Appropriating the Discourse of Social Justice in Teacher Education

by Marta P. Baltodano

Overview

In recent years there have been strong movements of reforms in teacher education. The most common are intended to adjust teacher preparation to the standardization demands of NCLB, Race to the Top, and CAEP to make teacher education more accountable. These reforms—carried out in the name of excellence, accountability, diversity, and inclusion—constitute subliminal efforts to appropriate the possibilities for real transformation in teacher education. However, in spite of the pervasive rhetoric to identify diversity and social justice with the accountability and standardization movement, there are endeavors to create transformations in teacher preparation that are authentic. These deliberate changes seek to counteract the neoliberal vision of school reform and strive to reclaim the original goals of public education represented in a vision of rigorous content knowledge, democratic schooling, and social justice. Appropriating the Discourse of Social Justice in Teacher Education is a testimony to that kind of authentic reform. It documents the transformational efforts of a teacher education program that infused the preparation of its teachers with a vision of education as a public good. This book validates the claim that the process of reproduction of social inequalities in teacher education is not a perfect, static process, but on the contrary, the real “seeds of transformation” within teacher education departments are abundant.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607097457
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/05/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	122
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Marta P. Baltodano is a professor in the Department of Specialized Programs in Urban Education at Loyola Marymount University. Her research focuses on the corporatization of schools of education, teachers’ beliefs on social justice, and interracial conflicts in Los Angeles. Her teaching includes issues of critical educational theory, political economy, globalization, social justice, and qualitative research.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Foreword by Shirley R. Steinberg
Introduction by Marta P. Baltodano
Chapter 1. Conducting Ethnography in Teacher Education
An Emic Viewpoint and my Insider Role
Critical Ethnography
Book Organization and Format
Chapter 2. Critical Educational Theory
The New Sociology of Education
Critical Pedagogy
Theory of Hegemony and Social Reproduction: Hegemony, Ideology and the Economy
Theory of Resistance and Social Transformation
Transformative Practices
Conscientizaçao
Chapter 3. The Ideological Predicament of Teacher Education
The Ideological State Apparatus
Unmasking the Conservative Nature of Teacher Education
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals
Other Attempts to Transform Teacher Education
Chapter 4. The Teacher Education Program at Laurel Canyon University
Section I. The Town, the University
Section II. Kristine and the Old-White Boys Club
Section III. Samantha, the Assistant Professor
Section IV. Teresa, the Diversity Faculty
Section V. Vincent, the Teacher Education Faculty
Chapter V. The Journey to Transform Teacher Education: Samantha’s Return
Section I. Initiating the Transformation
Section II. Patrick, the Math Faculty
Section III. The Philosophy of the Teacher Education Program
Section IV. The Curriculum and the Method Courses at Laurel Canyon Teacher Preparation
Section V. Teaching Practices
Section VI. Teachers as Reflective Researchers
Chapter VI. What Went Wrong? The Accountability Movement Arrived at the College of Education
Section I. The Two Assistant Directors: The Politics of Race
Section II. The Realignment of the Conservative Forces to Take Control of Teacher Education
Section III. Preparing Administrators and Teachers to Work in an Era of Accountability
Section IV. Breaking Down Samantha’s Support System. The Dismantling of Cabrillo Elementary School
Section V. The Disintegration of the Teacher Education Program
Section VI. The Repacking of Teacher Preparation into a New Neoliberal Format
Chapter VII. Analyzing the Efforts to Transform the Teacher Education Culture
What Could Samantha Have Done Differently?
Lessons from Teresa’s Departure
The Successes and Contradictions of the Changes at LCU’s Teacher Preparation Program
Reflections on the Appropriation of Multiculturalism and Social Justice in Teacher Education
Can the Culture of Teacher Education be Transformed?
Chapter VIII. Reflections and Implications of this Study for Teacher Education The Misappropriation of Diversity and Social Justice
Immediate Radical Tactics, Short Term Radical Approaches, and Long Term Strategies
Recommendations for Faculty
Recommendations to Reexamine the Culture of Teacher Preparation
Banking Education and the Production of Docile Citizens
Curriculum and the Integration of Subjugated Knowledges
Schools as Mirrors of the Larger Society
References

Editorial Reviews

Marta Baltodano’s book, Appropriating the Discourse of Social Justice in Teacher Education, is a brave and provocative exposé and cautionary tale for teacher education programs that seek to embody the principles of critical pedagogy as a path to social justice. Baltodano traces the arc of a program as it moved from a superficial embrace of “diversity” to a much more profound integration of critical pedagogy, and finally to the dismantling of the program’s transformational orientation, when college administrators repackaged the program according to principles of neoliberalism with a focus on accountability (standardized testing), using the phrase “social justice” as a marketing tool. While the moral of this story can be read as disempowering and depressing for those committed to changing the conservative nature of teacher education in the US, Baltodano nonetheless delivers a message of hope through her analysis of what went wrong and how the program could have prevailed as a long-term model of transformational teacher education. Her recommendations speak clearly to all teacher educators and program administrators.

Rosemary Henze

In this outstanding ethnographic study, Marta Baltodano exposes the political brigandism and educational outlawry of the political right in their deceptive hijacking of the discourse of social justice. But Baltodano does much more than this. With singular verve and lucid analysis, she offers teachers and administrators both a bold critique of how education reproduces the inequalities of the larger social order and a tactical strategy for fundamental educational transformation. Her critique is tightly argued, convincing, and gripping. And her vision brims with hope and possibility. I highly recommend this book.

Peter McLaren