty of Waitangi, the principle of cultural diversity, the moral purpose of New Zealand education, and the inherent cultural dilemmas within leadership as a Māori educator. A key outcome of this discussion is the perception of tokenism and resistance in the bicultural preparation of our future New Zealand primary school teachers. Hence, this article seeks to provide my Māori worldview perspective for achieving a more socially just New Zealand society by better preparing our future teachers to meet this challenge.
Beginning teachers’ narratives, coping with social justice
European Journal of Teacher Education, 2019
As global migration increases, teachers increasingly need to cope with the difficulties of immigrant students. Using the narratives of beginning teachers, we focus on two main questions: What process do beginning teachers undergo in coping with injustices committed against their students? And how do they act in cases of social injustice that arise in their work? The narrative inquiry on which this article is based helps to gain a better understanding of beginning teachers' social justice experiences and perceptions. Findings point to a process of critical reflection on exclusion and inclusion which prompts action for social justice on two levels: individual and school system. The article sheds light on the contribution of beginning teachers' narratives to understanding the notion of social justice, and its significant implications for teacher education.
2013
ABSTRACT: This article explores how I have used autoethnography to investigate and exemplify my work as a Pākehā (read European) teacher educator working with undergraduate physical education students in the context of the indigenous Māori culture in Aotearoa New Zealand. To show my world and understanding of it I bring the reader into contact with familiar or unfamiliar events via excerpts from ‘snapshot’ stories, written using writing as a method of inquiry – ‘snapshots’ because each story captures a few images and informs from the standpoint of a close-up photograph. Moving back and forth from the character of researcher to the character of participant, my intent is to disclose how my participation in course work activities I have designed for an undergraduate physical education degree, have challenged my cultural identity and ways of knowing. While some might take issue with the topics or dismiss them as subjective, my research shows how autoethnographic dialogue, with and through the author, can highlight cultural, educational and sociological agendas that may have remained hidden from view.
Journal of Teacher Education, 2018
This review examines the past 25 years of empirical research on social justice in teacher education, focusing on the question of how researchers in the field, who demonstrate a long-standing aspirational commitment to preparing new teachers for diversity and equity, address students’ and teacher candidates’ multiple social markers of identity, and in particular the complexity of their identities. Using the framework of intersectionality, we illustrate how teacher education researchers position student and teacher candidate identities and their complexity. Findings indicate that identity is typically addressed in a unidimensional manner, with little acknowledgment of students’ or teacher candidates’ complex, multiple, and intersecting identities. We conclude our analysis by exploring the potential of intersectionality as a framework for identity considerations when preparing equity-minded new teachers who are committed to social justice.
Improving teacher quality has become the hallmark of Australian education reform with a plethora of measures introduced in teacher education to improve future teachers’ instructional competencies. This policy focus has also changed the discussion of strategies for addressing disadvantages in schools; improving teacher quality, as opposed to addressing structural inequalities in the system and larger society, has become the “solution.” This paper looks at the National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools (NETDS), which aims to channel high performing teacher education students to disadvantaged schools. Using the taxonomy of conservative, liberal and critical approaches to education reform, the paper first identifies the ideological contradictions inherent in the program, and then discusses, drawing on post-qualitative research literature, how the program coordinators negotiated the tensions and the moral/ethical dilemmas as we designed and implemented the program for a group of external students at University of New England.
IDENTITY AND INTERSECTIONALITY: THE CRITICAL AUTOETHNOGRAPHY OF A " TRANSPLANT " TEACHER IN HAWAI'I
Teacher identity has emerged as a topic amongst contemporary researchers to inform, impact, and reform professional practice in light of the unique challenges presented within education in the United States. A homogeneous teaching population, which remains overwhelmingly White and middle class, must address a demographic and cultural divide amongst students, teachers, families, as well as in curriculum and instruction. Bartolome (2004, 2008) argues that teachers must have an understanding of how their ideological orientation shapes their views of students and influences their teaching. Through this praxis, I critically explored the historically constituted subjectivities, cultural meanings, social dynamics, and discourses that shaped my teaching identity as a haole (White) transplant (cultural outsider) teacher who moved to Hawai‘i. I used autoethnographic methodology as a form of narrative writing to invite readers into my cultural experiences. This opened up a space to explore the impact of the social, cultural, historical, and political forces in Hawai‘i on my personal, professional, and situational dimensions, which constituted my teacher identity. The results indicated that I am affected by the multiple identities that I have employed to navigate educational and personal spaces. The findings revealed six major themes: (i) understanding the complexities of identity are a prerequisite for critical consciousness; (ii) being a critically conscious teacher is a habit of mind, whereas being a culturally responsive teacher is the action resulting from that mindset; (iii) lived experience plays a role in enabling an understanding of one’s cultural position; (iv) critical consciousness is an iterative, ongoing process; (v) teaching for social justice needs to be approached both theoretically and practically; and (vi) autoethnography is a relevant tool to excavate one’s identity and can reframe educators’ thinking and subsequent actions in the classroom. The study provides a framework to address the need for theoretical and methodological transparency that is vital for exploring teacher identity.